Organizational Benefits and Disadvantages of the Nomothetic Approach

Organizational Benefits and Disadvantages of the Nomothetic Approach to Personality Assessment

The nomothetic approach`s main aim is normally to predict behavior. It is an approach to assessing personality. This approach looks for any general laws that could be applied to different individuals, for example, the trait of openness and the factor of sensing (Weiner and Greene, 2017). Most of the psychologists who adopt this approach hold the view that traits are normally sources of human personality. Any of an individual enduring characteristic and that is stable relatively and that further influences their behavior in a particular direction is known as a trait. It is believed that personality is determined by both nature and genetics largely, by experiences and environment and even probably a combination of both. For those seeking psychology dissertation help, understanding these traits and their impact can be crucial in exploring the depth of personality assessment.

According to modern research, the influence of nurture and nature determines personality traits. The nomothetic approach assumes that personality is mainly inherited and not nurtured (Beltz et al., 2018). The approach sees the uniqueness in people's combinations of traits, only within certain paradigms. While individuals differ by measuring differences in individual traits, everyone fits within a certain set of traits. A personality is described from the combination of these traits.

Meloy (2004), posits that these general laws could be of three different kinds;

• Classification of people into various groups, for example, the DSM-IV in which a means of classification for more than 200 types of disorders is provided. Personal symptoms form the basis for classification.
• Establishment of principles of behavior that could be generally applied to people. The laws or principles of learning normally apply to people in ways that are similar. Research into behavior for example conformity and obedience experiments have led to general behavior principles that are normally applicable to all and sundry.
• Establishment of dimensions through which people could be placed and further compared. A good example is IQ scales which measure the intelligence of individuals leading to scores that provide a chance for comparison between different people.

Both quantitative and scientific investigation methods are used in nomothetic research, experiments being the most common means of investigation. Hypotheses are normally generated from theories which are normally additionally tested under experimental conditions that are controlled (Pennington, 2018). Large groups of people are used to provide the findings of experiments and other different quantitative methods. Managers who use the nomothetic approach for personality assessment use self-report questionnaires which include closed questions. As opposed to the idiographic approach whereby assessment looks at individuals without giving others consideration, the nomothetic approach assesses individuals while comparing them to other groups of individuals. What this means is that an individual's unique personalities can be measured and subsequently compared with the behaviors of others on the same dimensions.

According to Carlson et al., (2013), the greatest strength of the nomothetic approach lies in its abilities to distinguish certain trait behaviors of communities or populations. The approach is normally efficient when managers seek to come up with solutions for individuals whose behavior patterns are identical based on personality`s trait theory. For example, managers in any given organizations who try to identify suitable individuals for sales and marketing could always use the nomothetic approach which could help them get insights that are deeper on the different personality traits possessed by different individuals. Any such perspectives that advocate for the application of general rules that apply to all people are normally nomothetic. Most of the times, these tend to be the scientific approaches with behaviorist, biological and cognitive approaches being the most obvious examples. It is, however, worth noting that at times, idiographic methods are used in nomothetic approaches because case studies are normally linked more to idiographic approaches.

The big five theory is one of the main traits which the nomothetic approach proposes (Sartori et al., 2017). In business environments that are increasingly competitive, organizations are always seeking to come up with key factors that could help them stay ahead of their different competitors. How working in groups could be improved through the determination of the essential traits of individual group members is one of these factors (Mischel, 2013).

And because the nomothetic approach is largely viewed as being scientific, it is useful for prediction and control of behavior. Biological psychologists, for example, use the nomothetic approach to explain the obsessive-compulsive disorder (Pilecki and McKay, 2013). They claim that that low levels of serotonin and high levels of dopamine bring about OCD. The nomothetic approach is further applied to develop drug therapies by seeking to readdress biological imbalances. Through allowing for replication for purposes of examining how reliable findings are, psychology has been able to establish itself as a scientific discipline. Empirical testing and the development of theories are some of the key features of science that the nomothetic approach employs.

One of the best examples of a nomothetic investigation into human personalities by which the personality of an individual is described, and further generalized is the Cattell`s (1964) IPF trait theories, large scale study. The nomothetic approach has over the years been used to make psychology more scientific as it involves the development of human behavior theories and laws that could be tested empirically.

The nomothetic approach can study large numbers of people at the same time to collect quantitative research. That would be aimed at generating explanations of behaviors that could be universal and further generalizing the information into entire populations. It is not possible to get such generalizations from qualitative data. Large samples of people could be used to produce findings that are both reliable and representative when using the nomothetic approach. Additionally, based on the fact that it is a scientific approach, the experiments conducted as per the approach are reliable and replicable.

To construct instrument measures that could allow psychologists to develop scales, the nomothetic approach group's characteristics into clusters which creates types. For example, those traits that are associated with risks and personality are generally found in the extrovert type. Characters who are not as friendly, the same retrospectively would be related to the introvert type. As such, the nomothetic approach, through categorization of individuals for purposes of uncovering familiar sources of behavior, puts psychologists in an excellent position to identify and further classify personalities in line with characteristics that are recognizable (Uher, 2013). The nomothetic approach holds the view that all human traits are related to either extroverted, openness, conscientious, emotionally stable and agreeable. These usually are descriptions of people`s responses to stress, how they go about adjusting to new environments. Proponents of the nomothetic approach always believe that results of self-report questionnaires could help them in generalizing the results they get. What this means is that whenever a manager has so many consequences of a test, they could discover the norm through averaging the scores and then going further ahead to use the score to determine if future employees will have the necessary traits a job requires.

