Idiographic and nomothetic approaches

Question 1

Radford and Kirby

Answer 1

• nomothetic approach has produced three general laws in psychology
  1. classifying people into groups
  2. establishing principles of behaviour that can be applied to people in general
  3. establishing dimensions along which people can be placed, compared, measured

Question 2

Millon and Davis

Answer 2

• suggest research should start with a nomothetic approach
• once general laws have been produced, the focus should switch to an idiographic approach to develop our understanding and theories

Question 3

KF

Answer 3

CASE STUDY NOT RESEARCHER
- motorcycle accident
- his impairment was mainly for verbal information
- his memory for visual information was largely unaffected