Evaluate the idiographic v nomothetic approach in psychology

A strength of taking a nomothetic view is that it may provide a more scientific explanation than the idiographic approach. The processes involved in nomothetic research tend to be more scientific (e.g. testing under standardised conditions, using data sets that provide group averages) This makes it possible to conduct studies in a reliable way. Furthermore, this also allows theories to be generated, which gives psychology greater credibility. It can also have practical applications through the development of treatments which can lead people to overcoming mental illnesses. However, it has been criticised for being over-simplistic and is often viewed as an incomplete explanation to describe the complexity of human behaviour. The focus of the nomothetic approach in establishing general laws and making predictions has been accused of losing the 'whole person'. Furthermore, in lab studies, individuals are treated as a set of scores rather than a person, which ignores their subjective experience and overlooks the richness of human experience. However, a limitation of taking an idiographic view is that it prevents psychologists from creating theories, and the results cannot be generalised to other people in the population, as there is no baseline to compare behaviour to. Also, the methods used in idiographic research are very subjective and therefore often open to researcher bias. If a psychologist took a purely idographic approach, they would never produce useful theories. Therefore, in order to produce the best theories, researchers should consider using both a nomothetic and an idiographic approach.