idiographic and nomothetic approaches

Question 1

key ideas of idiographic and nomothetic approaches

Answer 1

idiographic research
idiographic examples
nomothetic research
nomothetic examples

Question 2

idiographic research

Answer 2

• tends to be small scale
• focusses on the individual or small groups
• mainly uses qualitative methods e.g. unstructured interviews
• focus is more on detail and non-numerical data
• does not attempt to make broad generalisations
• research tends to be more subjective and interested in people’s individual experiences

Question 3

idiographic examples

Answer 3

• humanistic and psychodynamic approaches
• due to their use of case studies and in-depth interviews and therapy conversations

Question 4

nomothetic research

Answer 4

• aims to create general laws that can be generalised to all human behaviour
• tends to use quantitative data methods e.g. structured questionnaires that follow a scientific method
• seeks to provide numerical data that can be easily analysed
• data tends to be more objective due to it’s standardised methods that can be replicated without bias

Question 5

nomothetic examples

Answer 5

• behaviourist and biological approaches
• laws of conditioning were created from Skinner’s research
• the use of brain scans is a scientific method

Question 6

evaluation of idiographic vs nomothetic approaches

Answer 6

both can be used
scientific
losing the person

Question 7

both can be used : EVALUATION OF IDIOGRAPHIC VS NOMOTHETIC

Answer 7

• idiographic reserch can be used o discover evidence to support general laws
• can lead to new hypothesis
• the use of nomothetic research can be used to investigate further

Question 8

scientific : EVALUATION OF IDIOGRAPHIC VS NOMOTHETIC

Answer 8

• nomothetic approaches have scientific credibility due to their standardised and objective methods
• can also be triangulated with idiographic research to increase validity

Question 9

losing the person : EVALUATION OF IDIOGRAPHIC VS NOMOTHETIC

Answer 9

• nomothetic research i accused of ignoring the ‘whole person’ instead of focussing on general laws
• may not be useful when trying to create individual treatment plans