Nomothetic literally means "proposition of the law" (Greek derivation) and is used in philosophy (see also Nomothetic and idiographic), psychology, and law with differing meanings. In psychology, nomothetic measures are contrasted to ipsative or idiothetic measures, where nomothetic measures are measures that are observed on a relatively large sample and have a more general outlook while the idiographic approach is relating to a more singular case as is done in case studies.
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The problem of whether to use nomothetic or idiographic approaches is most sharply felt in the social sciences, whose subject are unique individuals (idiographic perspective), but who have certain general properties or behave according to general rules (nomothetic perspective). Often, nomothetic approaches are quantitative, and idiographic approaches are qualitative, although the "Personal Questionnaire" developed by M.B. Shapiro and its further developments (e.g. Discan scale) are both quantitative and idiographic. Personal cognition (D.
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In sociology, nomothetic explanation presents a generalized understanding of a given case, and is contrasted with idiographic explanation, which presents a full description of a given case. Nomothetic approaches are most appropriate to the deductive approach to social research inasmuch as they include the more highly structured research methodologies which can be replicated and controlled, and which focus on generating quantitative data with a view to explaining causal relationships. In anthropology, nomothetic refers to the use of generalization rather than specific properties in the context of a group as an entity.
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In the field of clinical human sciences, an idiographic image is the representation of a result which has been obtained thanks to a study or research method whose subject-matters are specific cases, i.e. a portrayal which avoids nomothetic generalizations. > :"Diagnostic formulation follows an idiographic criterion, while > diagnostic classification follows a nomothetic criterion".Battacchi M.W., > (1990), Trattato enciclopedico di psicologia dell'età evolutiva, Piccin, > Padova.
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Nomothetic describes the study of classes or cohorts of individuals. Here the subject is seen as an exemplar of a population and their corresponding personality traits and behaviours. It is widely held that the terms idiographic and nomothetic were introduced to American psychology by Gordon Allport in 1937, but Hugo Münsterberg used them in his 1898 presidential address at the American Psychological Association meeting.Hurlburt, R. T., & Knapp, T. J. (2006).
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Münsterberg in 1898, not Allport in 1937, introduced the terms idiographic and nomothetic to American psychology. Theory & Psychology, 16, 287-293. This address was published in Psychological Review in 1899.Münsterberg, H. (1899).
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Psychology and history. Psychological Review, 6, 1-31. Theodore Millon (1995) states that when spotting and diagnosing personality disorders, first we start with the nomothetic perspective and look for various general scientific laws; then when you believe you have a disorder, you switch your view to the idiographic perspective to focus on the specific individual and his or her unique traits. In sociology, the nomothetic model tries to find independent variables that account for the variations in a given phenomenon (e.g.
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Oxford University Press. DOI 10.1093/OBO/9780199874002-006 a distinction can be made between nomothetic (e.g. distribution of spatial agricultural patterns and processes) and idiographic research (e.g. human-environment interaction and the shaping of agricultural landscapes).
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In anthropology, idiographic describes the study of a group, seen as an entity, with specific properties that set it apart from other groups. Nomothetic refers to the use of generalization rather than specific properties in the same context.
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What is the relationship between timing/frequency of childbirth and education?). Nomothetic explanations are probabilistic and usually incomplete. The idiographic model focuses on a complete, in-depth understanding of a single case (e.g. Why do I not have any pets?).
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Tsai, M., Kohlenberg, R. J., Kanter, J. W., Kohlenberg, B., Follette, W., & Callaghan, G. (2009). A guide to functional analytic psychotherapy: Awareness, courage, love and behaviorism. New York, NY: Springer. (See below.) FAP is an idiographic (as opposed to nomothetic) approach to psychotherapy.
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An idiographic approach to an explanation is one where the scientists seek to exhaust the idiosyncratic causes of a particular condition or event, i.e. by trying to provide all possible explanations of a particular case. Nomothetic explanations tend to be more general with scientists trying to identify a few causal factors that impact a wide class of conditions or events. For example, when dealing with the problem of how people choose a job, idiographic explanation would be to list all possible reasons why a given person (or group) chooses a given job, while nomothetic explanation would try to find factors that determine why job applicants in general choose a given job.
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In psychological theories of personality, the following could be categorized as nomothetic theories: Carl Jung's Psychological Types, Eysenck's three factor model, the Big Five personality traits, and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. An approach to personality and psychological research in which a person is understood in relation to principle or norms rather than by their own individual uniqueness.
