Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation Flashcards
The Idiographic Approach
The idiographic approach involves the study of individuals and the unique insights each individual gives us about human behaviour.
It argues that generalising from person to person is difficult because of their uniqueness.
As such, it is therefore irrelevant to try to develop universal laws of behaviour.
The idiographic approach favours qualitative methods
of investigation, opting to use methods that allow for opinion and self-reflection, such as self-report measures (unstructured interviews) and qualitative sources like diaries, journals and letters that can be analysed through thematic analysis.
Case studies are also an illustration of an idiographic approach to research – they document the unique perspective of a person, who has in some way illustrated a key behaviour or difference which can be used to help evaluate any theories in the field e.g. Little Hans.
Examples of the Idiographic Approach:
The Psychodynamic Approach - Freud used case studies of his patients as a way to understand human behaviour, such as the case of Little Hans. This case consists of almost 150 pages of verbatim quotes recorded by Hans’ father and descriptions of events in Hans’ life, plus Freud’s own interpretations of the events (Freud, 1909).
Humanistic psychologists (e.g. Rogers, Maslow) also favour the idiographic approach as they are concerned with studying the whole person (holism) 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.
The Nomothetic Approach
The nomothetic approach involves the study of a large number of people, to draw conclusions about populations of people.
It aims to make generalisations to a wider group than the ones directly involved in the research.
It seeks to establish general laws/theories about behaviour that can be applied across any given population.
This is also the goal of the scientific approach.
The nomothetic approach favours quantitative methods
of investigation e.g. experiments, correlational analysis.
Quantitative research is based on numbers – measures of central tendency and dispersion, graphs and statistical analysis.
Such calculations 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, involves thousands of participants.
The Nomothetic Approach examples
The Biological Approach explains behaviour using the basic principles of how the brain and body work. This approach has sometimes mistakenly just studied men and assumed that the same processes occur in women e.g. the fight or flight response.
The Behaviourist Approach produced general laws of behaviour – classical and operant conditioning. Although their research didn’t involve a huge sample of human participants, they were seeking one set of rules for all animals – humans and non-humans.
The Cognitive Approach aims to develop general laws of behaviour which apply to all people, such as understanding typical memory processes. Although the cognitive approach uses case studies (Clive Wearing, H.M.), these are required because, in order to understand the working of the normal mind, it is often necessary to look at rare abnormal cases.
It is proposed that there are three types of general laws.
These are classification, establishing principles and establishing dimensions:
- Classification:
This is the idea that people can be classified into certain groups according to characteristics, attitudes or behaviour.
It is also the foundation on which the diagnostic manuals for mental health are based (e.g. the DSM), which attempt to diagnose people with a mental health disorder by the symptoms they present - this is an attempt at classification (where people are put into groups, rather than being seen as individual cases). - Establishing Principles:
This is the focus on trying to establish laws and principles that can be applied generally to human behaviour.
Behaviourism has this aim - operant and classical conditioning aim to establish laws of behaviour that can be applied to all (e.g. if behaviour is reinforced, it will be repeated).
Case studies can often weaken these theories, however, as a law requires application to all, and therefore one person to whom it does not apply can negate it. - Establishing Dimensions:
This is the attempt to document continuums upon which an individual can be placed.
This allows comparison with others and also facilitates scientific measurement.
Research Methods:
The Nomothetic Approach
Research Methods:
The nomothetic stance means that quantitative methods of data collection and analysis are seen to be appropriate.
It also is the stance taken by natural sciences.
Favoured research methods are those that are more objective, such as measurement of biochemicals.
The preferred choice for psychologists who adopt a more nomothetic stance is the use of laboratory conditions where variables can be carefully controlled.
The approaches are mostly nomothetic as they seek to apply research across large numbers of people. However, the Humanistic Approach celebrates the uniqueness of each person and for that reason is seen to be idiographic.
Research Questions:
The Nomothetic Approach
Research Questions:
The research question asked by a researcher and the methodology used are dependent on their viewpoint on this debate.
Broadly speaking, quantitative methods are seen as nomothetic and qualitative methods are idiographic. This distinction is not clear cut, but while looking at research it is often found to be this way.
A Combined Approach
Holt (1967) argues that the idiographic/nomothetic distinction is a false distinction, because inevitably generalisations are made. He argued that there is no such thing as a unique individual and idiographic approaches end up generating general principles.
