Evaluation: Idiographic & nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation

Question 1

State the 1st evaluation point of Idiographic & nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation

Answer 1

Time consuming

• Based on large amounts of data
• Idiographic - collecting large amount of data for 1 person
• Nomothetic - collecting large amount of data for a number of people
• collecting data from group of people is quicker - once questionnaire devised - data can be processed quickly

therefore idiographic approach is less efficient

Question 2

State the 2nd evaluation point of Idiographic & nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation

Answer 2

Focus on the individual level

• researchers felt that there was too much emphasis on measurement - lost sight of what it was to be human
• a researcher suggested only by knowing the person as an individual - we can predict persons behaviour

suggests focusing on individuals can provide us with more complete understanding

Question 3

State the 3rd evaluation point of Idiographic & nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation

Answer 3

Psychological treatments

• Too time consuming to develop treatments for each individual if idiographic approach used
• researchers argued that nomothetic approach is more efficient in making generalisations and formulate theories

suggests nomothetic approaches are more useful than idiographic