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There has been debate as to whether to identify and measure individualized outcomes that are unique for each patient (idiographic approach) or to use standardized measures (nomothetic approach). Both measures have their advantages and disadvantages. As a patient-generated measure, PSYCHLOPS appears a more sensitive (responsive) measure of change following a mental health intervention than some other standardised measures.
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The ideographic approach often use qualitative methodologies in its study of small number of individuals rather than make generalizations out of information collected from a large quantitative database. The methods operate according to the idea that each person is like no other person. The psychological literature distinguishes ideographic approach from the nomothetic laws, which are concerned with the general perspective.
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In 1884, Kantian philosopher Wilhelm Windelband coined the terms nomothetic and idiographic to describe these two divergent approaches. He observed that most scientists employ some mix of both, but in differing proportions; he considered physics a perfect example of a nomothetic science, and history, an idiographic science. Moreover, he argued that each approach has its origin in one of the two "interests" of reason Kant had identified in the Critique of Judgement—one "generalizing", the other "specifying". (Winkelband's student Heinrich Rickert elaborated on this distinction in The Limits of Concept Formation in Natural Science : A Logical Introduction to the Historical Sciences; Boas's students Alfred Kroeber and Edward Sapir relied extensively on this work in defining their own approach to anthropology.) Although Kant considered these two interests of reason to be objective and universal, the distinction between the natural and human sciences was institutionalized in Germany, through the organization of scholarly research and teaching, following the Enlightenment.
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According to Harris, the 19th-century anthropologists were theorizing under the presumption that the development of society followed some sort of laws. He decries the loss of that view in the 20th century by the denial that any laws are discernable or that current institutions have any bearing on ancient. He coins the term ideographic for them. The 19th-century views, on the other hand, are nomothetic; that is, they provide laws.
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Windelband is now mainly remembered for the terms nomothetic and idiographic, which he introduced. These have currency in psychology and other areas, though not necessarily in line with his original meanings. Windelband was a neo-Kantian who argued against other contemporary neo-Kantians, maintaining that "to understand Kant rightly means to go beyond him". Against his positivist contemporaries, Windelband argued that philosophy should engage in humanistic dialogue with the natural sciences rather than uncritically appropriating its methodologies.
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He saw sociology as a nomothetic science that should be able to use a similar methodology as natural sciences. The humanistic coefficient concerns the ontology of culture, but it also has an epistemological aspect, as it describes how sociological concepts should be constructed in an environment where social facts investigated by the researchers can be accessed only through experiences and actions of the subjects he or she observes. The humanistic coefficient is a major element in the sociological theory of Znaniecki.
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The next two rules urge researchers to "compare like with like" (Rule 5) and to "study change" (Rule 6); these two rules are especially important when researchers want to estimate the effect of one variable on another (e.g. how much does college education actually matter for wages?). The final rule, "Let method be the servant, not the master," reminds researchers that methods are the means, not the end, of social research; it is critical from the outset to fit the research design to the research issue, rather than the other way around. Explanations in social theories can be idiographic or nomothetic.
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The quantitative revolution (QR)[n] was a paradigm shift that sought to develop a more rigorous and systematic methodology for the discipline of geography. It came as a response to the inadequacy of regional geography to explain general spatial dynamics. The main claim for the quantitative revolution is that it led to a shift from a descriptive (idiographic) geography to an empirical law-making (nomothetic) geography. The quantitative revolution occurred during the 1950s and 1960s and marked a rapid change in the method behind geographical research, from regional geography into a spatial science. "The ‘Quantitative Revolution’", GG3012(NS) Lecture 4, University of Aberdeen, 2011, webpage: AB12.
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APS was founded in 1988 by a group of researchers and scientifically-oriented practitioners who were interested in advancing scientific psychology and its representation at the national and international level. This group felt that the American Psychological Association (APA) was not adequately supporting scientific research because it focused on the practitioner/clinician side of psychology, and had effectively "become a guild". Tensions between the scientists and the practitioners escalated. The two groups had contrasting beliefs about such divisive issues as scientific versus human values, determinism versus indeterminism, objectivism versus intuitionism, laboratory investigations versus field studies, nomothetic versus idiographic explanations, and elementism versus holism (Simonton, 2000).Simonton, D. K. (2000).
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He was one of the first sociologists to begin analyzing personal documents such as letters, autobiographies, diaries, and the like. He considered the analysis of such documents an important part of the humanistic-coefficient method. Znaniecki saw sociology as an objective, inductive and generalizing science. According to Szacki, Znaniecki viewed sociology as a nomothetic science that should be able to use a methodology similar to that of the natural sciences (however, Znaniecki's daughter Helena Znaniecki Lopata, in her introduction to Social Relations and Social Roles, contradicts Szacki, writing that, for Znaniecki, sociology was a science "whose subject matter calls for a method different from that of the natural sciences.").