Many approaches in psychology combine both approaches (e.g. the psychodynamic approach) and therefore the two approaches can be viewed as complementary rather than contradictory.
For example, while cognitive psychologists typically take a nomothetic approach and create general laws of mental processes (e.g. the Working Memory Model), they also take advantage of the idiographic approach when using case studies to provide evidence for a theory (e.g. patient K.F.).
Arguably, it is possible to consider the same issue or topic from both perspectives, depending on the nature of the research question.
Evaluation of the Idiographic Approach
One criticism of the idiographic approach is that it is not always scientific.
Arguably, Humanistic Psychology is not sufficiently evidence-based and therefore any ‘findings’ are essentially meaningless.
However, the same can’t be said about other idiographic approaches involving case studies or qualitative research (interview/surveys).
This is because they take an evidence-based approach and also seek to be objective. For example, qualitative approaches use reflexivity to identify the influence of any biases. That said, case studies often rely on the subjective interpretation of the researcher –> open to bias.
The case study method is a powerful tool for evaluating psychological theory.
For example, a single case may generate hypotheses for further study - the in-depth perspective it provides on behaviour often leads to research ideas.
In the case of brain-damaged individuals, like H.M., findings may reveal important insights about normal functioning, which may contribute to our overall understanding.
For example, the case of H.M. revealed how different types of LTM are more resistant to forgetting and may be stored in different areas of the brain.
The idiographic approach, with its in-depth qualitative methods of investigation, provides a complete and global account of the individual.
This may complement the nomothetic approach by shedding further light on general laws or by challenging such laws.
The idiographic approach is unable to produce general predictions about behaviour.
General predictions can be useful, for example, in producing drugs to treat mental illness. It would be far too time consuming to produce personal therapies for unique individuals.
However, drug treatments are not successful for all patients, therefore alternative treatments (e.g. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) based on an idiographic approach may be more suitable, as they seek to understand and explain the disorder from a patient’s point of view.
The idiographic approach is more time consuming i.e. collecting large amounts of data about one person.
Evaluation of the Nomothetic Approach
The nomothetic approach is considered as generally scientific.
- The use of experimental (quantitative) methods, controlled measurement under standardised conditions and the ability to predict behaviour, are all seen as strengths of the nomothetic approach.
- Furthermore, controlled methods allow for replication to examine the reliability of findings which has helped psychology establish itself as a scientific discipline.
- The development of theories and empirical testing are just one of the key features of science that are employed by the nomothetic approach.
Experimental methods are also powerful tools for evaluating psychological theory.
Unlike the case study method, they can be used to support a theory as well as show flaws.
However, some psychologists argue that the nomothetic approach loses sight of the ‘whole person’, due to its fixation on quantitative data and statistical analysis, providing a superficial understanding of human behaviour.
For example, in laboratory studies involving tests of memory, participants are treated as a series of scores rather than individual people, and their subjective experience of the situation is ignored.
In its search for generalities, the richness of human experience may be overlooked.
The nomothetic approach is viewed as scientific, which is useful for predicting and controlling behaviour.
- Biological psychologists take a nomothetic approach when explaining obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), claiming that it is caused by high levels of dopamine and low levels of serotonin.
- Drug therapies work by redressing a chemical imbalance.
- SSRIs are used to treat OCD, increasing the availability and uptake of serotonin, thus reducing the anxiety associated with OCD, which helps to improve the lives of people suffering from this condition.
Collecting large amounts of data from a group of people also takes time, but once you have devised a psychological test, data can be generated and processed quickly.
Topic: Psychopathology
Idiographic stance
As drug treatments are not successful for all patients, some psychologists argue that alternate treatments (e.g. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), which are based on an idiographic approach, are more suitable for treating individuals with such conditions, as they seek to understand and explain the disorder from a patient’s point of view.
Topic: Attachment
Idiographic stance
The Temperament Hypothesis argues that an infant’s temperament affects the way a parent responds and so may be a determining factor in infant attachment type. The infant’s temperament may explain their issues (good or bad) with relationships in later life. This suggests that individual differences have a part to play in attachment types and the formation of later relationships, offering an idiographic perspective.
Topic: memory
Idiographic stance
There are case study examples of the impact of brain damage on memory (e.g. Clive Wearing, H.M., K.F.) that have provided useful insights. These case studies have contributed to our understanding of the structure and function of memory, providing evidence for the Multi-Store and Working Memory models.
