7. Nomothetic and Idiographic Approaches: Continued

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think further about nomothetic and idiographic approaches to research, focusing in particular on: (i) a key research issue in psychology being that it focuses on events over time and in history, which are subject to continual, complicated, causal change; (ii) the strategy used in nomothetic research to attempt to overcome this, which is to utilise statistics and averages; (iii) Milgram’s study investigating obedience, wherein social context was removed for the participants; (iv) key social contexts which were then manipulated in replication studies, which impacted participant obedience; (v) Milgram’s motivation to develop a nomothetic theory of obedience; (vi) an idiographic assessment of the order to defend one’s country, which could be obeyed by citizens for many reasons.

Course

In this course, Dr Metodi Siromahov (University College London) explores some historic debates in psychology. In the first lecture, we think about the history of the free will versus determinism debate and the origins of psychological theory. In the second lecture, we think about some modern viewpoints on this debate, including drawing similarities between behaviourism with cognitive psychology. In the third lecture, we think about social constructivism and the impact of culture and environment on our thought processes. Next, we think about reductionism versus holism, including a contrast between Freudian theory and humanistic psychology. In the fifth lecture, we think about religion as an example for which holistic and reductionist theories can be applied. In the sixth lecture, we think about the definitions and impacts of nomothetic and idiographic approaches to research. In the seventh lecture, we think further about these research approaches, including some key criticisms and examples. In the eighth and final lecture, we review two studies which approach the topic of nationalism from a nomothetic and idiographic view respectively.

Lecturer

Dr Metodi Siromahov is a lecturer in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London. Dr Siromahov’s research interests are in historical controversies and debates within social psychology, and the application of these to understanding political ideologies. Dr Siromahov’s recent publications include 'Beliefs in national continuity are related to essentialist thinking and to perceptions of the nation as a family' (2020) and 'Mapping visual spatial prototypes: Multiple reference frames shape visual memory' (2020).