Idiographic and Nomothetic approach - AO3 Flashcards
Focus on the individual level (strength of idiographic approach) …
P - Strength of the idiographic approach is it’s focus on the individual.
E - Humanistic psychologists felt there was too much emphasis on measurement and that psychologists had lost sight on what it meant to be human.
E - Allport argued drastic reorientation was needed and that’s what the idiographic approach did. Focusing on the individual, we can predict what they will do in any situation.
L - Suggests that focusing on individuals can provide us with a more complete understanding.
Scientific basis (limitation of the idiographic approach)…
P - Limitation of the idiographic approach are unscientific and don’t try to establish general laws, why many psychologists favour nomothetic methods.
E - However, Allport disagreed with this, he argued psychology should favour idiographic methods. They do allow us to make more accurate predictions.
E - He argued that the predictions of nomothetic methods were usually predictions on how people behave on average. e.g Milgram’s study. So we should look idiographically e.g look at individuals past like in army which would giver us a better chance at predicting behaviour compared to nomothetic methods.
L - If we want to make predictions about individuals we should use idiographic methods.
Time consuming (limitation of an idiographic approach)…
P - Limitation of the idiographic approach is that it is more time consuming.
E - Collecting large amounts of data from a group of people takes time but relatively speaking is quicker because once a questionnaire has been devised, data can be generated and processed quickly.
L - Idiographic approach is less efficient when it comes to data collection.
Combined methods…
P - Holt (1967) argued the idiographic/nomotheic distinction is a false seperation.
E - Argued that idiographic approach is generate general principles. Basically, the idiographic approach ends up being nomothetic.
E - Millon and Davis (1966) suggested research should start with the nomothetic approach and once ‘laws’ have been produced they can focus more on the idiographic understanding.
L - Uniqueness can be explained through nomothetic laws, which suggests that both approaches should be used together.
