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My aim in this paper is to articulate and challenge a Foucauldian critique of scientific naturalism, and, in particular, a Foucauldian critique of the nomothetic framework underlying the Placement Problem. What I hope to achieve is to bring Foucauldian post-structuralist theory into the conversation concerning scientific naturalism and the Placement Problem. My Foucauldian post-structuralist critique of scientific naturalism questions the relations between our society’s imbrication of economic-political power structures and knowledge in such a way that also effects some constructive critical alignment between Foucault and Habermas, helping to undermine the traditional view of their respective social critiques as incompatible. First, I will outline a brief genealogical backstory for the rise of scientific naturalism, and I will then reconstruct the Placement Problem. In the second part of the paper, I introduce Foucault’s notion of pouvoir-savoir (‘power-knowledge’), namely his account of the interconnection between power and knowledge. I then go on to articulate the Foucauldian critique of scientific naturalism by arguing that the levelling nature of nomothetic rationality and its conservative naturalistic vocabulary involves regulative discourse: anything that resists placeability/locatability is labelled ‘odd’. By being thus visibly marked, ‘odd’ phenomena become ‘queer’ phenomena, which then become ‘problematic’ phenomena. They are, thereby, construed in need of discipline (and even punishment). Understood in this Foucauldian way, the most pressing problem with the disciplinary framework of scientific naturalism is that the erasure of the sui generis features of the normative space of reasons amounts to a debilitating variety of alienation in which humanity is estranged from its pluralist matrix of sense-making practices. Thus, scientific naturalist disciplinarity produces subjected and practised minds, ‘docile’ minds.

In the critical tradition, environmental education discourse interrogates how knowledge constructs experience. But environmental education also emphasises perceiving, understanding and responding to “more-than-human” beings and processes. These two motivations are in tension. One problem is that the epistemological orientation driving the critique of knowledge seems to render access to something more-than-human a priori impossible. But environmental education squanders its promise and its dream if only ever permitted to talk about the natural world with scarequotes. Our field urgently needs to develop a realism robust against epistemologies that construct impassable barriers between humans and the rest of creation. I propose that this starts with radically reconceiving the nature and relationship between similarity and difference, interpreted in this article as the dynamic between theme and variations. Reworking Windelband’s distinction between idiographic and nomothetic research, I suggest that the relationship between theme and variation manifests a fundamental ontological pattern that pervades all things. “Theme and variation” proposes a unifying metaphysical duality in which the more-than-human reveals itself in how things suggest, conform to, modulate, and violate generalisation. Acknowledging and investigating this is part of restoring to other beings and processes their metaphysical, aesthetic, and ethical status, from the skies to the psyche.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine mechanisms underlying disparities in pain management among patients with psychological comorbidities. Studies have consistently shown that health care providers, health care trainees, and laypeople are susceptible to biased assessment and treatment decisions for patients presenting with pain. Further, psychological factors may influence the use of demographic and behavioral cues in pain assessment and treatment decisions. The present study employed innovative virtual human technology to capture decision-making approaches at both the group- and individual-level to better elucidate the influence of psychological factors, demographic cues, and pain-related body postures on pain assessment and treatment decisions. Patients and methods One hundred and thirty-two providers and trainees in the areas of nursing, physical therapy, and medicine viewed separate, empirically validated virtual human profiles that systematically varied across pain behaviors, anxiety status, race, and sex. Participants provided pain assessment and treatment ratings using a visual analog scale for each virtual human profile. Results Idiographic analyses revealed that participants used patient pain-related body postures most consistently and reliably across ratings. Nomothetic analyses showed anxious virtual humans were identified as having more anxiety and more likely to be recommended anti-anxiety medications, especially by female participants. Conclusion This innovative study successfully explored the influence of patient pain-related body postures, anxiety status, and demographic characteristics on pain management decisions with virtual human technology and a Lens model design. Results of this study can be used to better inform clinical practice, research, and education regarding the influence of patient variables on pain assessment and treatment decisions.

The two present nomothetic studies focused on the period from 1996 to 2012 to determine relations between handedness and political orientation using the 48 contiguous American states as analytical units. The estimated percentage of left-handers in each state operationally defined handedness. A composite measure of Conservative-Republican preference was created from CBS/New York Times/Gallup polls of state resident conservatism and the percent in each state voting Republican in each presidential election from 1996 to 2012. Study 1 showed that state levels of left-handedness correlated to an extremely high degree with Conservative-Republican preference (r = -.80). As well, with common demographic differences between states reflected in socioeconomic status, White population percent, and urban population percent controlled through multiple regression, handedness still accounted for an additional 37.2% of the variance in Conservative-Republican preference. Study 2 found that each of the Big Five personality variables correlated significantly with handedness and with Conservative-Republican preference, but in the opposite direction. Furthermore, Study 2 demonstrated quite surprisingly that all Big Five personality relations to Conservative-Republican preference were eliminated when handedness was controlled in multiple regression equations. For all regression equations, the global Moran's I test specifically developed for detecting residual spatial autocorrelation indicated no significant spatial autocorrelation.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the dimensions of employee engagement of a crusie ship work force.Design/Methods/Approach: This study is based on qualitative research and as such is associated with the nomothetic (associated with the law) explanation. Employees were asked questions from a questionnaire which covered the dimensions of engagement on the basis of existing scientific literature.Findings: Observing employee engagement on a cruise ship, this study showed that Communication and progress, Capacity to engage, Engaged behaviour and Trust and feeling of freedom are dimensions that have influence on the employee engagement of a cruise ship work force.Research limitations: The generalisation of the findings is limited and it is not possible to derive a general conclusion due to the sample profile (single cruise company).Originality/value: This research, in the author's best knowledge, is a pioneering work. So, further testing and improvement is necessary.

