Nomothetic Vs Idiographic

Idiographic: Psychologists focus on the individual and emphasise the unique personal experience of human nature. The Idiographic or individual differences approach looks at how our behaviours are different to each other. Psychologists interested in this aspect of experience want to discover what makes each of us unique. Tend to use qualitative methods.

Idiographic Research Methods:

Methods of investigation include:

Case studies
Unstructured interviews
Thematic analysis

These methods provide an in-depth insight into individual behaviour. The idiographic approach does not seek to formulate laws or generalise results to others.

A single case study can highlight flaws within a theory and significantly undermine other research.

For example, the Case of KF:

Shallice and Warrington (1970) examined the case of Patient KF, who experienced a motorbike accident. KF’s short-term forgetting of auditory information was greater than his forgetting of visual information, suggesting that short-term memory (STM) consists of multiple components.

This is a key strength of the idiographic approach, because it can be used to disprove theories and encourage psychologists to develop more accurate theories. In this case Baddeley and Hitch then developed the Working Model of Memory to represent the separate visual and auditory stores within STM.

Evaluation of Idiographic approach

Case studies can highlight a flaw in psychological theories and prompt further research e.g. KF helped to disprove MSM and led to WMM – different types of STM.
Case studies provide rich and detailed data which can be more insightful when trying to understand complex behaviour such as mental health.
Useful applications in taking idiographic approaches e.g. CCT & CBT
Less scientific due to the emphasis on in-depth data collection and qualitative data which can be open to subjectivity and bias. There is also difficulties when replicating research – especially when using idiographic methods such as case studies.
The idiographic approach is unable to produce general laws or predictions about human behaviour

Nomothetic: Psychologists are concerned with establishing general laws, based on the study of large groups of people and focuses on what we have in common. Nomothetic approaches use quantitative methods like experiments, correlational research, etc.

Nomothetic Research Methods:

The Biological Approach – Biological Psychologists take a nomothetic approach when explaining psychological disorders, such as OCD and depression. They typically pinpoint biological factors, such as neurotransmitters, that are responsible for such disorders and use biological therapies (e.g. drugs) to treat all patients.

The Behavioural Approach – Behaviourists, such as Pavlov and Skinner, conducted experiments with animals in order to establish laws of learning (classical and operant conditioning) that could be generalised to humans and non-human animals.

Evaluation of Nomothetic

Nomothetic approaches may assume that all people are the same and underestimate the differences between individuals e.g. the same drug treatment for schizophrenia will not work for everyone.
Nomothetic methods focus on collecting less data on more people by utilising larger samples in order to improve generalisability.
Useful applications in taking a nomothetic approach – drug treatments
More scientific due to the emphasis on experiments, psychometric tests, correlations and the collection of quantitative data which is more objective and easy to replicate.
The Nomothetic approach is able to produce general laws and predictions about human behaviour.

Exam Questions:

A prison psychologist used an idiographic approach to study offending. He asked two offenders to record their thoughts about their childhood and their offending behaviour in a journal over a period of four weeks. Qualitative analysis of the journals showed that the offenders often thought about sad childhood events and believed that their childhood experiences had influenced their offending. Findings from idiographic research like the study described above are often used as a basis for other investigations. Explain how the researcher might develop the above investigation through taking a nomothetic approach. (Total 6 marks)

To develop the above investigation, using a nomothetic approach, the researcher would need to test a larger sample of offenders, in order to establish a general law of behaviour. The researchers could do this by using a self-selected method by advertising the study at a prison. (2)

The researchers could also take a nomothetic approach by using a different research method such as a questionnaire. The researcher could provide all of the offenders within the prison a questionnaire which asks questions about their early childhood experiences. (2)

When analysing the data of the questionnaires, the researcher would look for common patterns in terms of childhood experiences, in order to generate a law of offending behaviour which they could generalise to the wider population. (2)

Discuss Idiographic and Nomothetic Approaches to Psychological Investigation (16 marks)

The debate between idiographic and nomothetic approaches to Psychological Investigation is a pervasive one. On one side of the argument, the idiographic approach to investigation would utilise methods such as case studies and unstructured interviews. Researchers propose that gaining an in-depth analytical understanding of human experience can offer a more useful insight into human behaviour – cultivating sensitive and long-lasting treatment for abnormalities. On the other side, the nomothetic approach to investigation would utilise larger sample sizes and research methods such as experiments, correlation and psychometric tests. This approach prioritises the creation of scientifically rigorous laws of behaviour and treatments that can be generalised to the wider population.

The idiographic approach can highlight flaws in psychological theories. The potential benefit of such an insight is reflected within the Cognitive Approach. Shallice and Warrington (1970) conducted a case study into KF – who had been in a motorbike accident. They found the damage to his auditory short-term memory to be significantly more pronounced than damage to his visual short-term memory. These findings acted to question the current model of memory – Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multi-store memory model, that had cited short-term memory as a unified store. Evidently, the utility of idiographic case studies enabled researchers to question pre-held beliefs and generalisable laws about memory. Consequently, the case study of KF provided a unique experience of memory – leading to, in this case a more accurate and useful Working Model of Memory under Baddeley and Hitch. However, the idiographic approach can be criticised for being less scientific – in utilising qualitative methods, it is difficult to generalise theories to reach a wider demographic of people outside the specific individuals studied. Therefore, in terms of predicting, understanding, and treating the behaviour of the wider population it is limited, and this is where the nomothetic approach may be more beneficial.

