Ideographic v Nomothetic

Objectives

• Be able to define the approaches
• Be able to provide examples
• Be able to apply to stems
• Be able to offer key points of evaluation

Objective

• Be able to define the approaches

Nomothetic

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• Comes from Greek word - "nomos" meaning "law"
• Establishing laws and generalsiations
• Scientific method - quantatitive data
• classifying people into groups
• establishing principles

Examples?

Examples

• Miller - Digit Span
• Milgram
• DSM - grouping people

Ideographic

Ideographic

• Comes from the Greek word "ideos" meaning own or private
• Prefer to study what makes us unique rather than generalisable
• No general laws are possible
• Collect qualitative data

Examples

Examples

• Humanistic approach studying the subjective experience of the individual

What about Freud?

Freud is hard to pin down

• Little Hans - Ideographic?
• Case study then generalised? or
• Theory of psychosexual development generalised to Little Hans

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Nomothetic

• Topography of the mind? Id, ego superego?

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Objective

• Be able to apply to simple stems

Questions 1-3

Objective

• Be able to offer 5 points of evaluation

Evaluations

Strengths of the ideographic approach?

Is the idiographic approach ever scientific?

Developing Treatments?

What are the time implications of the different approaches?

Is there a real distinction? Can they be combined?