Lesson 6 - Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation

Question 1

idiographic approach

Answer 1

studies individuals in depth, focusing on unique insights rather than generalising across populations
- qualitative eg unstructured interviews and case studies

Question 2

approaches that are idiographic

Answer 2

psychodynamic - little hans
humanistic - views holistically rather than reducing to observable traits

Question 3

nomothetic approach

Answer 3

study of a large representative sample selected by random sampling
- quantitative
-statistical analysis , measures of central tendency

Question 4

approaches that support nomothetic approach

Answer 4

biological - tend and befriend generalised to women
behaviourist - general laws of human behaviour
cognitive - understanding memory processes are general

Question 5

+ evaluation of idiographic approach

Answer 5

+provides a rich in depth insight into individual cases, which nomothetic can’t
+case studies and thematic analysis can be scientific and objective. Qualitative research uses reflexivity- when researchers critically reflect on biases to ensure validity

Question 6

• eval of idiographic approach

Answer 6

• lacks scientific rigour, leading to criticism, of humanistic approach- this concern made psych more empirical
  -limited generalisability, struggles to make broad behavioural predictions