PSYC 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Scatter Plot, Descriptive Statistics, Nomothetic
11 Jan 2017
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Research in psychology: three levels of analysis (individuals can be analyzed at three levels): Human nature (we are like all others) Group differences (we are like some others) Individual uniqueness (we are like no others) *we will never be able to predict behaviour with absolute certainty* Research in psychology: there is a debate within psychology regarding whether we should conduct nomothetic or. Idiographic research ( the description of one ) typically focuses on a single subject, trying to observe general principles that are manifest in a single life over time (i. e. case studies). Learning, in rich detail, about one person. Doesn"t tell you about any other person. Cannot make any inference on next person you study. No generalization: nomothetic research typically involves statistical comparisons of individuals or groups, requiring samples of subjects on which to conduct research. Typically applied to identify universal human characteristics and dimensions of individual or group differences.