The study of civil war has increased exponentially during the post-Cold War period. This has not, however, resulted in greater levels of consensus with regard to the causes and nature of this phenomenon. Indeed, as Jonathan Goodhand has shown, the conflict studies discipline is currently experiencing something of a ‘crisis of theory as well as a crisis of practice’ (2006, 29). This article aims to show, however, that this situation can be alleviated by drawing on the critical realist approach to the philosophy of science. This is the case, in short, because critical realism provides conflict studies authors with a more sophisticated and coherent understanding of causality than has previously been available to them. More specifically, it has developed a mechanism-based understanding of causality which transcends the persistent split between (1) nomothetically-oriented (or ‘universal law-oriented’) approaches, predominantly associated with the work of various neo-positivist authors, and (2) idiographically-oriented (or ‘single case-oriented’) approaches, associated with the work of a much more diverse group of authors. By making the case for this mechanism-based approach, however, this article also aims to show that critical realist philosophy paves the way for an alternative approach to social science. An approach, that is, which – rather than consistently abstracting from (historical/geographical) context in the way that neo-positivist studies do – systematically engages with the context in which civil wars take place.

The evidence base for treatment of hypersexuality disorder (HD) has few studies with appropriate methodological rigor. This study therefore conducted a single case experiment of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) for HD using an A/B design with extended follow-up. Cruising, pornography usage, masturbation frequency and associated cognitions and emotions were measured daily in a 231-day time series. Following a three-week assessment baseline (A: 21 days), treatment was delivered via outpatient sessions (B: 147 days), with the follow-up period lasting 63 days. Results show that cruising and pornography usage extinguished. The total sexual outlet score no longer met caseness, and the primary nomothetic hypersexuality outcome measure met recovery criteria. Reduced pornography consumption was mediated by reduced obsessionality and greater interpersonal connectivity. The utility of the CAT model for intimacy problems shows promise. Directions for future HD outcome research are also provided.

In this special section Nesselroade and Molenaar (N & M) propose a provocative new approach to measurement invariance. When measures are collected repeatedly over time (e.g., daily diary studies), a potentially unique measurement model relating the items to the underlying construct can be created for each individual. If hypothesized causal paths specified between constructs (e.g., frustration → aggression) can be constrained to be equal across the individuals, a model with idiographic measurement of the constructs, but with nomothetic structural relationships can be specified. Three commentaries react to N & M's proposal. Revelle and Wilt challenge the priority given by N & M to unique individual measurement structures, arguing that between subjects differences in structural relationships are empirically important and meaningful. Markus's uses David Hume's framework to raise philosophy of science challenges for N & M's approach. Maydeu-Olivares challenges the incremental validity of N & M's approa...

The research purpose was to assess the link between corporate storytelling for branding and internal stakeholders' corporate brand perceptions. Nomothetic quantitative explanatory research design anchored on positivist paradigm was applied. Data were collected via physical self-administered survey, resulting in 335 responses from 6 selected companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), in 6 industrial sectors. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS version 6 software, was used to test the propositions. Results depicted that there is a positive link between corporate stories for branding elements such as corporate activities (r(335) =.15, p =.01), corporate values (r(335) =.84, p

The fields of personality assessment and psychoanalysis have an entwined history and share much in common, notably an appreciation of the importance of understanding a person with complexity and depth, including the role of unconscious (or implicit) psychological processes. Personality assessment (or diagnostic psychological testing) offers a complement to psychoanalysis’ primarily idiographic approach by integrating it with a nomothetic one; that is, applying quantitative methods to determine in what ways and to what extent a person is similar or different relative to normative data. It is surprising, then, that contemporary psychoanalysts are largely unfamiliar with the field of personality assessment and seldom refer their patients for evaluation to assist with diagnostic formulation and treatment planning. In this article, we offer practicing analysts (1) a general description of the ways that testing can assist diagnostically, (2) an introduction to categories of psychological tests that sample funct...

Psychology principally utilizes nomothetic, interindividual approaches to model phenomena of interest. However, it is the case that these approaches do not always capture the processes for each individual in the sample. If the research is focused on individual processes, confining analysis to the idiographic level may be more appropriate. One way to overcome the nomothetic inability to capture idiographic processes is to identify those participants who meet the criteria of ergodicity and restrict analysis to the resulting sample. Under these conditions it is quantitatively justifiable to create a group model without concern that it may fail to represent each member's idiographic process. In this study we explore the utility of such a method by (a) applying an ergodic pooling test to a sample of dyads (N = 128) who provided daily (T = 50) self-reports of affect, (b) applying an ergodic pooling test to samples (N = 4) of simulated ergodic time series data (T = 50, 250, and 1,000), (c) modeling dyads and sim...

