Key Takeaways: Idiographic and Nomothetic Research The nomothetic approach involves trying to make generalizations about the world and understand large-scale social patterns. The idiographic approach involves trying to uncover a great deal of detailed information about a narrower subject of study.

The word idiographic comes from the root word “idio” which means peculiar to one, personal, and distinct. An idiographic causal explanation means that you will attempt to explain or describe your phenomenon exhaustively, based on the subjective understandings of your participants.

Psychologists advocating idiographic approach believe that individual shape his personality through learning. Hence idiographic approach to study of personality is associated with social learning that that propose explanation as how personality and human behaviour forms.

Idiographic assessment is the measurement of variables and functional relations that have been individually selected, or derived from assessment stimuli or contexts that have been individually tailored, to maximize their relevance for the particular individual.

The concepts of “nomothetic” and “idiographic” were introduced by the German philosopher Windelband in the 1890s, with the intent to refer to different forms of evidence-based knowledge and illustrate how universal theories are necessarily derived on the basis of single specimens, that is, how the “specific” (person) …

Biological Psychologists take a nomothetic approach when explaining psychological disorders, such as OCD and depression. Cognitive Psychologists, such as Atkinson and Shiffrin, developed general laws, such as the Multi-Store Model of Memory, which they believed could be generalised to everyone.

Briggs developed a personality type test by constructing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) based on Jung’s theory. This MBTI type model is different from trait models because the MBTI tells us that a person is either one type or the other. There are no in betweens like there is in trait theories.

A nomothetic approach studies a sample in order to formulate general principles of behaviour. A limitation of this approach is that it cannot generate rich and in-depth research on single cases.

Unlike the idiographic approach, the nomothetic approach is considered as generally scientific. The use of experimental (quantitative) methods, controlled measurement and the ability to predict behaviour, are all seen as strengths of the nomothetic approach.

Reductionist as it tries to explain complex behaviour with one influence. It doesn’t consider how other factors interact together in influencing behaviour which reduces the validity of the approach/debate. Discovering that certain behaviours are inherited (e.g. personality, intelligence) may not be helpful. …

The lowest level considers physiological (biological) explanations, where behaviour is explained in terms of neurochemicals, genes and brain structure; the middle level considers psychological explanations (e.g. cognitive and behavioural) and the highest level considers social and cultural explanations, where behaviour …

Levels of Explanation (4)

• Biological processes.
• Basic psychological processes.
• Person enacting the behaviour.
• Socio-cultural processes.

The three LOAs are biological, cognitive, and sociocultural. Biological is observing the physical aspects of the brain, such as physiology and chemicals.

Holism (from ὅλος holos, a Greek word meaning all, entire, total) is the idea that all the properties of a given system (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone.

Holism (from Greek ὅλος holos “all, whole, entire”) is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts. The term “holism” was coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book Holism and Evolution.

Not only do you have the perspectives, but you understand each of the perspectives and you understand how they make up the whole. This is important because when you understand each of the parts – truly understand them – you begin to expand your knowledge and understanding.

Treating the Whole You Holistic health is about caring for the whole person — providing for your physical, mental, spiritual, and social needs. It’s rooted in the understanding that all these aspects affect your overall health, and being unwell in one aspect affects you in others. Take stress, for example.

‘ These are holist views. The term ‘holism’ was coined in 1926, from the Greek holos (whole), by the South African statesman General Jan Smuts. Holism was the unquestioned orthodoxy of the Western tradition of practising medicine and investigating nature for the two millennia before the nineteenth century.