The Effectiveness of Nomothetic Methods in Personality Psychology

Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Psychology - Personality Psychology, grade: 2,3, University of Warwick (Dept. of Psychology), course: Individual Differences, language: English, abstract: This essay aims to prove the effectiveness of nomothetic approaches in personality research and general applicability. It will not ignore the advantages of idiographic methods but then emphasize the theoretical pre-eminence and empirical benefits of nomothetic ideas. Evaluation strategies based on L. A. Pervin and Maltby et al. shall answer the question why desired outcomes are being achieved more frequently by the nomothetic paradigm. Finally, this paper should demonstrate that in dealing with the complexity of human personalities, profound investigations might sometimes be more interesting but almost never more effective.