idiographic vs nomothetic Flashcards
Idiographic approach AO1
The idiographic approach focusses on individual insights and feelings, it collects qualitative data in order to gain in-depth and unique details on individuals rather than the numerical data.
which approaches use the idiographic approach
Freud’s (1909) analysis of Little Hans meant he spent a lot of time collecting detailed information about Little Hans in order to understand why he behaved the way he did.
Humanistic psychologists believe that a person’s subjective experience is more important to gain an understanding of humans than a universal generalisation.
nomothetic approach AO1
the nomothetic approach studies a large number of people at once to collect quantitative research. They aim to generate explanations of behaviour that can be universal and generalised to entire populations
uses objective knowledge
which approaches use the nomothetic approach
features techniques that are reductionist, determinist and employ scientific methods of investigation
For example, the biological approach seeks universal explanations for behaviour, and this can lead to drug therapies that can be used for all individuals. The research into fight or flight suggested that it was a universal response to stress.
However, research by Taylor suggested otherwise (women have a ‘tend and befriend’ response). This shows how universal explanations ignore the differences that the idiographic approach focus on.
weaknesses of the nomothetic approach
- Predictions can be made about groups but these may not apply to individuals.
- The approach has been accused of losing sight of the ‘whole person.
- Gives a superficial understanding – people may act the same but for different reasons.
- Extensive use of controlled laboratory experiments creates a lack of generalisation to everyday life.
(Nnomothetic) 3 types of general law according to Radford and Kirby
1- classification - people are classified in groups depending on behaviour
2- establishing principles - laws & principles that can be applied to human behaviour
3- establishing dimensions - attempts to place people on continuum so that can be compared to others (IQ)
strength nomothetic
An advantage of the nomothetic approach is that large samples of people can be used to produce a reliable and representative finding. It is also scientific, so the experiments conducted are replicable and reliable.
Has helped psychology as a whole become scientific by developing laws and theories which can be empirically tested.
this gives psychology greater scientific credibility
strength for idiographic
One strength of the idiographic approach is that IT CONTRIBUTES TO THE NOMOTHETIC APPROACH; the idiographic approach uses in-depth qualitative methods and this provides a detailed description of one individual. This may complement the nomothetic approach by shedding further light on general laws or indeed by challenging such laws. This suggests that even though the focus is on fewer individuals, the idiographic approach may still help form ‘scientific’ laws of behaviour.
weakness of the idiographic approach
-unscientific
A criticism of the idiographic method is that it isn’t scientific. Positive psychologists criticise the humanistic approach for lacking evidence-based findings, thus making them meaningless. this additionally means that Meaningful generalisations cannot be made without further examples
weakness of the idiographic method
-unable to generalise
Another limitation of the idiographic approach is that it cannot provide general predictions about behaviour. Such generalisations can be useful for some treatments of mental illness such as drug therapies. nonetheless, its arguable that researchers can use detailed case studies about individuals to create a universal prediction.
explain how idiographic methods are more time consuming than nomothetic methods
Collecting lots of data about only one or two individuals takes a lot of time yet a researcher using the nomothetic approach can gather data about a large group of people. The nomothetic approach can analyse data about a large group of people in much less time, thus, the idiographic approach is less efficient.
explain how the nomothetic approach can be accused of losing sight of the whole person
a limitation of the nomothetic approach is that it has lost sight of what it means to be human. It lacks an individual and unique perspective and assumes universal laws of behaviour apply to all people (and cultural and gender differences may not be taken into account).
