| What is the idiographic approach? | Focus on the individual case to understand behaviour, unique people with subjective experiences.
One individual or one group to provide in-depth understanding |
| Methods used for the idiographic method? | Qualitative research, highly specific data, case studies, unscientific |
| What is the nomothetic approach? | Attempts to study human behaviour to develop a general principles and universal laws, benchmark for comparison.
Large groups with the aim of discovering norms and laws of behaviour |
| What are the methods used for the nomothetic approach? | Quantitative research, large scale data collected, structured and controlled research, classifying people into groups |
| A strength of the idiographic approach? | -Complete understanding of an individual
-In-depth qualitative methods which can be used to shed light onto or generate new laws of behaviour
-EG: Phineas Gage case study helped psychologist between understand localisation of function.
-Although it is a more limited way of working, it can inform scientific laws and practice. |
| A weakness of the idiographic approach? | -Narrow and restrictive way of working
-Without gathering further examples for case studies, no meaningful conclusions can be drawn
-Case studies are often subjective and prone to researcher bias
-Lack of scientific rigour makes it difficult to build effective theories of human behaviour |
| A strength of the nomothetic approach? | -More scientific approach
-Processes involved are similar to natural sciences - standardisation, controlled, statistical testing etc
-Objective methods/large samples allow us to establish norms and produce resources like the DSM
-Makes it easier to diagnose psychopathology, understand human behaviour and gives us more scientific credibility |
| A weakness of the nomothetic approach? | -Leads to the loss of understanding for the individual
-Focusing on general laws of behaviour, we can miss important details and unique differences
-Knowing for example 1% overall lifetime risk of developing SZ tells us little about the subjective experience of living with it
-Therefore, it can overlook the richness of human data and miss out on important individualities. |