Culture is an all-pervading construct of human existence but its conceptualization is contested. As such, it is problematic to define or measure culture as different paradigms adopt radically different approaches. Emic approaches are, essentially, inward-looking and, via a constructivist paradigm, assert that a culture can be investigated validly only from that culture’s own perspective (idiographic). Etic approaches are concerned with an outside view, especially for cross-cultural investigations, and so tend to adopt a positivist perspective using surveys, models and dimensions (nomothetic). With increasing acceptance of varying conceptualizations, multiple methodologies and methods of research, founded on alternative philosophical stances, differing approaches to researching culture are pursued. However, several important issues of debate remain and are addressed, especially surrounding the seminal work of Geert Hofstede. Further concerns relate to levels of analyses (notably, the ecological fallacy and...

This quantitative investigation examined the influence of low and high self-efficacy on candidate teacher academic performance in a foreign language teaching methodology course through testing the speculation that high self-efficacy levels would improve pedagogical-content knowledge (PCK). Positivism guided the research design at the levels of ontology (a single conceptualization of self-efficacy) and epistemology (detachment from rather than interactions with the subjects). The positivist paradigm also guided this study at the methodology level through using a nomothetic research strategy (causal comparative), data collection methods (self-efficacy questionnaire and PCK achievement test), data analysis techniques (independent-groups t-test and its non-parametric counterpart Mann-Whitney U test). Data analysis indicated no significant differences between low and high self-efficacious students in their PCK. The study raised questions about examining self-efficacy through self-reporting measures and cast se...

We illustrate the idiographic/nomothetic debate by comparing 3 approaches to using daily self-report data on affect for predicting relationship quality and breakup. The 3 approaches included (a) the first day in the series of daily data; (b) the mean and variability of the daily series; and (c) parameters from dynamic factor analysis, a statistical model that uses all measurement occasions to estimate the structure and dynamics of the data. Our results indicated that data from the first measurement occasion does not provide information about the couples' relationship quality or breakup 1 to 2 years later. The mean and variability of the time series, however, were more informative: females' average positive and negative affect across time was related to relationship quality, whereas males' variability in negative affect across time was predictive of breakup. The dynamic factor analysis, in turn, allowed us to extract information central to the dyadic dynamics. This information proved useful to predict relationship quality but not breakup. The importance of examining intraindividual variability and couple dynamics is highlighted.

It is explained, both by considering earlier theoretical discussions as well as by providing analytic proof, why it is important to base analyses of developmental processes on intra-individual variation (replicated time series analysis) instead of on inter-individual variation. It is often found that replicated time series analysis yields different (person-specific) dynamic model structures across replications. A new powerful approach is presented that enables the identification of a valid common (nomothetic) dynamic model if individual replications yield person-specific dynamic model structures.

Western public administration as a discipline and practice has been foisted on Africa. In its evolutionary trajectory, the dominant narratives of public administration tend to assume a totalizing, universalistic, nomothetic posture as they both undermine and ignore other worldviews. In Africa the upshot has been public policy that scarcely responds robustly to the continent's "wicked problems." While the dominant corpus of Western public administration has seemingly evolved over time, its ontological underpinnings, securely strapped to Enlightenment ideals, remain intact. However, the current turn to process in the literature and the search for alternative ontologies offer a philosophical opening for an authentic African public administration. Such a project is validated by several African ontological values. Drawing on the work of some of Africa's leading philosophers, this article shows how these ontological values are critical for crafting a new public administration for Africa. It argues that a new Af...

This case study aims to enquire into the journey of a Greek-Cypriot primary school through a self-evaluating process, in accordance to the respective guidelines proposed in the national educational reform documents. The article outlines the phases involved, beginning from the collection of information, moving to the formulation of a school development plan and ending with some preliminary impressions of teachers as implementers. Analyses of minutes of the weekly staff meetings as well as questionnaires distributed to participating teachers indicate that this self-initiated participatory approach apparently had vitality and drive but also suffered due to the lack of wider systemic support. This study underlines the significance of the ideographic and nomothetic dimension of school culture for the development of school self-evaluation (SSE). Emerging considerations appear to resemble issues of school effectiveness and school improvement underpinning SSE worldwide and the need to draw links between the two p...

This study examines two measures of psychological reactance. In search of identifying the best measure, each is compared vis-à-vis the other with respect to reliability and validity by placing each in a nomothetic network with a freedom threat, attitude, motivation, and source appraisal. The results are discussed with an emphasis on future practices regarding the best approach to measure psychological reactance.

The SEEKING system of mammalian brains needs to be understood from multiple scientific and clinical perspectives. SEEKING theory provides new neuropsychoanalytic perspectives for understanding the human mind and its behavioral and emotional disorders and considers dimensions of experience that have traditionally been subsumed under concepts such as “drives” and “motivations.” Historically these concepts became problematic because experimentalists and clinicians didn’t quite know what they were speaking about, at least within the evolved dynamics of the mammalian BrainMind. Here, we briefly summarize the history of the field and build a framework to help us understand a variety of human experiences, with the hope of understanding and treating common human psychological problems—from a vast number of addictive urges to depressive despair. Our goal is to promote an understanding of a key form of human experience that resides in the nomothetic primary-process domain, which provides a fundamental substrate for...

