Issues and debates- Idio/Nomo

Question 1

What is idiographic?

Answer 1

When an explanation considers the individual and argues that generalising from person to person is difficult because of their uniqueness.
-produces qualitative data

Question 2

What is nomothetic?

Answer 2

The idea that people can be regarded as groups and theories /explanations are therefore generalisable.
-regarded as scientific within psychology such as experiments.

Question 3

Is the biological approach nomo/idio?

Answer 3

It is mainly nomothetic as biological influences apply to everyone- they have conducted countless brain scans on human brains in order to make generalisations about localisation of function. Could also account for idio as case studies have been conducted for Phineas Gage.

Question 4

Is behaviourist approach nomo/idio?

Answer 4

Nomo as general principles about learning are identified using rigorous lab experiments applied to all organisms

Question 5

Is SLT idio/nomo?

Answer 5

Nomo as it is the establishment of general laws or principles of behaviour.

Question 6

Is cognitive idio/nomo?

Answer 6

Mostly nomothetic seeking to discover general principles/theories of cognitive processing but also has used idio techniques such as case studies such as HM/Clive Wearing/KF
-EEG and PET scans- objective methods of measuring the brain.

Question 7

Is psychodynamic idio/nomo?

Answer 7

case studies were idiographic but Freud’s theory of personality was applied to all therefore nomothetic.

Question 8

Is humanistic idio/nomo?

Answer 8

Idio because it emphasises the uniqueness of the individual. Rodgers and Maslow adopted a phenomenological approach to the study of human beings and were interested in documenting the conscious experience of the individual.

Question 9

Is most idio research qualitative or quantitative?

Answer 9

Qualitative-case studies

Question 10

Is most nomo research qualitative or quantitative?

Answer 10

quantitative-structured questionnaire or numerical data.

Question 11

Is nomo research subjective or objective?

Answer 11

Objective- standardisation and true replication across samples

Question 12

Is idio research subjective or objective?

Answer 12

subjective-

Question 13

What is one strength of the idio approach?

Answer 13

contributes to the nomo approach- may complement nomo by shedding light on general laws or challenge such laws.
-Case study of KF exposed a limitation of the MSM by providing evidence that our STM comprises of at least two components and not one.

Question 14

What is a strength of the nomo approach?

Answer 14

It is scientific as it uses quantitative methods and it is controlled and this allows psychologist to replicate research to examine the reliability of findings which has helped psychology to establish itself as as scientific discipline.

Question 15

Give one research of the nomothetic approach being scientific.

Answer 15

Biological psychologists take a nomothetic apporach when studying OCD and claim that OCD is caused by higher levels of dopamine and lower levels of serotonin.

Question 16

What is one strength of both nomo and idio?

Question 17

What is a limitation of the nomothetic approach?

Answer 17

Loss of understanding of the individual
-Already preoccupoed with general laws, predictions and control.
Eg: knowing that there is a 1% lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia tells us little about what life is actually like for someone with it so understanding the subjective experience might well prove useful when devising treatment options.

Question 18

What is one limitation of idio?

Answer 18

Offers a narrow and restrictive perspective. Eg: Theories developed from case studies and (unstructured) interviews may struggle to be generalised beyond the
individual, thus reducing the ecological validity of these findings. Eg: humanism widely uses the idiographic approach but is still viewed by many as a set of rather loose, abstract concepts, due to a lack of empirical evidence as well as being specific to the individual. Generalisations cannot be made without further examples to act as a baseline comparison. This means that the idiographic approach does not improve the scientific credibility of psychology.