PSYC 3550 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Nomothetic, Behaviorism, Longitudinal Study
19 Apr 2013
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The approach of investigating large groups of people in order to find general laws of behaviour that apply to everyone. Nomos= laws in ancient greek; this approach assumes that an individual is a complex combination of many universal laws; it is best to study people on a large scale. Quantitative experimental methods are best to identify the universal laws governing behaviour. The individual will be classified with others and measured as a score upon a dimension, or be a statistic supporting a general principle ( averaging"). The nomothetic approach is the main approach within scientifically oriented psychology: behaviourism: experiments with animals (rats, cats and pigeons) Skinner e. g. social psychology: milgram e. g. used the nomothetic approach and made general conclusions on the basis of his research. Psychological theories that propose generalised principles of behaviour have nomothetic assumptions (e. g. intelligence theory of iq) Dsm-iv classify people according to particular types of disorders.