Theory, research, and application in developmental science share the conceptual and methodological challenges of integrating the study of the course of a person's intra-individual changes and the formulation of subgroup (differential) or nomothetic generalizations. One approach to these challenges has involved building tailored construct representations that filter out irrelevant idiosyncratic information hampering the articulation of nomothetic relations by means of individual level factor analysis (P–technique). Exploring this approach has provided initially promising results (Nesselroade, Gerstorf, Hardy, & Ram, 2007). We present a specification of an alternative to traditional factor invariance (higher-order invariance) that further formalizes these ideas and examine the results of some simulation experiments designed to evaluate the appropriateness of the implementation. The results also have implications for use in basic and applied work across the life span of between-persons variation and subgroup...

A review of methodological inquiry shows that, from its inception, comparative public administration (CPA) scholarship brushed over important epistemological and ontological questions in favor of searching for broad-based, generalizable theories that subscribed to only objectivist ontologies. This article traces these problematic methodological assumptions in contemporary CPA research back to the mischaracterization of the terms idiographic and nomothetic in CPA research. Revisiting this history is important because the recognition of this distinction allows room in the field for research that highlights the uniqueness of different cultural contexts and constructs.

Three approaches to world art history are outlined: top down (transnational); bottom up (national); and interstitial. The constructed category of ‘Modern Asian Art’ relativizes all other modernities, including the Euramerican, and is first of all differentiated by a new corpus of reference works and the criteria for canonizing these. The implied audience for national studies may challenge the validity of these criteria.

In straightened times counselling must evidence the changes it promotes on reputable measures. Patient-generated measures complement nomothetic measures and may be nearer the ethos of counselling in eliciting individuals' problems. Scores from such measures from non-clinical samples are rarely reported, making their test-retest stability uncertain. We report the prevalence and stability of self-reported problems using PSYCHLOPS (Psychological Outcome Profiles) in a non-clinical student population. PSYCHLOPS is a four-item, self-administered, patient-generated instrument. PSYCHLOPS was completed twice, 7–10 days apart. A wide range of problems was reported and showed satisfactory test-retest stability: Pearson, 0.66; Spearman, 0.68; intra-class correlation coefficient, 0.70. This is reassuring as instability would undermine PSYCHLOPS as a sensitive change measure.

Fieldwork, especially in "foreign" lands, is one of the time-honored hallmarks of professional geography, yet as Felix Driver (2000, p. 267) and others have noted, "little attention has been paid to the specifically geographical dimensions of field-work [sic] or to its history within the discipline." In this article I will explore pieces of this history through the practice of return visitation to particular places, with an emphasis on the record of North American geographers' engagement with Latin America. In turn, Carl Sauer's Mexican research, together with that of some of his students and others inspired by his example, appears to be the most tightly woven net of repeat visitation. Here, one finds multiple strands of crisscrossing lines of reconnaissance and research, and complicated proxy relations involving individuals from later generations pursuing topics initiated by individuals from earlier ones. Space here does not permit more than sketching the outlines of this history, but it does illustrate some of the salient aspects of repeat visitation, and points to a neglected topic in the history of geography. Viewed from the broad perspective of geography's historical record, the practice of return or repeat visits appears to be a more recent development than a time-honored tradition. Various factors can be proposed as contributing to this apparent trend toward repetition. Perhaps the foremost is geography's shift from a spatial-descriptive exploratory enterprise to a modern scientific discipline with a premium placed on deriving generalizations through replicable results. Although few of the human geographers in the past century engaging in foreign area research have been self-conscious devotees of approaches involving nomothetic, spatial analytical science, the ascendancy of a "scientific" human geography in the post-WWII period can be implicated in the decline of chorology and geographic description for its own sake. A second impetus also might be seen as more influence from outside geography than from within. Along with the rise of a more analytic, "scientific" human geography, geographers began to interact more with other social scientists, and borrow from their theory and practice. For field-oriented geographers working abroad, especially cultural geographers, the paths most often crossed or followed were anthropological. Increasingly archaeologists and ethnologists were digging in and making long investments in discrete study sites, rather than mounting wide-ranging surveys and broad collecting ventures. A variant of this development, especially for geographers, is repeat visit research at intervals to measure change (or lack of it) in places, landscapes, or regions (Vale and Vale 1983; Works and Hadley 2000; Walker and Leib 2002; McSweeny 2008; Brady 2009). Elements of the mobility and transience of the older survey and collection mode is carried forward, but with an emphasis on demonstrating familiarity rather than novelty. A fourth influence that began to emerge by the 1960s and was accelerated by that decade's ferment, involved ethical questions and issues. Anthropologists, followed by other social scientists including geographers, generally came to see and accept that not only their research had varying impacts on their "subjects," but also that forms of reciprocity might be part of a researcher's protocol and practice. Among other modes, this has taken the form of extended ties to individuals or communities, often spanning decades since the initial research was conducted (Richardson 1998). In varying degrees, all of these underlying factors may play a part in the decisions and the designs that have led geographers to return at intervals, often multiple times, to favored sites, landscapes, or regions. I suspect, however, that most returnees would simply say that the main rationale or attraction is that they have come to identify strongly with their adopted site or region and feel a need or obligation to return. …

