Ideographic and Nomothetic

Question 1

Idiographic

Answer 1

• From the greek work idios = own
• Focus on the individual and emphasise the unique experience of human behavioue
• Study indivduals using qualitative data

Question 2

Nomothetic

Answer 2

• From the greek word nomos = law
• Concerned with establishing general laws about behaviour from the study of groups of people using quantitative statistical techniques

Question 3

What does the Idiographic approach use to gather data and what does this provide

Answer 3

• Case studies
• Unstructured interviews
• Thematic analysis
  = Deep insight into individual behaviour
• This does not aim to formulate laws or generalise results to others

Question 4

What to case studies provide (TIA)

Answer 4

• Indepth insight into an individual/small group that can be then used to evaluate a theory
• Undermine whole studies and inspire future enquiry
• E.g., Patient KF (memory): STM of auditory information was greater than his forgetting of visual information suggesting that the STM is not one unitary component
• Challenging the validity of the MSM of memory
• CW = usefulin evidencing the existence of LTM and this demonstrates the usefulness of an idiographic approach

Question 5

Humanistic/Psychodynamic approaches (TIA)

Answer 5

• Freud conducted detailed investigations of his patients to understand their psychological disorders, e.g., Little Hans
• This emphasised the importance of early childhood events and their impact on later behaviour including attachment and offending

Question 6

What does the Nomothetic approach use to gather data

Answer 6

• Large groups of participants
• Statistical analysis through quantitative data
• Experiments
• Correlations
• Meta-analysis

Question 7

Biological psychologists (TNA)

Answer 7

• Adopt scientific methods to identify trends and generate causal laws
• E.g., When explaining OCD, they pinpoint biological factors that tend to be responsible for disorders and use this law to inform treatments such as drug therapies to treat all patients

Question 8

Psychopathology (TNA)

Answer 8

• Classification systems such as DSM and ICD are used to diagnose psychological illness and these are nomothetic classification tools

Question 9

Behaviouist approach (TNA)

Answer 9

• Watson, Pavlov, and Skinner conduct studies using animals to make conclusions that are then generalised to humans and to draw general laws like classical/operant conditioning
• These can then be used in systematic desensitisation and flooding (two process model)

Question 10

Asch and Milgram (TNA)

Answer 10

• Understanding of obedience and conformity
• Role of situational factors in social behaviour and concluded that these influence levels on conformity and obedience in all individuals