Question

Of the issues identified by Dean Simonton
• Choose two of these three issues: genius versus zeitgeist as causal agents, quality versus quantity in phenomena, and idiographic versus nomothetic interpretations, Explain the two issues you chose in more depth. For each of these issues explain the meaning of the terms, the impact on the study of psychology each has. Include examples of individuals, concepts, or ideas, to enhance your presentation.

Answer 1

• The quality of the object is revealed in the sum-total of its properties. The unity of properties is, in fact, quality. Thus an overall definition of the quality of a thing or phenomenon is a definition of the thing as a system with a certain structure. The nature of a thing is revealed in its properties, which constitute the mode of the object's relationship with other things. It is thanks to their properties that things interact. A thing has the property of evoking one or another action in something else and of manifesting itself in its own way in relation to other things.
• Quantity expresses the external, formal relation of objects, their parts, their properties, their connections, number, dimension, set, element (unit), individual, class, degree of manifestation of this or that property.
• In order to establish the quantitative aspect of an object we compare its constituent elements— spatial measurements, rate of change, degree of development, using a certain standard as a unit of computation or measurement. The more complex the phenomenon, the more difficult it is to study it by quantitative methods.
• For example, it is not so simple to count or measure phenomena in the sphere of morality, politics, aesthetic perception of the world, religion and so on. So the process of getting to know the real world both historically and logically takes place in such a way that knowledge of quality precedes knowledge of quantitative relations.
• Historical narratives have historically been qualitative rather than quantitative.The numbers are almost exclusively confined to dates, and even these dates are only handles for conveying the sequence and location of people and events in the flow of history. In contrast, scientific investigations are far more inclined to stress the quantitative aspects of phenomena.
• Gordon Allport (1937) made much of the distinction between the idiographic and the nomothetic. History is an idiographic enterprise, full of particulars, intimately tied to specifics. Science is a nomothetic enterprise, dedicated to abstractions and generalizations that transcend the particular and specific. Psychology, as a science, has strongly allied itself with the nomothetic, with the search for general laws of cognition, emotion, and behavior. The history of psychology, in contrast, has dedicated itself to the idiographic, with the narration and interpretation of the unique and often unlawful.
• The term “nomothetic” comes from the Greek word “nomos” meaning “law”. Psychologists who adopt this approach are mainly concerned with studying what we share with others. That is to say in establishing laws or generalizations.
• The term “idiographic” comes from the Greek word “idios” meaning “own” or “private”. Psychologists interested in this aspect of experience want to discover what makes each of us unique.
• The idiographic approach to personality suggests that we each possess a unique psychological structure. Certain traits, or combinations of traits, might be held by just one person, and therefore it is impossible to compare people like for like. This approach nestles within the study of individual differences and therefore relies on Case Study research.
• The nomothetic approach looks for similarities between individuals. What is it that makes us (as a species) human. Nomothetic researchers study traits, which are assumed to have the same psychological effects for everyone; individual differences are accounted for as variations along a commonly shared scale for each measurable trait or quality. Nomothetic researchers all share an assumption that individuals share a series of traits in common, and therefore they aim to discover the basis of these common traits, for example considering biological and environmental determinants and contributory factors affecting personality.