The nomothetic approach in personality testing

The Nomothetic procedure is an approach to personality examination. The term originates from the Ancient greek language word “nomos” which means legislation. In an on-line dictionary homothetic is defined as “giving or creating laws”. Look for universal laws and regulations of behaviour. It is depending on traditional, traditional science. In psychology the nomothetic procedure focuses on many people, trying to find regularities or laws between people. The strategy was recommended by a German philosopher Wilhelm Windelband in the 19th 100 years.

The American psychologist, Gordon Allport (1937) looked at these two major methods to study individuality, the nomothetic and the idiographic.

Nomothetic psychology looks for general laws that can be applied to many different people, including the factor of sensing, or the trait of openness.

Persona is thought to be determined generally by both equally genetics and nature, simply by environment and experiences, or perhaps by mix of the two. There is evidence for all those possibilities. Contemporary research suggests that most nature are based on the influence of both character and nurture.

The nomothetic approach in regards to the nature-nurture debate presumes that personality is mainly inherited, as opposed to being nurtured. The approach requires the study of types or characteristics of one’s specific in personality research and assessment.

A characteristic is a repeated pattern such as always getting untidy or late. Advocates generally assume that traits will be fairly secure over time, which traits will vary among people.

A type is defined by dominant choice. People are either extrovert or perhaps introvert. The two traits happen to be discontinuous, we. e. you cannot find any in between. What this means is people may be extrovert or perhaps introvert over a continuous level. The idea is the fact we all have got personality traits in pairs of opposite qualities.

The nomothetic approach perceives people while unique inside their combination of attributes, only within a certain paradigm. People change only for the amount they will have on each trait. Basically everyone suits within a certain set of attributes but change by measuring differently in each characteristic. The combination of the characteristics then come together to describe a personality.

The sort of personality assessments used by managers following the nomothetic approach is usually a self survey questionnaire which often consists of shut questions. The nomothetic approach is more of the assessment associated with an individual who is usually compared to several individuals as opposed to the idiographic approach where the examination looks at the person regardless of other folks (more around the idiographic strategy will be mentioned latter on).

For years theorists have been trying to find the right attribute clusters to be able to measure individuality. Psychometric testing which is targeted on trait and type ideas uses the nomothetic procedure. This is because psychometric testing quantifies the character attributes with standardised rules.

Several attribute theorists use the nomothetic way. Hans Jurgen Eysenck (1916-1997) approach used the nomothetic approach. He believed that each individual held a number of well-known traits. He came up with the primary three element model (P-E-N), the extraversion-introversion ‘E’ (sociability and unsociability) dimension plus the neuroticism-stability ‘N’ (emotionally unstable and stable) dimension. This individual added another dimension ‘P’ in the 70’s this aspect was known as the psychoticism dimension. He believed that people using a high L had improved vulnerability to psychoses and schizophrenia.

Raymond Cattell came up with a trait theory known as the 16 Personality Factors (16PF). The top five personality traits are based on Cattell’s 16 PF. The 16PF Questionnaire is a self report test that measures the sixteen individuality dimensions.

Lewis Goldberg recommended a five-dimension personality version, nicknamed the “Big Five”: The Big Five consists of five main nature: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (OCEAN). You will discover self query tests intended for the big five and once the tests are completed it gives the subject a score on each in the big five traits. The Big Five test also gets into line together with the nomothetic way in the sense that it is a quick personal test customer survey which is quantitative. Each solution made in test is a sealed answer and so the manager can get answers to be within a specific paradigm instead of an open questions test in which the subject can provide any randomly answer the fact that manager is not planning on.

The nomothetic approach is also dominant in Type hypotheses such as the Jung personality type theory. The theory was founded simply by Jung in his book psychological types, that was published in 1921. Isabel Myers and her mother Katharine C. Briggs designed a individuality type check by constructing the Myers-Briggs Type Indication (MBTI) based on Jung’s theory. The original theory consists of three functions, the introversion – extroversion function, the sensing – intuition function as well as the thinking – feeling function. Isabel Myers Katharine Briggs added a fourth function: perceiving – judging. This MBTI type model differs from trait models as the MBTI tells us that a person is either 1 type or the other. There are no in betweens like there is in trait hypotheses. Type hypotheses go in line with the nomothetic approach since it is possible to compare outcomes with other folks.

