The Person as a Focus for Research – The Contributions of Windelband, Stern, Allport, Lamiell, and Magnusson

At the end of the 19th century, Wilhelm Windelband proposed a distinction between nomothetic and idiographic re-search, which became highly relevant for the discussion of the nature of psychological science. During the 20th cen-tury, a number of writers (including William Stern, Gordon Allport, James Lamiell and David Magnusson) have criti-cized the focus on variables rather than persons, and populations rather than individuals, which has characterized much of psychological research. As a corrective, they have argued for the importance of various forms of idiograph-ic or person-oriented research. The main purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss some of the arguments put forward by these writers, both with regard to their conceptualization of the person and with regard to how they pic-ture idiographic or person-oriented research. A preliminary classification is suggested of different varieties of idio-graphic and person-oriented research, which differ in terms of how they relate to nomothetic research, and whether they focus on variables or on patterns. It is suggested that the contrast between variable- and person-oriented re-search may be dissolved into two different contrasts: (a) individual- versus population-focused research, and (b) variable- versus pattern-focused research.