I&D- Idiographic&Nomothetic Approach

Question 1

What does the idiographic approach involve?

Answer 1

The idiographic approach involves the study of individuals and the unique insights each individual provides.

Question 2

Why is the idiographic approach qualitative?

Answer 2

The idiographic approach is qualitative because the focus is on gaining insights into human behaviour by studying unique individuals in depth .

Question 3

What qualitative methods does the idiographic approach employ?

Answer 3

Unstructured interviews, case studies and thematic analysis

Question 4

Which two approaches are seen as idiographic?

Answer 4

• The Psychodynamic Approach

- The Humanistic Approach

Question 5

Why is the psychodynamic approach seen as idiographic?

Answer 5

• Freud used case studies of his patients as a way to understand human behaviour, such as the case study of Little Hans.
• The case consists of almost 150 pages of quotes recorded by Little Hans father and descriptions of events in little Hans life.

Question 6

Why is the humanistic approach seen as idiographic?

Answer 6

• Humanistic psychologists favour the idiographic approach because they’re concerned with studying the whole person and seeing the world from the perspective of that person.

Question 7

What does the nomothetic approach involve?

Answer 7

• The nomothetic approach involves the study of a large representative sample, ideally selected using random sampling, in order to collect a large amount of data and test a hypothesis.
• The approach seeks to formulate general laws of
  behaviour that apply to everyone, this is also the goal of the scientific approach in Psychology.

Question 8

Which research methods does the nomothetic approach favour?

Answer 8

• The nomothetic approach favours quantitative research methods that are based on numbers (measures of dispersion, measures of central tendency, graphs and statistical analysis).

Question 9

Which approaches are seen as nomothetic?

Answer 9

• Biological approach
• Behaviourist approach
• Cognitive approach

Question 10

Why is the biological approach seen as nomothetic?

Answer 10

• The Biological approach seeks to portray the basic principles of how the body and brain work.
• In the past they have made the mistake of only studying men and assuming that their findings can be generalised to women e.g. the fight-or flight response.

Question 11

Why is the behaviourist approach seen as nomothetic?

Answer 11

• The Behaviourist Approach produces general laws of human behaviour.
• Behaviourist research may not have involved thousands of human participants, but they were seeking one set of rules for all human and non-human animals.

Question 12

Why is the cognitive approach seen as nomothetic?

Answer 12

The Cognitive Approach is also nomothetic in its aim to develop general laws of behaviour which apply to all people, such as understanding memory processes.

Question 13

Evaluate the idiographic approach. (STRENGTHS)

Answer 13

1) The great strength of the idiographic approach is that it provides rich and indepth information about single cases, which the nomothetic approach is not able to do.
- Allport (1961) maintained that it is only by knowing a person as an individual that we can predict what they will do in any given situation.

2) Some elements of the idiographic approach, such as case studies and thematic analysis, are scientific and evidence based as well as seeking to be objective.
- Qualitative research methods use reflexivity to identify the influence of any bias.
- Reflexivity refers to the process where the researcher reflects or thinks critically during the research process about the factors that affect the behaviour of both the participants and the researcher.

Question 14

Evaluate the idiographic approach (WEAKNESSES0

Answer 14

1) The main criticism of the idiographic approach is that it is not very scientific, this is the main reason for the growth of positive psychology, because many
considered humanistic psychology to not be sufficiently evidence based and therefore to be essentially meaningless.
- Positive psychology aims to be more evidence based.

2) The idiographic approach is more time consuming and expensive than the nomothetic approach.
- Both approaches collect large amounts of data but the idiographic approach collects a large amount of data from one person and the nomothetic approach collects a small amount of data from a large amount of
people.
- The latter is quicker because once a test or questionnaire has been designed it can be generated and processed quickly.