The present research examined a two-path model of homicide defined by psychopathic and neuropathic pathways. Twenty-six forensic psychiatric inpatients found not guilty due to reason of insanity of homicide or attempted homicides were assessed. A large number of variables derived from standardized neuropsychological psychometric assessment, actuarial and structured risk assessment tools and structured interviews were analysed. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and the Answer Tree program showed that independence of the two pathways was observed from a nomothetic analysis with individual variations understood by the complex variable relationships at an idiographic level.

This commentary looks to evaluate the opportunities that are offered by the differences between individuals and how a focus on this issue will influence the future design of all human–machine systems. It is probable that a continuing increase in computational power and associated memory storage capacities will lead to circumstances in which each and every single person can be coded as, and treated as, a separate individual and therefore not necessarily as a representative part of any group, sample or population. This ascending focus on the individual will serve to subdue the demand for nomothetic pronouncements and encourage the use of idiographic case representations. Arguably, this is a trend that is already being witnessed. A fully achieved state of this focus on the individual, or ‘individuation’ as it has been termed here, will have important impacts on research in the social, psychological and neurosciences, as well as assessment in all studies of living beings. This tide of progress may be inhibite...

In this article, we present the Integrated Self-Discrepancy Index (ISDI), a new method for measuring self-discrepancies (Higgins, 1987) that integrates idiographic and nomothetic methods to address important theoretical and methodological concerns in existing measures. In Study 1, 284 undergraduate participants completed the ISDI to measure ideal-own and ought-own self-discrepancies along with measures of dejection, agitation, cheerfulness, and quiescence. In Study 2, we used the ISDI to measure ideal and ought self-discrepancies from both own and other standpoints; 169 undergraduate participants completed measures of depressive symptoms and social anxiety approximately 1 week later. Data from both studies fully support the fundamental predictions of self-discrepancy theory: Ought self-discrepancies were uniquely related to agitation but not dejection, whereas ideal self-discrepancies were uniquely related to dejection but not agitation. In addition, comparisons to previously published data demonstrate that correlations between the ideal and ought self-discrepancies are significantly lower using the ISDI than using other measures of self-discrepancies, suggesting that the ISDI is better able to measure ideal and ought selves as distinct constructs. This measure may provide researchers with a simpler and more valid method to measure self-discrepancies, contributing to our understanding of the importance of self-discrepancies in many applied literatures.

The kind of science that psychoanalysis is (can be), and the kind of research appropriate to it, qualitative and/or quantitative, have been divisive issues from the very inception of the discipline. I explore in detail the complexity of these issues, definitional and semantic, as well as methodological and substantive. A plea is made for the application of qualitative (idiographic)and quantitative (nomothetic) research methods, each to the extent that is appropriate, separately or in conjunction, across the entire spectrum of research domains in psychoanalysis, empirical, clinical, conceptual, historical, and interdisciplinary.

Poell, Rob/0000-0002-1954-3668; Wasti, S. Arzu/0000-0001-7809-5925 WOS: 000261674000002 A systematic content analysis of the human resource development (HRD) research articles published between 1990 and 2003 revealed notable differences in the underlying orientations and methodological approaches across the US and Europe. The US literature, in comparison to Europe, was observed to be more practice-oriented as reflected in a prescriptive and less critical approach to the study of human resource development (HRD). In terms of science orientation, the US literature was characterized to be more nomothetic and universalistic. While a subtle tendency towards becoming more prescriptive emerged in the US, over time the European literature had become less practice-oriented and more empiricist, although the latter trend did not reflect itself in the quantity but quality of quantitative research.

This study examined the associations between self-discrepancies, assessed both idiographically and nomothetically, and measures of depression, anxiety, and self-esteem. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that actual – ideal and actual – ought self-discrepancies were significant predictors of the three measures of psychological well-being, even while controlling for individual variability in ratings of the actual self. Further analysis indicated these effects were primarily attributable to the nomothetic, rather than the idiographic, measures of self-discrepancies. Lastly, the results failed to support the central predictions of Higgins' (1987) self-discrepancy theory. Specifically, for both the idiographic and nomothetic measures the actual – ideal discrepancies were not found to be uniquely predictive of depression and the actual – ought discrepancies were not found to be uniquely predictive of anxiety. The results were discussed with regard to the general self-discrepancy literature as well as se...

The IGU Symposium on Urban Geography in Lund in 1960 was a path‐breaking event towards new nomothetic thinking within the discipline. In nearly half of the papers, the state of the art in central p...

