Personality is a set of behaviors, cognitive traits and emotional patterns that supports the thinking abilities of the people. The identification of the psychological traits of the individuals is supported through suitable study of personality. The identification of different high level personality types has helped in identifying the diverse mentalities of the individuals. The different personality traits drive the activities that are undertaken by the people in the di0fferent contexts. Therefore, the identification of the personality in the different situations play an important role in identifying the position of the individual in the social forum.
The personalities help in defining the mental setup and the cognitive aspects of a person. The discussion in this connection will be delving deeper into the Nomothetic and Idiographic theories and thereby witness the different strengths and weaknesses of the same. Generalization of the human behavioral elements and the application of the theories in the specific contexts contribute to the understanding of the human psychology. The purpose of undertaking the discussion is to identify the different key elements of the theories and the manner in which they help in understanding the human personality more vividly.
The theory is based on the understanding of the law that governs the human psychological traits as a whole. The Nomothetic theory is based on the identification of the law of generalizations, which affects the psychological traits of the people while operating in the different outsets. Bluemke and Friese (2012) stated that the application of the Nomothetic theory helps in maintaining the congruency between the functions that are undertaken by the people in different situations and thereby predict their reactions based on general psychological laws. The theory has helped in making different assumptions in order to study the nature of human behavior. The theory clearly manifests the manner in which the personality is portrayed in the society. It has helped in understanding the collective nature of personality in an unbiased manner. The identification of the personality traits of the people in a collective manner has helped in maintaining the proficiency of the study (Machotka, 2012).
The strengths of the Nomothetic theory is based on the universality of the behavioral setup of the people. It has helped in identifying the psychologies in a collective and more speculative manner. Moreover, Eckensberger (2015) opined that the application of the approach has helped the researchers in understanding the different sets of mentalities of people while undertaking simple interactions with the same. The highly scientific nature of the research is one of the major positive points of undertaking the Nomothetic approach as it helps the researcher in undertaking an unbiased research through the utilization of reliable data sources. Lamiell (2014) stated that the predictability that is offered by the approach has helped most of the researchers in culminating into a conclusion while studying the human psychological bindings as an objective. The identification of the cause and its relative effects on the behavior of the people is identified through the Nomothetic approach which has helped in developing different images of the human psyche.
However, apart from all the positivity there is different weaknesses that affects the Nomothetic approach. Fajkowska (2015) stated that the Nomothetic approach disregards the subjective experience of the people which might affect the means of understanding the vulnerable psyche that is contained by the individuals. Moreover, the generalization of the theories has affected the understanding of the psychological standpoints of the individuals. Lack of ecological validity and the incapability to measure the psychology of the individuals works as a constraining factor for the personality and behavioral study.
IBM applied the Nomothetic approach while identifying the personality traits in the candidates while undertaking recruitments. The overall criteria of the candidates were based on the asserted job roles that were pronounced to the same. The Nomothetic approach helped IBM in maintaining the efficacy of the recruitment functions as per the objectives of the business. It has helped the organization in choosing the suitable candidates as per their preferential criteria. The application of the approach has helped the organization in maintaining the efficacy of the recruitment functions as per the objectives of the business (Phelps, 2015).
Woolworths also utilized the Nomothetic approach in order to measure the buying behavior of the people while promoting their products in the different parts of the world. Personality, cognition and the specific aspects of the behavioral assessments has helped the organization in making an outspread in the different parts of the world as per the needs of the customers (Steele, Ferrer & Nesselroade, 2014).
The Idiographic theory has helped in identifying the subjective nature of the individual personality traits. Poropat and Corr (2015) stated that the identification of the uniqueness of people while conducting the review on their specific personality types has helped in maintaining the proficiency of the study. The theory has helped in identifying the specific personality traits of the people on an individualistic basis. It has helped in maintaining the congruency and thereby create a more naturalistic outcome of the personality study. The individualistic study helps while conducting surveys on the different personality traits that drive the activities of the people. On the other hand, the subjective nature of the study helps in understanding the nature of behavior and personalities, which form a part of the psychological elements of the people. The approach has helped in identifying the position of personality development in the individuals. The individualism that is manifested through the portrayal of the same through the approach has helped in identifying the personality and mental growth of the individuals.
