Idiographic goals and methods in the study of lives

Journal of Personality
Wm McKinley Runyan

Abstract

The goal of psychology is "the development of generalizations of ever increasing scope, so that greater and greater varieties of phenomena may be explained by them, larger and larger numbers of questions answered by them, and broader and broader reaching predictions and decisions based upon them." Leon Levy (1970, p. 5) "To generalize is to be an idiot." William Blake ABSTRACT: Learning what is true of persons-in-general and of groups of people often has severe limitations in enabling us to understand and predict the behavior of individuals. There are many important problems in describing, explaining, making predictions about, and intentionally changing the course of experience in individual lives that cannot be adequately addressed without the use of idiographic methods. The purposes of this paper are to contribute to a conceptual clarification of the idiographic approach and its place within psychology, to review and respond to a number of common criticisms of the idiographic approach, and finally, to update and extend Allport's survey of available idiographic methods.

References

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Citations

Sep 1, 1991·Journal of Personality·S G West, J T Hepworth
Dec 20, 1999·Crisis·R C O'ConnorD B O'Connor
Mar 4, 1998·Journal of Personality·D P McAdams, S G West
Nov 14, 2003·The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences·Karen Hooker, Dan P McAdams
Jun 1, 1990·Family Process·L FisherD C Ransom
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·Stephen G West
Sep 1, 1992·The Journal of Psychology·H J Hermans
Oct 9, 2002·Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. Supplementum·C D Bilsbury, A Richman
Jun 22, 2006·Journal of Personality·James W GriceBrenda L McDaniel
May 1, 2014·Multivariate Behavioral Research·Joseph E Gonzales, Emilio Ferrer

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