Here we assess the limitations of "social physics" methods for making predictions of future social conditions in order to contribute to the development of an alternative model of scientific sociology. First, we discuss the complexities inherent in causal analyses of social phenomena, where social organizing principles change historically and causal forces interact to generate outcomes. Second, we analyze the assumptions that underlie prediction in the social sciences by using the population projections of demographers as an illustrative example. Demographers typically make projections assuming the future will be the same as the (recent) past. This approach neglects the possibility of abrupt historical change, contingent events, and emergent social structures. Third, we argue that historical contingency is an essential and necessary consideration in any analysis of the world. A historical materialist approach provides the basis for better formulating nomothetic and idiographic modes of explanation and appreciates the important connections between the two. Sociological inquiry should be an attempt to distinguish between truly nomothetic processes and emergent historical background conditions that only appear nomothetic in a specific historical era. We close with an argument for the importance of developing a sociological science that runs parallel to nonmechanistic approaches in the biological sciences.

We began the process of editing for this special issue with a call for papers that was distributed to members of the discipline both broadly and narrowly. The notice appeared in the American Sociological Association newsletter, footnotes, and we distributed notices to individuals we knew worked in this area. We hoped that we would receive contributions from leading scholars in the field of group processes as well as from people who were employing groups as social settings for the investigation of problems that represented new or unique applications. Then we waited for responses to our call. When we were "up," we speculated about the papers that would fulfill our hopes; when we were "down," we contemplated the chance that we would not receive any. But our hopes were abundantly realized. This issue contains papers from eminent scholars in the field of group processes and from newcomers. The papers address classic concerns of sociologists in the study of interaction. They identify new applications of established analytic techniques that lead to new insights. The authors examine applications to new settings and tasks that suggest exciting new opportunities for the systematic study of interaction in small, bounded groups of social actors. We are pleased to present this issue to our readers. A long-standing concern for sociologists who study group processes has been the question of how work on small collections of social actors can be tied to concerns of the discipline that focus on larger questions of how societies emerge, maintain themselves, and change. These concerns focus on issues of culture creation, the distribution of scarce resources, and the ways in which goods are traded to symbolize solidarity. The papers by David G. Wagner and David R. Schaefer address these broad concerns in two very different ways. Wagner explicitly develops the links between the expectation states research program and its intellectual progenitors in the symbolic interaction tradition. This discussion of how relational social inequality and the symbols employed to establish and enact it in face-to-face settings make explicit the intellectual ties between the abstract expectations research tradition and the concretized tradition of symbolic interactionism. Schaefer develops simulations to explore how characterization of the symbolic quality of exchange resources affects their flow in social networks. We found this work intriguing, as it raises questions about the social value of rewards that are incommensurable. This is a research question that has been an issue for exchange theory since it was first developed by Homans, Emerson, and Blau 40 years ago. This paper offers some exciting ways to conceptualize and analyze the problem. Another issue often faced by sociologists who study group processes is the methodology typically used by these researchers. The isolation of one aspect of group activity logically lends itself to the experimental method; there has been a very long tradition of this practice starting with notable early studies by Asch, Sherif, and Lewin. However, critics have often panned laboratory work as not representative of "real world" social encounters. In his classic piece about abstract tests of social psychological processes in natural settings, Zelditch (1969) argues that one can study and should build theories regarding these group activities within the experimental setting.1 Still, the need to study groups in more naturalistic environments remains an important one for group processes specialists. To this end, in our volume we are pleased to include two groundbreaking studies of naturally occurring groups, one done by Lisa Trover, Gayle Watkins, and Steven D. Silver and the other by Alyson Whyte. Both of these studies use the classic nomothetic, top-down theory testing strategy. The former study involves tests of information exchange theory using data derived from interactions of construction work crews. …

The public image of psychology has recently been a topic of debate among psychologists particularly with regard to training in clinical psychology. Inherent in this debate is the question of the status of psychology in Australia in comparison to other mental health professions. Outside Australia several attempts have been made to measure the public perception of clinical psychologists but there is a paucity of contemporary Australian literature dedicated to investigating this phenomenon. In this study a discursive approach was used to critique a technique previously used to measure the public perception of clinical psychologists. The findings were twofold: first, that the nomothetic, aggregational approach is flawed when deconstructed with discursive analytic methodology; and second, that the public's perception of clinical psychologists is formed using information about other mental health professionals (namely psychiatrists), which is at best invalid, and at worst detrimental to the profession ...

Two studies examined the role of implicit theories of personality in the relation between actual – ideal self-discrepancies and self-esteem. Replicating previous work, we found that those with greater actual – ideal self-discrepancies reported lower self-esteem. Moreover, we hypothesized that this outcome would be especially stronger for those possessing an entity theory of personality (i.e., believing that personality is relatively fixed and unchangeable) than for those possessing an incremental theory of personality (i.e., believing that personality is relatively flexible and malleable). Both studies supported this prediction, using either a nomothetic measure of actual – ideal self-discrepancy (Study 1) or an idiographic measure of actual – ideal self-discrepancy (Study 2). In other words, the relation between self-discrepancy and self-evaluation was stronger for entity theorists than for incremental theorists. Implications of these findings for topics ranging from emotional regulation to educational s...