Nomothetic researchers propose an approach to psychological investigation that prioritises the creation of strict, reliable laws of behaviour that can be generalised across the wider population, and therefore a key strength is that it can be used to predict behaviour. One such example of the theory that OCD is caused by an excess of dopamine in the brain and a smaller quantity of serotonin. The nomothetic approach can therefore be used to develop treatments e.g. researchers developed Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI’s) that treat this internal problem and restore normality to suffers. Consequently, these nomothetic treatments have the potential for wide intervention that can create extensive change in individual’s lives. However, drug treatments do not effectively alleviate symptoms for all individuals. Therefore, an idiographic treatment (client centred therapy within the humanistic perspective) maybe needed to identify and target individual needs in order to develop the most successful treatments.

The Idiographic approach to investigation is criticised for being less scientific due to its methods of data collection. For example, within the humanistic perspective Carl Rogers carried out in-depth unstructured interviews in order to understand the unique differences in people. This is less scientific because the information collected is open to subjective interpretation, and the approach would be difficult to replicate. Consequently, taking an idiographic approach may not stand up to scientific scrutiny, and therefore, idiographic approaches may not be as credible in comparison to nomothetic. Overall, it could be argued that the distinction between the two approaches to psychological investigation is false and unhelpful – as they are best used in tandem. It is beneficial to take a scientific approach to create general laws, whilst also using idiographic approaches such as case studies to falsify theories in order to develop a nuanced and in-depth understanding of human processes.

A psychologist surveyed a large sample of students and found that males were more likely to be addicted to computer gaming than females. However, she was interested in carrying out a follow-up interview with one of the females whose addiction levels were much higher than anyone else’s. Discuss the value of adopting both a nomothetic and idiographic approach in psychology. Refer to the case above as part of your discussion. [16 marks]

AO1: A nomothetic approach uses quantitative research methods such as lab experiments and questionnaires. Due to this approach, nomothetic researchers prioritise the creation of general laws of behaviour and treatments that can be generalised to the wider population. AO2: The scenario takes a nomothetic approach as a psychologist surveyed a large sample of students and then looked for the trends in the data. This was evidenced in their findings that males were more likely to be addicted to computer gaming than females.

AO3: A nomothetic approach can be considered to be more scientifically rigorous. For example, research by Gottesman utilised identical and non-identical twins to understand the genetic influence of schizophrenia. They calculated the concordance rates for both types of twins and found that identical twins have higher concordance rates of schizophrenia. This is more scientific because these measures allow for high levels of reliability which means that the study can be replicated to check for consistency in results. These measures also allow high validity because of the quantitative data, reducing the risk of subjective interpretations and researcher bias. This relates to the scenario because the survey that was used could be easily replicated to check whether the findings that males were more addicted to games were consistent, or a one-off result. However, the nomothetic approach may lack a detailed analysis to draw accurate conclusions. Therefore, using an idiographic approach may allow researchers to gain an accurate insight into what other factors contribute to gaming addiction. Clearly, the sex is not the only factor, as there was a female that was highly addicted to games.

AO1: The idiographic approach proposes that gaining in depth analytical understanding of human experience can offer a more useful insight into human behaviour. It looks to investigate the subjective experience of individuals. This can be seen in the humanistic approach where in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs focuses on the subjective human experience and makes no attempt to create general laws. AO2: The scenario above is taking an idiographic approach as the researcher wants to carry out follow-up interviews and by doing this, she wants to get qualitative data from this and understand the female’s unique differences.

AO3: Taking an idiographic approach can help to disprove nomothetic explanations. For example, the case of KF was used to highlight that there were multiple types of STM. This disproved the MSM because, this theory assumed that we only have one type of STM, and KF proved that this couldn’t be the case. This is a real benefit in utilising idiographic research because it means that we can falsify nomothetic theories and replace them with more accurate ones. For example, due to the case of KF, the MSM was replaced with the WMM to incorporate the idea that we have multiple types of STM. This can be shown in the scenario too. Initially, it may have been assumed that the nomothetic belief that boys are more addicted to games is true. However, the one idiographic case study, showed that one female was also an addict. Therefore, this disproved the idea that sex is a causal factor in gaming addiction. Therefore, it is important to conclude that both approaches must be used in research in order to develop the most accurate theories in psychology.

Additional AO3:

AO3: Taking a nomothetic approach means that we generalise explanations to the wider population, which means we can develop treatments for a wider population. For example, there is a nomothetic explanation that schizophrenic symptoms such as auditory hallucinations are caused by high levels of dopamine in the Broca’s area. Therefore, a nomothetic treatment of anti-psychotics was developed to treat this issue in all schizophrenics. This could apply to this scenario too. If the researchers show that boys are more likely to be addicted to gaming, then an intervention could be created to target boys. However, being nomothetic means that the treatment may not always be successful. For example, if we were to only target boys in gaming addiction, the female in the scenario would not access this treatment. Therefore, it is important to take an idiographic approach when researching behaviour as this will allow for a greater understanding of behaviour.