Idiographic + Nomotheic Approaches

Question 1

What is the idiographic approach?

Answer 1

-focuses on individual cases

Question 2

What is the nomothetic approach?

Answer 2

-study of large + varied groups to make generalisations

Question 3

Idiographic

Answer 3

-small no.of P’s
-information from family - focuses on detail
-understands the individual

Question 4

Nomothetic

Answer 4

-generalise to make ‘laws’
-then applied in individual situations

Question 5

Nomothetic - quantitative research

Answer 5

-form hypothesis - samples are assessed and data is analysed
-quantify behaviour
-associated with lab experiments and observations - EV + CV are removed

Question 6

Idiographic - qualitative research

Answer 6

-studying individual - themes can be identified
-eg. HM + KF - case studies - informed further research into different types of LTM

Question 7

Example of idiographic

Answer 7

-Freud - psychodynamic approach used case studies + interviews to get qualitative data for Little Hans
-however he developed psychosexual stages - arguing all children pass through same sequence of stages - more nomothetic

Question 8

3 laws - nomothetic approach

Answer 8

1. Classifying people into groups
2. Establishing principles of behaviour that can be generalised
3. Establishing dimensions which people can be placed, compared +measured

Question 9

Examples of nomothetic

Answer 9

-behaviourists explain all behaviour in stimulus response links - learnt through experience
-cognitive approach - objective method - measures brain activity - draw inferences about mental processes

Question 10

Negatives of nomothetic approach

Answer 10

-loss of understanding of the person
-general laws = accused of losing the whole person
-eg. 1% risk of schizo - not a lot of insight into what their life is acc like
-understanding subjective experience is useful to make appropriate treatments

Question 11

Objective vs. Subjective

Answer 11

-O - nomo- laws are only possible if assessments are carried in standardised way
-S - idio - individual experience is more important in unique context - rather than underlying reality

Question 12

Positive of idiographic

Answer 12

-qualitative data = produces in-depth complete account of an individual
-may support existing theories
-HM + CW demonstrated diff types of LTM are located in different areas
-led to further research of localisation + memory

Question 13

Positives of nomothetic

Answer 13

-highly scientific methods - makes use of methods which produce receivable data - standardised conditions
-reliably measured through operationalised behavioural categories = internal validity
=greater scientific credibility

Question 14

Negatives of idiographic

Answer 14

-offers a restrictive perspective - theories from case studies - may struggled to be generalised beyond individual
-generalisations can’t be made without further examples to act as a baseline
-idio approach doesn’t improve scientific credibility