Idiographic Research

From this humanistic trait framework, human personality can only be fully
understood through the examination of personal characteristics within a
single individual. The emphasis on individuality has significant implications
for the measurement of personality and for research methods in psychology.
Most psychological research deals with standardized measurements and
large numbers of people, and it attempts to make generalizations about
characteristics that people hold in common. Allport referred to this approach
as nomothetic. He contrasted the study of groups and general laws
with idiographic research, or approaches for studying the single person.
Idiographic research, which is sometimes referred to as morphogenic research,
includes methods such as autobiographies, interviews, dreams, and
verbatim recordings.
One of Allport’s famous studies of the individual appears in Letters from
Jenny (1965), a description of an older woman’s personality that is based on
the analysis of approximately three hundred letters that she wrote to her son
and his wife. Through the use of personal structure analysis, statistical analysis,
and the reactions of various trained judges, Allport and his colleagues
identified eight clusters of characteristics, including the following: artistic,
self-centered, aggressive, and sentimental. Through revealing the central
dispositions of a single individual, this study provided increased insight
about all people. It also demonstrated that objective, scientific practices can
be applied to the study of one person at a time.