While a majority of cognitive behavioural researchers and clinicians adhere to the classification system provided in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), strong objections have been voiced among behaviourists who find the dichotomous allocation of patients into psychiatric diagnoses incompatible with the philosophy of behaviourism and practice of functional analysis. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the current debate and to analyse the tension between the DSM-IV and functional analysis along the following contrasts: inductive versus deductive, idiographic versus nomothetic, contextualism versus mechanism, social constructions versus real entities, and dimensions versus categories. Finally, some suggested alternatives are discussed. It is concluded that there is a need for alternative systems to the DSM with treatment utility.

The purpose with this paper is to make an analysis of some different ways of putting questions in the field of medical psychology.Four questions are raised regarding the scientific development of knowledge related to human beings, with special emphasis on the fields of psychology and medical psychology. Such questions concerning the world differ from one another and are consequently investigated and answered in different ways.Psychology includes aspects of how and why human beings feel, think, act and appraise as they do, and the extent to which they do so. Two complementary pairs of concepts are introduced to aid in understanding this scientific development of knowledge: nomothetic versus ideographic knowledge and synchronic versus diachronic knowledge. These dimensions of special interest are combined in a figure which can be used as a tool for analysis. Psychology concerns not only finding explanations for psychological phenomena or psychological explanations for physiological, social or cultural phenomena. It also concerns describing, characterising and understanding the content of these phenomena and the meaning they have for the individual. Through these kinds of questions we learn more about the general, specific and unique aspects of persons, as well as of scientific knowledge.

This study investigated the hierarchical structure of global self‐esteem and physical self over time by focusing on intra‐individual dynamics. Although the hierarchical model has been studied and validated from a nomothetic point of view, validation from an idiographic approach is important as well to demonstrate its maintenance within individuals, since its functioning depends on individual and dynamic processes. Eleven participants (mean age: 33.9 years ( 15.0) completed a short version of the Physical Self Inventory on home computers twice a day (between 7:00 and 9:00 and 19:00 and 21:00) over a three‐month period. This inventory included six scales: global self‐esteem, physical self‐worth, physical condition, sport competence, physical strength, and attractive body. Cross‐correlational and partial cross‐correlational analyses were performed at the individual level for the collected time series. The results validated the hierarchical structure of the physical self in most participants and thus...

An idiographic repertory grid method of measuring self-concept was used in a nomothetic design to study the relation between smoking behavior and four components of self-concept: real self, ideal self, social self, and ideal social self. Personal constructs were elicited from 32 smoker and 32 nonsmoker male and female college students. Differences between smokers and nonsmokers on all four components of self-concept supported the criterion-related validity of the measures. Implications were discussed for the assessment method and clinical practice.

This article describes why the author abandoned nomothetic methods in favor of the more idiographic focus of biography. The author outlines the advantages of contextual biography. In contextual biography, the psychological and existential dimension plays the role of an internal environment that interacts with the other contexts in which the subject evolves. The network of enterprises, a concept proposed by Howard Gruber, is a key aspect of that internal environment. Contextual biography conceptualizes the individual's life in terms of socialization and individuation, in terms of the subject's integration into particular contexts, and in terms of his or her construction of an original position within them. The study of socialization and individuation aims at a perception of the subject's uniqueness that takes into account the decisive role of context, the multiple relations among the intellectual projects that are the focus of scientific biography, the subject's other existential goals, and his o...

The purpose of this article is to examine aspects of the early career of the English novelist Virginia Woolf, drawing primarily on Howard Gruber's (1974, 1989b, 1989c) approach to the understanding of creativity that views the individual as a unique "evolving system" engaged in a series of goal-directed activities. The various enterprises Woolf engaged in preceding the publication of her first experimental novel, Jacob's Room, in 1922 are detailed-including her early literary influences and activities, family background, "organization of affect" (Gruber, 1995, p. 400), development of expertise, and network of writing enterprises. The method utilized here was a blending of the idiographic account of Woolf's resolution of the problem she set for herself of re-forming the English novel (in a departure from the realism of, for example, Hardy, Austen, and Dickens) to capture the stream of human consciousness. This idiographic account and nomothetic findings of germane psychological research (e.g., ex...

This study examined the validity of two methods for assessing self-discrepancies: an idiographic method (The Selves Questionnaire, SQ) and a nomothetic method (Adjective Rating List, ARL). It also tested several major hypotheses of self-discrepancy theory regarding the relations between self-discrepancies and emotional discomfort. SQ and ARL scores from 220 participants demonstrated moderate correlations between instruments and high intercorrelations between discrepancy scores within instruments. Self-discrepancy scores were related to negative emotional states, but the specificity of these relations was not demonstrated, nor did they make a substantial contribution to the prediction of negative emotional states after controlling for negative self-concept. Overall, these findings raise significant concerns about the relevance of self-discrepancies as measured by the SQ and ARL and fail to support the main contentions of self-discrepancy theory.

