Ideographic and Nomothetic Approaches PDF

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Summary

Notes, colour coded and easy to read, includes key word and example/relevant psychological studies...

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Idiographic and nomothetic approach Normal distribution/bell curve  allows individuals to be plotted along particular dimensions to see how they compare with the general population; it is a key feature of the nomothetic approach Idiographic approach  means ‘private’ or ‘personal’, an approach which focuses on the individual case in depth rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour to acquire a unique understanding of the individual. It assumes humans are unique Humanistic approach 

More concerned with investigating unique experience ‘on its own merits’ than producing general laws of behaviour

Psychodynamic approach  

Freud’s clinical case study method He interviewed patients over a long period of time, notes of interpretations were written up at the end of the day to allow a more free and natural expression of the patients thoughts and feelings

Nomothetic approach  means ‘law’, an approach which aims to study human behaviour by developing general laws and principles that are universal by investigating large groups of people in order to find these general laws. It assumes an individual is a complex combination of many universal laws Behaviourist approach 

Experiments with animals to establish laws of learning (eg Skinner’s Box)

Cognitive approach 

Can infer the structure and processes of human memory (eg Miller – the capacity of STM is 7 +/- 2 items) by measuring the performance of large samples of ppts in labs

Biological approach 

Have conducted brain scans on many people to make generalisations about localisation of function...