Issues and debates: Nomothetic vs Idiographic

Question 1

What is the Idiographic approach?

Answer 1

Its concerned with understanding behaviour through studying individual cases.

Question 2

What is the Nomothetic approach?

Answer 2

It’s concerned with developing general laws of behaviour that apply to all people.

Question 3

What are the 3 key features of the Idiographic approach?

Answer 3

• Recognises the uniqueness of the person.
• Concerned with private and subjective experiences of the person.
• Qualitative method

Question 4

What are the 3 key features of the Nomothetic approach?

Answer 4

• Attempts to establish laws and generalisations about people.
• Concerned with objective knowledge through the use of scientific methods.
• Uses Quantitative methods

Question 5

What are examples of Idiographic approaches in psychology?

Answer 5

Humanistic- focus on the self
Psychodynamic- frued case studies

Question 6

What are examples of nomothetic approaches in psychology?

Answer 6

• Maternal deprivation
• Operant conditioning
• Conformity
• Brain scans

Question 7

What are examples of nomothetic approaches in psychology?

Answer 7

• Behaviourist- skinner, animals general laws.
• Biological- brain scans to identify the localisation of function.

Question 8

What are the 3 kinds of general laws in the nomothetic approach and who came up with them?

Answer 8

• Classification
• Establishing principles
• Establishing dimensions

Radford and Kirby

Question 9

Who is Allport?

Answer 9

Was the first person to use the key terms idiographic and nomothetic.

Question 10

What is the complementary approach?

Answer 10

Idiographic and nomothetic approaches should not be seen as conflicting. It is more helpful to see them as complementary.

Question 11

What did Milon and Davis suggest?

Answer 11

Suggested research should start with a nomothetic approach –> produce laws –> focus on idiographic understanding.

Question 12

A03:

Answer 12

+ Useful for drug treatments
+ Scientific basis
- Time-consuming
- Generalising issues
- Loses sight on the whole person

Question 13

A03: Useful for treatments

Answer 13

However, 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.

Question 14

A03: Scientific basis

Answer 14

This is a strength of the nomothetic approach, as its highly scientific nature means that results attained are objective and reliable as the conditions used to attain them are standardised and have a high degree of control. As a result of this, the findings have scientific credibility and can be used to prove theories proposed by psychologists.

Question 15

A03: Time-consuming

Answer 15

The idiographic approach is very time consuming. It takes a lot of time and money to study individuals in depth. If a researcher is using the nomothetic approach once a questionnaire, psychometric test or experiment has been designed data can be collected relatively quickly.

Question 16

A03: Generalising issues

Answer 16

That being said, theories developed from case studies may struggle to be generalised beyond the individual, reducing the ecological validity of these findings, As a result, generalisations cannot be made without further examples, meaning that the idiographic approach alone cannot be used to improve the scientific credibility of psychology.

Question 17

The interactionist approach

Answer 17

Despite this, idiographic and nomothetic approaches could be used to complement each other. Milon and Davis (1996) suggest that research should start with a nomothetic approach, and once general laws have been established, researchers can then use a more idiographic approach. Doing this allows researchers to have the reliability given by nomothetic approaches, and the more detailed findings attained by employing an idiographic approach.

Question 18

A03: Loses sight of the whole person

Answer 18

Furthermore, some psychologists argue that the nomothetic approach loses sight of the ‘whole person’, due to its fixation on quantitative data and statistical analysis. Furthermore, these psychologists also claim that the nomothetic approaches only provides a superficial understanding of human behaviour. For example, Milgram’s research found that 65% of participants obeyed an authority figure and inflicted a 450-volt electric shock because they were ordered to do so. However, the results fail to provide an explanation of why each person obeyed, and there may have been very different circumstances that led to the obedience found in each participant.