Idiographic And Nomothetic Debate

Question 1

What is the Idiographic and nomothetic debate?

Answer 1

should psychology focus its attention on people in general or the individual? Should the aim of psychological enquiry be to produce generalities against which people can be compared and measured? Or should psychology concerns itself with what makes people unique?

Question 2

The idiographic approach (4)

What methods do they use?
(5)

Which approaches in psychology have adopted an IDIOGRAPHIC approach?

Answer 2

An idiographic approach argues that everyone is UNIQUE and therefore must be studied INDIVIDUALLY to capture the RICHNESS of human individuality.
NO GENERA LAWS

QUALITATIVE: so use SELF REPORT methods such as CASE STUDIES and UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS in order to capture the unique experience of individuals. SUBJECTIVE

Humanistic approach and psychodynamic approach

Question 3

The idiographic approach

Which approaches in psychology have adopted an IDIOGRAPHIC approach and WHY?

Answer 3

Humanistic psychology is the best example of an idiographic approach, with most humanist psychologists investigating the unique experience of the individual. They do not seek to establish laws that apply to all as what matters is the person’s subjective experience.

The psychodynamic approach is partly idiographic in the way it studies individuals and their unique lives using the case study method. (The laws he established relating to personality development are nomothetic)

Question 4

The nomothetic approach

What is the focus?
(3)

Answer 4

The nomothetic approach aims to establish GENERAL LAWS of behaviour that apply to many people (as opposed to what makes them unique)

These provide a benchmark against which people can be compared, classified and measured and on the basis for which likely future behaviour can be predicted and controlled.

The focus is on SIMILARITIES between people and gaining objective knowledge.

Question 5

The nomothetic approach

What methods do they use and why?

1
2
3
4
5

Answer 5

it involves studying LARGE NUMBERS of people to collect large amounts of data to try to understand why people behave in similar ways in certain situations.

For this reason they use highly scientific methods such as the LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS and CONTROLLED EXP. These methods produce QUANTIATIVE- numerical data of group averages. These can be analysed statistically and
predictions can be made about people in general.

Question 6

The nomothetic approach
Which approaches in psychology have adopted a nomothetic approach and why?

Answer 6

The biological, behaviourist and cognitive approaches are all nomothetic because they all study behaviour through creating hypotheses, analysing behaviour, statistically testing what is found and creating laws about why people behave the way they do:

Behaviourists studied the responses of hundreds or rats, pigeons, etc., in order to develop the laws of learning.

Cognitive psychologists have inferred the structure of memory through measuring the performance of many people on a range of memory tests in a laboratory.

Biological psychologists have conducted brain scans on countless human brains to make generalisations about localisation of function.

Question 7

According to RADFORD & KIRBY (1975) there are THREE kinds of GENERAL LAWS:

Answer 7

CLASSIFYING PEOPLE INTO GROUPS e.g.
attachment types, mental illness

ESTABLISHING PRINCIPLES OF BEHAVIOUR THAT CAN BE APPLIED TO PEOPLE IN GENERAL
e.g. conformity
memory
obedience

ESTABLISHING DIMENSIONS ALONG WHICH PEOPLE CAN BE PLACED AND COMPARED
Eyesenks personality:
Introvert extrovert psychotic neurotic

Question 8

approaches on debate
Bio
Beh
SLT
Cog
Psycho
Humanism

Answer 8

Bio Mainly nomothetic-biological influences apply generally to all. However, the idiographic approach can complement the nomothetic approach - single cases can be informative

BEH Nomothetic-general laws of behaviour, identified using rigorous behaviourismlaboratory experimentation, applied to all organisms

SLT Nomothetic the establishment of general laws of behaviour

Cog Mostly nomothetic-seeking to discover general principles/theories of cognitive processing but also uses idiographic techniques

Psycho Idiographic and nomothetic - the case study technique is clearly idiographic, yet Freud’s theory of personality was applied to all! - and is thus nomothetic

Humanism - Idiographic-emphasises the uniqueness of the individual and uses case studies

Question 9

Idiographic application to topic

Answer 9

MEMORY

Cognitive psychologists use an idiographic approach by studying cases studies of people with brain damage to see the effects of the damage on cognitive function.

For example, the case study of HM highlights the effect of surgery on memory. His STM was normal but he could not transfer any new information into his LTM.

