Nomothetic Approach

The nomothetic approach is a research method that employs general rules (laws) to describe group differences or even individual differences, also known as general rule research. The fundamental assumption of the nomothetic approach is that people represent complex combinations of laws, and these laws are applicable to everyone. For instance, personality psychologists employing the nomothetic approach believe that all human personalities can be characterized within a few dimensions, such as traits. Simultaneously, they assert that individual differences manifest through the variation in an individual’s scores on each dimension. The primary objective of psychology is to establish universal theories about the rules governing human psychology and behavior. Consequently, the nomothetic approach has become a hallmark of psychological research. The task of the nomothetic approach involves determining the “average” or typical response of a group by examining a large number of subjects (Fig. 1)...