The Idiographic vs.
the Nomothetic debate
Nomothetic Approach
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Idiographic Approach
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Definitions
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The approach of investigating groups of people to try and find general laws of behaviour that apply to everyone.
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The approach of investigating individuals in personal,in depth details to achieve a unique understanding of them.
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Assumptions and Methods
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The nomothetic approach, from the Greek word 'nomos'
meaning 'law', assumes that since individuals are merely complex
combinations of many universal laws, people are best studies by large
scale preferentially experimental, methods to identify those laws.
Differences between people are only quantitative so an individual will
be compared to others, classified with others, measured as a score upon
a dimension, or be a statistic supporting a general principle.
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The idiographic approach, from the Greek word 'idios'
meaning private or personal, assumes that since each human is unique,
they are best studied by the case study method to provide a detailed
understanding of the individual.
Differences between people are qualitative so study should focus on the
unique aspects of, and variability within, a person's thinking and
behaviour. By studying these personal variables, norms or trends,
predictions can be made, but only about that particular individual.
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Examples from Psychology
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Nomothetic research is the main approach taken in
scientifically orientated psychology. The Behaviourist
experiments in learning were conducted on many participants (mostly
rats and pigeons), replicated until the general laws of learning were
well established, then even generalised as universal laws of nature to
humans. The social psychology experiments of Asch and Milgram
used the nomothetic approach to reach conclusions about people in
general by comparing groups of participants. All psychological
theories that propose generalised principles of behaviour have
nomothetic assumptions - Eysenck's personality theory places
individuals along a universal dimension of extroversion/introversion,
intelligence test measure people along a scale of I.Q. scores, and
classification manuals for mental disorder e.g. I.C.D (11) and
D.S.M.-5-TR, classify people as suffering from particular types of
disorder.
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The
Idiographic approach is taken, in its pure form, more rarely in
psychology that the nomothetic approach. Humanistic psychologist
focus on the unique characteristics and life experiences of
individuals. Some, such as Tomas Szasz (1972), have rejected the
grouping of individuals into general diagnostic categories like
'schizophrenia' preferring to focus on their unique 'problems with
living'.
In personality research, Allport (1961) made the distinction between
common and individual traits, while Kelly (1955) tried to identify the
way individual perceive the world in terms of personal constructs.
Freud (1909) used the clinical case study method and aimed to identify
the unique life experiences in a patient's history that led to their
psychological problems. Nevertheless, he did argue that there were
similar processes and mental structures present in everyone that
created certain types of problem.
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Evaluation
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The
nomothetic approach is in tune with the deterministic, law-abiding
nature of science, and has been applied very successfully in other
sciences as well as psychology. The ability to generalise laws
and compare groups of people is very useful in predicting and
controlling behaviour in general. For example, personality
questionnaires and mental disorder classification manuals have been
used in the selection of personnel and the diagnosis and treatment of
disorders. The drawback, however, is that this approach leaves us
with a more superficial understanding of any one person - you and I may
have the same I.Q., but I may have answered different questions to
you. Also a piece of nomothetic research may tell me I have a 1%
chance of becoming schizophrenic, but it will not tell me if I am in
that 1%.
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The
idiographic approach provides a more complete and global understanding
of the individual. In some counselling and psychotherapy the goal
is greater self understanding. Nomothetic generalisation may be
too vague or inaccurate for the individual. An idiographic
approach may help to balance the neglect of uniqueness in psychology -
a science dominated by experiments that actively try to control and
eliminate individual differences (participant variables).
Replication and prediction for an individual is possible in an
idiographic approach but we cannot legitimately generalise (apply) the
findings to other people, which limits its usefullness and application
in psychology.
The idea that people are so unique they cannot be compared in any way seems contradicted by psychological research.
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Evaluation
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Clearly,
bot approaches seem necessary for a complete study of psychology - if
the aims of science are to describe, understand, predict, and control,
then idiographic methods may be more suitable for the first two aims
and the nomothetic methods for the latter two. As Kluckholm and
Murray (1953) comment, every person is in some respects 1) like no
other person, 2) like some other people and 3) like all other
people. If there were no common points between individuals then nobody would be able to understand each other!
In the case of abnormality, nomothetic classification allows research
to be carried out on groups of people suffering similar symptoms in the
hope that a similar cause and cure can be identified, while an
idiographic approach may be useful to deal with the particular and
perhaps unique set of problems encountered by each patient.
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