Idiographic and Nomothetic Approach
- Created by: MissLaurynRose
- Created on: 03-12-19 11:17
View mindmap
- Idiographic and Nomothetic Approach
- Central questions of idiographic and nomothetic approach
- Should psychology focus on people in general or the individual?
- Should psychology produce generalities against which people should be measures and compared?
- Should psychology concern itself with what makes people unique? Specific rather then general.
- Nomothetic Approach
- Aim is to produce general laws of human behaviour. Provide a 'benchmark' which people can be compared, classified and measured.
- This is on the basis of which likely future behaviour can be predicted and/or controlled.
- Closely aligned with scientific method within psychology. Such as experiments.
- Examples
- Reductionist and determinist. Hypotheses are formulated and tested under controlled conditions. Analysed for statistical significance.
- Behaviourist, cognitive and biological meet nomothetic criteria. eg Skinner used brain scans to conduct klaws. Hypotheses were rigorously tested.
- Aim is to produce general laws of human behaviour. Provide a 'benchmark' which people can be compared, classified and measured.
- Idiographic Approach
- Attempts to describe the nature of an individual.
- People are studied as unique entities, each with their own subjective experiences, motivations and values.
- No attempt made to compare to larger groups or standard norm.
- Associated with methods that produce qualitative data, eg case studies, unstructured interviews and self report measures.
- Examples
- Humanist psychology. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, only documenting the conscious experience of the individual or 'self'.
- Psychodynamic approach. Freud used case study when detailing the lives of his patients. Also links to nomothetic as identifys universal laws.
- Central questions of idiographic and nomothetic approach
Comments
No comments have yet been made