The potentiality of the Idiographic theory is mostly due to its subjective nature, which varies from person- to- person. The study purely coincides with the humanistic approach where the different human related psychological factors are considered for conducting the personality analysis. It helps in delving deeper into the mindset of the individuals. Sartori and Ceschi (2013) stated that unlike the Nomothetic approach, the Idiographic approach is realistic and is based on the interpretation of the personality of the people in more detailed manner. The potentiality of the approach is based on the identification of the different behaviors and thereby discriminates between them through thorough observation. Observing the people will be helping in identifying the personality traits like extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience (Picione, 2015).
However, Beltz et al. (2016) noted that the Idiographic approach is unable to generalize the personality traits due to its smaller sampling size. It focuses on studying the individual’s behavioral traits as per the objectives of the business. On the other hand, the lack of scientific thinking and biases affects the study of the personalities. It affects the suitable nature of the study of personalities. Idiographic approach is time consuming as it studies the personality traits of the individuals. The uniqueness of the different personalities that are held by the people forms the major part of the study while identifying the specific behavioral traits of the people.
Apple Inc. applies the Idiographic approach while judging the capabilities of the employees based on the innovativeness criteria. The Idiographic approach thereby helps the organization in identifying the most innovative employee through counseling and sessions. The application of the Idiographic approach in the organizational management has helped the organization in judging the capabilities of the employees in a detailed manner. It has helped the organization in maintaining the efficacy of the functions as the employees are divided in the different departments through the assessment of their capabilities and personalities (Castro-Schilo & Ferrer, 2013). The individualism has helped the organization in empowering and motivating the employees in order to bring in changes in the systems of the business while operating in the international markets.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be stated that the personality is based on the different cognition and behavioral aspects and the manner in which people reacts to different situations. However, the personalities differ from person- to- person and thereby there are different approaches in order to judge the personality traits of the people. In this connection, the discussion enumerates the Nomothetic and Idiographic approaches. The Nomothetic approach is based on a more generalized form of studying the personality of humans. The Nomothetic approach is dependent more on a objectivity on the notion of understanding the general personality traits of the people at large. On the other hand, Idiographic approach delves deeper into the study of individualistic personality. The subjectivity of the approach has helped in making the study more specific based on smaller sample sizes. There are different strengths and weaknesses that are enumerated in the discussion, which clearly shows the applicability of the approaches in the different situations. The real life examples, portrayed as a part of the discussion also helps in identifying the different situations where the approaches might be applied. The identification of the different personality traits of the [people through collectivism or individualism will be helping to understand the different aspects of the activities that are undertaken by the same.
References
Beltz, A. M., Wright, A. G., Sprague, B. N., & Molenaar, P. C. (2016). Bridging the nomothetic and idiographic approaches to the analysis of clinical data. Assessment, 23(4), 447-458.
Bluemke, M., & Friese, M. (2012). On the validity of idiographic and generic self?concept implicit association tests: A core?concept model. European Journal of Personality, 26(5), 515-528.
Castro-Schilo, L., & Ferrer, E. (2013). Comparison of nomothetic versus idiographic-oriented methods for making predictions about distal outcomes from time series data. Multivariate behavioral research, 48(2), 175-207.
Eckensberger, L. H. (2015). Integrating the emic (indigenous) with the etic (universal)—A case of squaring the circle or for adopting a culture inclusive action theory perspective. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45(1), 108-140.
Fajkowska, M. (2015). The complex-system approach to personality: Main theoretical assumptions. Journal of Research in Personality, 56, 15-32.
Lamiell, J. (2014). Nomothetic and idiographic approaches. Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology, 1248-1253.
Machotka, P. (2012). Understanding aesthetic and creative processes: The complementarity of idiographic and nomothetic data. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6(1), 43.
Phelps, B. J. (2015). Behavioral perspectives on personality and self. The Psychological Record, 65(3), 557-565.
Picione, R. D. L. (2015). The idiographic approach in psychological research. The challenge of overcoming old distinctions without risking to homogenize. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 49(3), 360-370.
Poropat, A. E., & Corr, P. J. (2015). Thinking bigger: The Cronbachian paradigm & personality theory integration. Journal of Research in Personality, 56, 59-69.
Sartori, R., & Ceschi, A. (2013). Assessment and development centers: judgment biases and risks of using idiographic and nomothetic approaches to collecting information on people to be evaluated and trained in organizations. Quality & Quantity, 47(6), 3277-3288.
Steele, J. S., Ferrer, E., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2014). An idiographic approach to estimating models of dyadic interactions with differential equations. Psychometrika, 79(4), 675-700.
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