Idiographic and Nomothetic Approaches Flashcards
what approach does mainstream psychology tend to use?
3
mainstream psychology tends to use a nomothetic approach
but throughout the last century, a number of psychologists have made significant contributions using idiographic techniques
it is difficult to decide what should be the basis of psychology — the generalisations we can make about all people or the unique insights gained from the study of a few individuals
what is the idiographic approach?
4
an approach to psychological research that focuses on the individual case as a means of understanding behaviour, rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour
involves the study of individuals and the unique insights each individual gives us about human behaviour
focuses on individuals and emphasises uniqueness
favours qualitative research methods
idiographic approach: qualitative methods
4
the idiographic approach is qualitative
it focuses on gaining insight into human behaviour by studying unique individuals in depth rather than gaining numerical data for many individuals and determining average characteristics
the focus is on the quality of information rather than the quantity
it is also qualitative because it employs qualitative methods such as unstructured interviews, case studies and thematic analysis
examples of the idiographic approach: FREUD
3
Sigmund Freud used case studies of his patients as a way to understand human behaviour, such as the case of Little Hans
this case study consists of almost 150 pages of verbatim quotes recorded by Hans’ father, descriptions of events in Hans’ life and Freud’s own interpretations of the events
Freud did produce generalisations from his case studies but these are still idiographic as they are drawn from unique individuals
examples of the idiographic approach: HUMANISTIC APPROACH
2
humanistic psychologists favour the idiographic approach as they are concerned with studying the whole person and seeing the world from the perspective of that person
what matters is the person’s subjective experience and not something that someone else might observe of their behaviour
examples of the idiographic approach: ALLPORT
3
Gordon Allport studied a woman named Jenny as a way to support his theory of personality
he believed that this idiographic perspective could tell us more about human behaviour and personality than personality tests could, which only provide statistical information
in fact, he called his approach the “psychology of the individual”
what is the nomothetic approach?
5
seeks to formulate general laws of behaviour based on the study of groups
involves the study of a large number of people and then seeks to make generalisations or develop theories about their behaviour
uses quantitative, statistical research techniques
attempts to summarise the differences between people through generalisations
this is also the goal of the scientific approach
nomothetic approach: quantitative methods
4
the nomothetic approach is quantitative
such quantitative research is based on numbers including measures of central tendency and dispersion, graphs and statistical analysis
calculations like these require data from groups of people rather than individuals
research studies may only involve 20 people but normative research (such as establishing norms for IQ tests) involves thousands of participants
examples of the nomothetic approach: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH
2
the biological approach seeks to portray the basic principles of how the body and brain work
it has sometimes mistakenly just studied man and assumed that the same processes would occur in women e.g. the stress response
examples of the nomothetic approach: BEHAVIOURISM
2
behaviourist psychologists produced generals of behaviour in the form of classical and operant conditioning
their research may not have involved thousands of human participants, which is the more typical nomothetic approach, but they were seeking one set of rules for all animals (both humans and non humans)
examples of the nomothetic approach: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
2
cognitive psychology is a nomothetic approach as it aims to develop general laws of behaviour which apply to all people, such as understanding typical memory processes
the cognitive approach does use case studies such as HM (a man with no short-term memory) but these are required because in order to understand the workings of the normal mind it is often necessary to look at rare, abnormal cases
examples of the nomothetic approach: HANS EYSENCK
6
Hans Eysenck’s (1947) psychometric approach to personality is a nomothetic approach
psychometrics means measuring psychological characteristics such as personality and intelligence
large groups of people are tested and the distribution of their scores informs us about what is normal and abnormal
in the case of personality, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) was used to collect large amounts of data which used factor analysis to produce personality types
these personality types included introverted neurotic, extroverted neurotic, extroverted stable and introverted stable
factor analysis is a statistical technique that reduces data to a smaller set of component variables
x3 evaluation points
the idiographic approach is not scientific
the idiographic approach is time consuming
the approaches should be combined rather than separated into two independent approaches
(the nomothetic approach is scientific and less time consuming, just use the idiographic evaluation points reversed if asked specifically about the nomothetic approach)
EVALUATION
the idiographic approach is not scientific
8
a criticism of the idiographic approach is that it is unscientific
in fact, this is one of the reasons for the recent growth in positive psychology which believes that humanistic psychology is not sufficiently evidence-based and therefore any findings are essentially meaningless
the positive approach aims to be more evidence based
being unscientific means that the idiographic approach cannot produce general predictions about behaviour and if it does, these predictions are limited
HOWEVER, not all idiographic approaches are unscientific, many use an evidence-based approach and also seek to be objective which is another important criterion of science
for example, qualitative approaches use reflexivity to identify the influence of any biases
reflexivity refers to the process where the researcher reflects or thinks critically during the research process about the factors that affect the behaviour of both researchers and participants
furthermore, Allport argued that the idiographic approach does enable predictions because once the researcher has built up extremely detailed observations of a few individuals this can be used to make generalisations and formulate theories
EVALUATION
the idiographic approach is time consuming
4
the idiographic approach is much more time-consuming
both approaches are based on large amounts of data but the idiographic approach involves collecting large amounts of data from one person whereas the nomothetic approach involves collecting data from a large amount of people
collecting a large amount of data from a group of people takes time but relatively speaking it is much quicker than gaining information from one person
this is because once you have devised a questionnaire or psychological test, data can be generated and processed much more quickly