Question 10

Nomothetic link to topic

Answer 10

Nomothetic

Cognitive psychology memory discovering general laws research has focussed on about human memory.

For example, in Murdock’s memory experiment when participants were asked to recall lists of words in any order they typically recall more from the beginning and end of a list. This pattern became known as the Primacy-recency effect and enabled Murdock to establish that there are two separate memory stores-a STM and a LTM.

Question 11

What is the value of adopting both an idiographic and nomothetic approach when studying this topic? (Memory)

Answer 11

The benefits of using an idiographic approach when studying memory are………

They allows to study individuals that shed light on possible areas for investigation. in the case it leads to nomactiecic researen to to see if there are different memory stores

The benefits of using nomothetic approach when studying memory are ……….

They allows us to establish laws that apply to everyone - in the case that there are 2 diferent memory stores.

Question 12

Evaluation
IDIOGRAPHIC
FOR
AGAINST

Answer 12

The idiographic approach with its in-depth qualitative methods of investigation provides a complete and global understanding of the individual.

Idiographic measures are criticised for not being scientific

Question 13

Evaluation
IDIOGRAPHIC
FOR

The idiographic approach with its in-depth qualitative methods of investigation provides a complete and global understanding of the individual.

Answer 13

This may complement the nomothetic approach by shedding further light on general laws or indeed by challenging such laws. For example, a single case study may generate hypotheses for further

investigation.

E.g. in MEMORY research -

case study by HM highlighted m the effect of surgery on memory. His STM was normal but he could not transfer info into his LTM.
This individual study prompred investigations into nomathetic research and whether this could be a general law on on if there is 2 memores.

Question 14

Evaluation
IDIOGRAPHIC
AGAINST

Idiographic measures are criticised for not being scientific.

Answer 14

Typically, samples used within the idiographic approach tend to be small, unrepresentative and lacking population validity.

case study is based on one person (HM) who has had brain surgy + lacks representation

This means meaningful generalisations cannot be made without further examples, as there is no baseline for which to compare behaviour.

Also, methods associated with the idiographic approach, such as case studies, tend to be less scientific in that conclusions often rely on the subjective interpretation of the researcher and, as such are open to bias.

E.g Freud’s theory little hand - Oedipus Electra - to fit his theory

Question 15

Evaluation
NOMOTHETIC
FOR
AGAINST

Answer 15

The nomothetic approaches tend to be more scientific

losing the whole person within psychology.

Question 16

Evaluation
NOMOTHETIC
FOR

The nomothetic approaches tend to be more scientific

Answer 16

The methods adopted tend mirror those used in the natural sciences allowing a scientific discipline - testing under standardised conditions, using data sets that provide group averages, statistical analysis, prediction and control, for example in the field of IQ testing. Such processes have enabled psychologists to establish norms of ‘typical’ behaviour

E.g. in MEMORY research - Murdock’s memory experiment. groups participants in a controlled lab experiment’ were asked to recall a list of words in any order. They typically remembered the beginning and end of the list -primary recency effect.
This allowed murdock to come up with general laws about memory that can be applied to all - there are 2 sepereite memey stores

By adopting such methods arguably gives the discipline of psychology greater scientific credibility.

Question 17

Evaluation
NOMOTHETIC
AGAINST
losing the whole person’ within psychology.

Answer 17

For example, knowing there is a 1% lifetime risk of schizophrenia tells us little about what life is like for someone with the disorder or the chance you will develop the disorder.

Similarly, in lab studies involving tests of, say, memory, participants are treated as a series of scores rather than individual people and their subjective experience is ignored - for example, what memory strategies they use.

This means that, in its search for general laws, the nomothetic approach may sometimes overlook the richness of human experience.

Question 18

Evaluation
Nomothetic and idiographic extra evaluation

Answer 18

Rather than seeing the idiographic-nomothetic debate as a choice between either / or alternatives, the two positions are best seen as complementary. Both approaches have a role to play in psychology - their relative
importance depends on the purpose/aims of the research.

It makes sense to use nomothetic when studying behaviour in general and the idiographic to understand and predict an individual’s behaviour. The two approaches can be then be seen as complementary - the idiographic can unearth issues which can then be explored, through a nomothetic approach, for their potential for a wider application.