Idiographic and Nomothetic

Question 1

what is idiographic?

Answer 1

• sees nature of individuals as unique entities with subjective experiences
• qualitative data, case studies and self report measures

Question 2

What is Nomothetic?

Answer 2

• produce general laws of human behaviour
• provide benchmark for people to be classified to predict behaviour
• related to scientific/ experimental approaches

Question 3

An example of idiographic?

Answer 3

• in humanistic, rogers and maslow interested in documenting experiences of individual
• investigate unique experiences rather than general laws
• psychodynamic approach uses individual case studies like little hans

Question 4

an example of nomothetic?

Answer 4

• skinner studied the response of hundreds of rats to develop laws of learning
• cognitives infer structures and processes of human brain from large samples of lab tests