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Idiographic and Nomothetic approach 16 marker
A*/A grade AQA A level Psychology 16 Marker on the idiographic and nomothetic approach
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Idiographic and nomothetic approach Issues and debatesThe idiographic approach is an approach to psychological research where the focus is on the
individual to understanding behaviour, rather than looking to generalised laws like the
nomothetic approach to research into behaviour.
Psychologists who take a nomothetic approach, attempt to use quantitative techniques to
analyse data to establish general laws to apply to all people. This view is adopted by the
biological approach as they attempt to explain psychological disorders like OCD by
narrowing down the cause to chemical and neurotransmitter imbalances such as higher
levels of dopamine and lower levels of serotonin. This is extremely useful in drug
development and can lead to numerous treatments to aid in the recovery of patients.
However, the nomothetic approach has been criticised because it loses sight of the whole
person due to its general laws and quantitative data analysis. For example, Milgram found
that 65% of his study obeyed the authority and gave an electric shock of 450v but later
studies failed to replicate this. This is thought to be because different circumstances of each
individual led to their obedience. This decreases the validity of the nomothetic approach, as
studies such as Milgram who have used this view have found that their findings aren’t
reproducible.
Therefore, due to this an alternate method of analysing behaviour may be more useful such
as taking an idiographic approach. Which has also proven to be useful in the treatment of
psychological disorders by using cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which focusses on the
individual patient. Idiographic researchers emphasise the importance of qualitative data and
focusing on individuals to allow an in-depth insight into their behaviour.
The idiographic approach is unable to produce generalisations and it can’t predict human
behaviour. This limits its application to understanding and treating psychological disorders
and is a huge limitation to psychological research as it decreases its relevance. Therefore,
this leads to a lot of criticism of this approach due to its unscientific nature and inability to
cut down research to the fewest possible terms to created generalisations. However, in
contrast it can be argued that with this comes increased validity and that the findings
produced are more secure. This is supported by the case study of KF which exposed a
limitation of the multistore model of memory and, provided evidence of separate audial and
visual areas. Which led on to the development of the working memory model. This
highlights the importance for the idiographic approach but also the nomothetic approach in
developing research by using two different angels of approach. Which suggests that the
distinction between the idiographic approach and the nomothetic approach is meaningless
and that they should be used in conjunction.
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