Idiographic A03

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Idiographic Approach AO3

Strength = its focus on the individual

Humanistic psychologists in the later half of the last century felt that there was too much emphasis on measurement and had lost sight of emotion and cognition. Allport who first used the terms idiographic and nomothetic argued that a quick change needed to happen which is what the idiographic method did. Allport argued that knowing the person as an individual makes it easier to predict what they will do in any situation

This suggests the focus on individuals can provide us with a more complete understanding

Strength = case study is a powerful tool for evaluating psychological theories

The case of Patient KF (Shallice and Warrington, 1970) exposed a limitation of the Multi-Store Model of Memory, by providing evidence that our STM comprises of at least two components (auditory and visual memory) and not one, as stipulated by Atkinson and Shiffrin. Consequently, a single case study can generate further research into a particular phenomenon (e.g. memory) which contributes to the development of new theories that further our understanding of human behaviour.

This suggests that case studies can be useful as evidence to prove hypotheses

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Weakness = time consuming.

Collecting lots of data about only one or two individuals takes a lot of time. In the time it takes for a researcher to collect lots of data about just one person, a researcher using the nomothetic approach can gather data about a large group of people. The nomothetic approach can analyse data about a large group of people in much less time, the idiographic approach is less efficient.

Indicates that idiographic method is less efficient when it comes to data collection

Weakness = cannot provide general predications about behaviour.

Such generalisations can be useful for some treatments of mental illness such as drug therapies. It is far too difficult and time consuming to construct unique treatments for every individual - it just isn't possible.

However, Allport argues that the idiographic approach can produce generalisations. Researchers can collect detailed information about individuals then use this information to create a universal prediction. Hall and Lindzey believe that this is means that idiographic is in fact nomothetic and that there is no actual distinction between the two.

overall, suggests nomothetic approach more useful at developing psychological treatments

Weakness = lack of objective evidence

this is one of the reasons for recent growth in positive psychology who believe that humanistic psychology was not evidence based enough and therefore any 'findings' were meaningless. Positive psychology aim to be more evidence based.

However other idiographic approaches (case studies etc) use evidenced research and also seek to be objective. For example qualitative approaches use reflexivity to identify influence of any biases

This idiographic approaches do embrace many of the aims of the scientific approach

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CONCLUSION

Overall, the idiographic approach focuses on subjective and unique experiences of individuals. In contrast, the nomothetic approach focuses on numerical data and universal explanations of behaviour.

Despite arguments that the two are not compatible, Millon and Davis suggest that researchers begin by using the nomothetic method, then once they have gained the general information, they can use the idiographic approach to gain more insightful information.