Some managers may argue that there is even more to individuality assessment compared to the nomothetic strategy, not everything is as straight forward as it seems. It is because theorists/scientists believe that not everybody’s personality is a certain dimensions and cannot be regarded as an aligned set of qualities. Some theorists tend to believe not everybody are associated with the big five and in serious cases some individuals may not even include personality traits within the big five! Theorists and managers who also back the nomothetic approach believe that with all the results from the self-report forms it is possible to generalise the results they get. Which means that when a manager has numerous results with the test then he could discover what is the ‘norm’ by averaging the ratings and then make use of it to determine in the event future staff have the necessary traits necessary for the job. Mangers may also believe this approach is at line with traditional clinical approaches which were around intended for generations.

The nomothetic way has been rebuked by numerous theorists since they believe it is just a quick and cheap procedure towards individuality testing without any real specific grasp with the actual persona of the individual. There are alternative methods to the nomothetic approach, usually the one being the idiographic way. The main part of the idiographic approach is the fact it does not check out a group of persons but in an individual to study their uniqueness and your life experiences regardless of the others. Idiographic psychology can be an attempt to know the unique facets of a particular specific.

The idiographic approach uses case study and psychoanalysis strategies in detail. Some managers might prefer this method because the idiographic approach to personality examination is much more qualitative in the sense which it grasps the employee’s personality much more in more detail. The idiographic approach is line with Sigmund’s Freud’s psychoanalysis school because Freud believed that people developing individuality were even more through nurture which means that individuals are totally unpredictable due to battle between the id, spirit and superego. Managers who also follow the idiographic approach could use qualitative method of assessing individuality by strategies such as circumstance studies. Managers who make use of the nomothetic approach may dismiss the idiographic procedure as too costly and frustrating. By using the idiographic approach it is hard for managers to make estimations on the long term from previous results since it is non-standardised.

The idiographic way may be rebuked by advocates and managers who stick to the nomothetic approach because ideographic methods in many cases are non-standardised making replication tough or extremely hard. On the other hand several business managers may choose to idiographic way because case study methods catch and describe changes that happen over a period of time instead of taking a present ‘snapshot’. Regardless of criticisms the nomothetic way may be desired by managers because as i have said before it really is quick, right to the point, simple to generalise, simple to replicate and standardised. They can study workers and see if they happen to be suitable as the self-report customer survey is compared to “the correct employee”.

In my opinion the nomothetic approach may be useful to managers from growing countries just like China and India. This may be because of the growing demand for labour in supplementary and tertiary sectors where managers may need to have a quick and low cost way of selecting and employing employees. In certain sort of societies where there is relatively popular for specialist workers (e. g. New york, City of London) businesses are in a position to spend more time and focus on every interviewee, the idiographic procedure towards individuality assessment can be used alongside the nomothetic way. Some managers may even disregard both strategies and make use of their own approach since they have their disadvantages. Their own way could be employing their own strategies towards personality assessment; they will could even come up with their own hypotheses.

We should understand that personality is an extremely complex concern and advocates and experts keep looking to understand it. However , managers from organisations may use various individuality assessments resulted from constant research simply by theorists and scientists.

References:

Huczynski, A. A. and Buchanan, G. A. (2007) Organizational behavior: An initial text. 6th ed., Harlow: Financial Instances Prentice Lounge.

Google book search. An intro to theories of character. [online] (accessed 01/12/2008) http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ks0DzfrQIW8C&pg=PA262&lpg=PA262&dq=nomothetic+approach+personality&source=web&ots=Oi10-hTY5e&sig=ToUWUQOv8zJqTflPBl3kT5_50Kc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA263,M1Simply Psychology. Mental debate. [online] (accessed 01/12/2008) http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/nomotheticWilderdom. Personality Traits: Idiographic vs . Nomothetic. [online[ (accessed 02/12/2008) http://wilderdom.com/personality/traits/PersonalityTraitsIdiographicNomothetic.htmlCran Psyche. Idiographic compared to nomothetic methods to psychology. [online] (accessed 02/12/2008) http://www.cranepsych.com/Psych/Idiographic_versus_nomothetic.pdfCrozier, G.

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