L6 - Idiographic and Nomothetic Approaches Flashcards
Define the idiographic approach
Studying individuals and the unique insights they give in-depth
Define nomothetic approach
Studying large representative samples to collect large amounts of data and test a hypothesis
Are idiographic and nomothetic approaches qualitative or quantitative?
I: qualitative
N: quantitative
What approach does psychodynamic use?
Idiographic
Freud focused on case studies of patients
Details of them and thoughts and Freud’s interpretations
What approach is humanistic?
Idiographic
Want to study the whole person, their perspective, and their subjective experience
How is the nomothetic approach related to general laws?
Approach seeks to formulate general rules which can be applied to everyone
At least how many participants should ideally be used in nomothetic quantitative studies?
20
What approach is biological?
Nomothetic
Portray basic principles of the body and brain functions
What approach is behaviourist?
Nomothetic
Seek to formulate one set of rules for human and non-human animals
What approach is cognitive?
Nomothetic
General laws, e.g. memory, apply to everyone
Positive evaluation of idiographic related to focusing on the person?
Focuses on what it is to be human, not on measurement so can generate very detailed information about single cases
Knowing a person as themselves helps to predict what they’ll do in any given situation
Negative evaluation of idiographic related to general predictions?
Doesn’t use general predictions which can be useful and reduce time consumption
Less people helped in same amount of time relative to general predictions
Negative evaluation point related to being scientific?
Not scientific much
Not evidence based enough so is essentially meaningless
Reason why positive psychology has grown (more scientific)