Existing investigations of strategies in soccer using notational analysis have traditionally focused upon nomothetic analysis of international competitions such as World or European Championships (i.e., Luhtanen et al., 2001; Yamanaka, et al., 2001). To enhance the applied benefit of notational analysis idiographic assessment of teams, strategies are required to establish meaningful normative profiles (Hughes et al., 2001). A need also exists to examine individual player behaviours to determine potential influences upon team strategies. The aim of the current study was to assess the strategies of a team in both domestic and European competition over a competitive season. Matches of a British professional soccer team were analysed using a computerised behavioural measurement package with regard to frequency and duration of possession in designated areas of the soccer field. European matches were characterised by more play in pre-defensive areas at the expense of pre-offensive areas compared to domestic matches. Attacking play was found to occur more frequently down the right hand side of the pitch in domestic compared to Europe. Variability was also observed between ball possession and passing difficulty made by individual players in each pitch area. The findings suggest that differences in tactical strategies are evident at both individual and team levels as a function of the nature of the competition. Individual roles therefore appear to be dictated by playing position, team tactics and game circumstances.

The past decade has witnessed a growing interest in risk assessment. Reliable and valid instruments, such as the Revised Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R; Hare, 1991), form one essential component of this evaluation. They allow clinicians to anchor opinions in actuarially-based nomothetic data. In this article we provide the reader with a context for evaluating the role of the PCL-R in risk assessment. Specifically, we offer suggestions related to the use of PCL-R scores within a clinical/forensic context. Borrowed from essays on public health policy, we apply the concept of harm reduction to risk assessment and a select case example.

Despite the remarkable advances in our understanding of the many healthrelated benefits of physical activity, adherence ligures in formal exercise programs have continued to average about 50% over the past three decades. It is proposed in the present paper lhat a paradigm shift is needed since traditional exercise prescription models have been in effective. The proposed pafadigm shift calls for the adoption of (a) an idiographic approach as opposed to the conventional nomothetic model in place at the present time. (b) preferred exertion rather than a given percent of maximum in the prescription of exercise intensity. and (c) purposeful physical activity as opposed to the nonpurposeful approaches characteristic of many formal exercise programs. A summary of ten cases is presented, and this qualitative research reveals adherence figures ranging from 5 to 79 years. The remarkable adherence ol 100% is characterized by adoption of purposeful physical activity by these individuals.

Unlike practitioners, public relations scholars must consider unintended consequences of public relations practices at the societal and individual levels. By extending the domain in this way, logical paradoxes involving activism and nomothetic models of public relations may be resolved through the introduction of critical theory. Use of critical theory illuminates the role of invisible clients in setting the public relations research agenda and in truncating our intellectual vision. Critical theory suggests ways to study activism from a new perspective that would enhance practices and further the evolution of the intellectual domain.

A historical overview of the pragmatic and multidisciplinary field of child psychopathology, its origins, evolving trends, and future directions, supplements the 1998 edition of Ollendick and Hersen's Handbook of Child Psychopathology, A detailed review of this comprchensive 26-chapter handbook follows. Editors Ollendick and Hersen, with some 50 authors, successfully showcase contemporary, mainly cognitive and behavioral, interventions for DSM and medically-related disorders of childhood, offering a wealth of practicable information for clinicians. The handbook illustrates an integrative trend in child psychology research, combining nomothetic approaches from the developmental tradition, idiographic approaches from clinical psychopathology, and attention to numerous intrinsic and extrinsic variables from systems theory. Beyond the handbook, the review presents research achieving even fuller integration, arguing that better prevention and treatment requires research measuring idiographic, social interaction variables to discover their interrelationships with aggregate level variables of developmental approaches.

Research on academic motivation has, in the past, focused primarily on the expectancy aspects of motivation. Although the importance of the value academic tasks take on in determining engagement patterns has not been entirely ignored, there has not been an adequate mechanism for explaining how values are constructed, modified, and structured. In this article, we describe a first attempt at positing such a mechanism. First we clarify our perspective on the nature of student motivation. We then argue for a perspective on understanding motivation as adaptive knowledge. Drawing from a diverse range of theory in motivation and cognition, the model we present attempts to explain students' motivational decisions in terms of their adaptivity to situational demands. The model differs from more traditional lenses on motivation in that it is ideographic as opposed to nomothetic, focused on student-task interaction as opposed to general motivational orientations, and comprehensive in terms of its attention to both in...

Use of the Rorschach raises a basic disagreement between those who advocate interpretation against the background of statistical norms and those who emphasize a freer interpretation on the basis of clinical theory. It is proposed that the purpose for which the Rorschach is used sets the context within which the evaluation of any Rorschach approach should be done. The distinction between idiographic and nomothetic applied by Aronow, Reznikoff, and Moreland (1995) to distinguish between different approaches to Rorschach analysis should also be applied to distinguish between different purposes of use. Nomothetic purposes are those concerned with specific and well-defined questions that in order to answer it is desirable to adopt standardized criteria having known psychometric characteristics. Idiographic purposes concern phenomenological description of experience. The validity of nomothetic methods is claimed to be in many cases cited out of context. The rigidity of nomothetic methods when applied for idiogr...

Historiometry is a correlational methodology that applies quantitative analyses to archival data concerning historic individuals and events, with the goal of testing nomothetic hypotheses about human behavior. Although not as common as laboratory experiments, this approach was first used in social psychological research about a century ago. Since then, historiometric studies have made important contributions to the scientific understanding of human social behavior. These contributions have touched upon such core issues as attitudes and beliefs, aggression and violence, group dynamics, and leadership. Although the technique must often admit certain disadvantages, historiometry also enjoys some distinct advantages.