Topic
Nomothetic and idiographic
About: Nomothetic and idiographic is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 882 publications have been published within this topic receiving 35534 citations.
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Book•
01 Dec 1968
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the acquired meaning of stimuli and on the situation as perceived, viewing the individual as a cognitive-affective being who construes, interprets, and transforms the stimulus in a dynamic reciprocal interaction with the social world.
Abstract: After many "out-of-print" years, this volume has been reissued in response to an increasing demand for copies. This reflects that the fundamental questions that motivated this book thirty years ago are still being asked. But more important, the answers -- or at least their outlines -- now seem to be in sight. In 1968, this book stood as an expression of a paradigm crisis in its critique of the state of personality psychology. The last three decades have been filled with controversy and debate about the dilemmas raised here, and then with renewal and fresh discoveries. It therefore seems especially timely to revisit the pages which posed the challenges. Mischel outlined the need to encompass the situation in the study of personality, but with a focus on the acquired meaning of stimuli and on the situation as perceived, viewing the individual as a cognitive-affective being who construes, interprets, and transforms the stimulus in a dynamic reciprocal interaction with the social world. He focused on the idiographic analysis of personality that had originally motivated the field, and the complexity, discriminative facility, and uniqueness of the individual, and sought to connect the expressions of personality to the individual's behavior -- that is, to what people do and not just what they say. Even the intrinsically contextualized "if...then..." expressions of the personality system -- its essential behavioral signatures -- were foreshadowed in this book that fired the opening salvo in a search for "a truly dynamic personality psychology."
3,904 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that the direct consequences of the classical ergodic theorems for psychology and psychometrics invalidate this conjectured generalizability: only under very strict conditions-which are hardly obtained in real psychological processes-can a generalization be made from a structure of interindividual variation to the analogous structure of intraindividual variation.
1,344 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the nomothetic assumptions of the traditional research paradigm are incorrect and that by adopting some of the idiographic assumptions employed by our intuitions, higher cross-situational correlation coefficients can be obtained.
Abstract: The historically recurring controversy over the existence of cross-situational consistencies in behavior is sustained by the discrepancy between our intuitions, which affirm their existence, and the research literature, which does not. It is argued that the nomothetic assumptions of the traditional research paradigm are incorrect and that by adopting some of the idiographic assumptions employed by our intuitions, higher cross-situational correlation coefficients can be obtained. A study is reported which shows that it is possible to identify on a priori grounds those individuals who will be crosssituationally consistent and those who will not, and it is concluded that not only must personality assessment attend to situations—as has been recently urged—but to persons as well.
1,272 citations
TL;DR: Action research is an established research method in use in the social and medical sciences since the mid-twentieth century, and has increased in importance for information systems toward the end of the 1990s.
Abstract: Action research is an established research method in use in the social and medical sciences since the mid-twentieth century, and has increased in importance for information systems toward the end of the 1990s. Its particular philosophic context is couched in strongly post-positivist assumptions such as idiographic and interpretive research ideals. Action research has developed a history within information systems that can be explicitly linked to early work by Lewin and the Tavistock Institute. Action research varies in form, and responds to particular problem domains. The most typical form is a participatory method based on a five-step model, which is exemplified by published IS research.
1,257 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the role of approach and avoidance motivation in models of personality and found that they represent the foundation of several basic dimensions espoused in the trait adjective, affective disposition, and motivational system approaches to personality.
Abstract: The present research examined the role of approach and avoidance motivation in models of personality. Specifically, it examined the hypothesis that approach and avoidance temperaments represent the foundation of several basic dimensions espoused in the trait adjective, affective disposition, and motivational system approaches to personality. Factor analytic support for the hypothesis was obtained in Studies 1, 2, and 6; measures of extraversion, positive emotionality, and behavioral activation system loaded together on 1 factor (Approach Temperament) and measures of neuroticism, negative emotionality, and behavioral inhibition system loaded on another factor (Avoidance Temperament). This 2-factor structure was shown to be independent of response biases. In Studies 3-7, approach and avoidance temperaments were shown to be systematically linked to achievement goals (both nomothetic and idiographic). The findings are discussed in terms of an integrative approach to personality.
1,234 citations