Suitability Indicators in the Study of Exemplary Lives: Guidelines for the Selection of the Psychobiographical Subject

Continuous development of psychobiographical methodology has culminated in the establishment of best practice guidelines aimed at the production of sound studies that meet the requirements for credibility, transferability, confirmability and dependability. This chapter aims to address the objectivity challenges arising from possible researcher bias during subject selection. The authors propose employing a suitability indicators approach to eugraphic subject selection by considering contextual factors and utilizing the psychosocial concept of generativity in its broadest sense. This would enable the objective selection of subjects from a greater pool of eminent lives than only those well known and potentially idealized. The chapter concludes with the application of these guidelines to the study of two South Africans who, despite several striking differences, had a shared socio-historical context and generative focus, namely their opposition to the apartheid system. Examples from psychobiographical works on Beyers Naude (1915–2004) and Helen Suzman (1917–2009) illustrate the proposed approach.