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Influenced by German thought, especially by Friedrich Ratzel whom he had met in Germany, Vidal has been linked to the term "possibilism", which he never used but which summed up conveniently his opposition to the determinism of the sort that was defended by some nineteenth century geographers. The concept of possibilism has been used by historians to evoke the epistemological fuzziness that, according to them, characterized the approach of Vidal's school. Described as "idiographic", this approach was seen as blocking the evolution of the discipline in a "nomothetic" direction that would be the result of experimentation, making it possible to unlock laws or make scientific demonstrations. Vidal published a visionary article on the regions of France in 1910.
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The new method of inquiry led to the development of generalizations about spatial aspects in a wide range of natural and cultural settings. Generalizations may take the form of tested hypotheses, models, or theories, and the research is judged on its scientific validity, turning geography into a nomothetic science. One of the most significant works to provide a legitimate theoretical and philosophical foundation for the reorientation of geography into a spatial science was David Harvey’s book, Explanation in Geography, published in 1969. In this work, Harvey laid out two possible methodologies to explain geographical phenomena: an inductive route where generalizations are made from observation; and a deductive one where, through empirical observation, testable models and hypothesis are formulated and later verified to become scientific laws.
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Each approach is ideally suited to addressing a particular analytic interest. For instance, experiments are ideally suited to addressing nomothetic explanations or probable cause; surveys — population frequency descriptions, correlations studies — predictions; ethnography — descriptions and interpretations of cultural processes; and phenomenology — descriptions of the essence of phenomena or lived experiences. In a single approach design (SAD)(also called a "monomethod design") only one analytic interest is pursued. In a mixed or multiple approach design (MAD) two or more analytic interests are pursued. Note: a multiple approach design may include entirely “quantitative” approaches such as combining a survey and an experiment; or entirely “qualitative” approaches such as combining an ethnographic and a phenomenological inquiry, and a mixed approach design includes a mixture of the above (e.g.
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Picard has put forward theories to improve the research of emotions through the implementation of new technologies with a focus to gather emotional information outside of a lab setting. With devices that can measure heart-rate, electrodermal activity, and other physiological changes, and that are non-obtrusive and simple to wear (Picard uses an example of the iCalm sensor) emotional responses can be more accurately observed in a real life. She also argues against nomothetic research over idiographic research when it comes to studying emotions claiming that an individualized approach would be more fruitful than just throwing out data when a group correlation is not found. In this way, data from individuals could still be kept and analyzed and then paired (not averaged) with data clusters that were similar.
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Baron-Cohen says a strength of this theory lies in its power to explain one of the core features of autism (the social and communication difficulties), but a limitation of the mindblindness theory is that it ignored the other main domain in autism (unusually narrow interests and highly repetitive behaviors, also called 'resistance to change or need for sameness'). To address this, Baron-Cohen put forward the E–S theory. Such a distinction can be traced back to two different but almost contemporary origins. On the one hand strictly epistemological, to the German historicism which, with Droysen, Dilthey, Windelband, and Rickert, formulated the separation between idiographic and nomothetic method, verstehen and erklären, Geisteswissenschaften and Naturwissenschaften, separation still subject to dispute until 1970 in the so-called Positivismusstreit between the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Habermas), supporter of the Kritische Theorie, and the Kritischer Rationalismus (Popper, Albert).
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Hannah Arendt stated that Immanuel Kant distinguished between Vernunft ("reason") and Verstand ("intellect"): these two categories are equivalents of "the urgent need of" reason, and the "mere quest and desire for knowledge". Differentiating between reason and intellect, or the need to reason and the quest for knowledge, as Kant has done, according to Arendt "coincides with a distinction between two altogether different mental activities, thinking and knowing, and two altogether different concerns, meaning, in the first category, and cognition, in the second". These ideas were also developed by Kantian philosopher, Wilhelm Windelband, in his discussion of the approaches to knowledge named "nomothetic" and "idiographic". Kant's insight to start differentiating between approaches to knowledge that attempt to understand meaning (derived from reason), on the one hand, and to derive laws (on which knowledge is based), on the other, started to make room for "speculative thought" (which in this case, is not seen as a negative aspect, but rather an indication that knowledge and the effort to derive laws to explain objective phenomena has been separated from thinking).
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