The nomothetic approach could be most beneficial to managers in developing countries like India whose demand for labor is always growing (Handler and Hilsenroth, 2013). In such countries, managers would need to have ways of selecting and employing workers that are quick and cheap. In those societies that are highly developed and who require more professional workers, the nomothetic approach would be ineffective as businesses would have to focus on each interviewee and as such requiring more time.

It could, however, be argued that personality assessment encompasses more than just the nomothetic approach and this is largely because not everything is as straightforward as it appears. Scientists and theorists hold the belief that not all people`s traits could fall within specific dimensions which would make it hard to regard them as a straight set of traits (Silverstein, 2013). It is argued that not every individual relates to the significant five traits and, in some instances, some individuals may not even have personality traits that fall within any of the big five. Additionally, the theory is criticized as being a cheap and quick approach to personality analysis that lacks the in-depth grasp of an individual’s actual personality. As such, while the nomothetic approach could be relatively accurate in the determination of personalities of generalized communities, it is evident that the approach only proposes surface principle behavior which is not an accurate personality detail of every different individual. Additionally, it would be necessary to accurately choose a bulk sample for purposes of determining emerging behaviour patterns accurately. That implies that classification would not be precise for all people whenever generalizations are made.

The classification of people based on results such as their I. Q`s is another disadvantage of the nomothetic approach as it is seen to bring bias in societies. What this implies is that the nomothetic approach has lost sight of what it means to human beings. Through assuming that universal laws of behavior apply to all people, the approach lacks a unique and individual perspective (Woods et al., 2018). The approach fails to take into account important aspects like gender and cultural differences. While the best way to predict the behavior of an individual would be through getting to know them, this is not allowed by the nomothetic approach. The nomothetic approach tends to lose sight of people which could lead to the making of predictions about groups of people that may not apply to individuals. Nomothetic methods provide a superficial understanding of human behaviour, and this is largely because different people tend to act in the same way as a result of different reasons.

Additionally, the nomothetic approach conducts most of its experiments in laboratories. Laboratories lack realism, and as such, findings of such studies could fail to apply to real-life situations. As such, results obtained through the nomothetic approach are not a true reflection of reality and as such are superficial (Sellbom and Hopwood, 2016). The main reasoning behind this is that most lab experiments are normally controlled which makes it hard to associate them with everyday scenarios and this leads to some certain degree which cannot be generalized. The extensive use of laboratory experiments that are controlled in the approach points out to the presence of a problem of generalization to daily life. The focus on general theories and laws tends to neglect the unique and subjective experiences of different individuals.

Reflection

Over the years, my essay writing skills have greatly developed. These days, before embarking on writing an essay I always have to sit down and think through about what I would like to say. To narrow down my essays and come up with arguments that I good, the first thing I do these days is creating a basic outline. Over the years, I have also acquired an understanding of basic grammar. That has seen me improve my grammar, punctuation and even style of writing. Proper pronoun and article usage, verb and subject agreement and sentence structures that are properly formed are some basics in grammar. A writer always has to make sure that have a proper understanding of the proper use of different punctuation forms. I have also learned the importance of voice which has seen me put effort to ensure that all my writings are in the active voice and not the passive in all instances possible. That, as I have observed, tends to make the tone of any essay even stronger.

Something else that I have improved my keenness on is language use. This has seen me avoid the use of big words. At times, fellow students tend to use big words to sound smart which often hits back on them. From different feedbacks I have received from my tutors, I have discovered that they are always in a position to detect whenever someone tries to overcompensate their writing. I also, always avoid the use of obscure language in my essays as this could deprive clarity of my arguments.

To ensure that my arguments are solid, I ensure that the main themes and arguments of an essay have stuck in my mind every time before I endeavour to research on any given topic. While at times it could be tempting to go off on a tangent about some interesting side note to a topic, doing so, as I have discovered, tends to reduce the concise of writing.

References

• Beltz, A.M., Wright, A.G., Sprague, B.N. and Molenaar, P.C., 2016. Bridging the nomothetic and idiographic approaches to the analysis of clinical data. Assessment, 23(4), pp.447-458.
• Carlson, E.N., Vazire, S. and Oltmanns, T.F., 2013. Self‐other knowledge asymmetries in personality pathology. Journal of Personality, 81(2), pp.155-170.
• Handler, L., Hilsenroth, M.J. and Hilsenroth, M. eds., 2013. Teaching and learning personality assessment. Routledge.
• Meloy, J.R., 2004. Indirect personality assessment of the violent true believer. Journal of personality assessment, 82(2), pp.138-146.
• Mischel, W., 2013. Personality and assessment. Psychology Press.
• Pennington, D., 2018. Essential personality. Routledge.
• Pilecki, B. and McKay, D., 2013. The theory-practice gap in cognitive-behavior therapy. Behavior Therapy, 44(4), pp.541-547.
• Sartori, R., Costantini, A., Ceschi, A., and Scalco, A., 2017. Not only correlations: a different approach for investigating the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and job performance based on workers and employees’ perception. Quality & Quantity, 51(6), pp.2507-2519.
• Silverstein, M.L., 2013. Personality assessment in depth: A casebook. Routledge.
• Weiner, I.B. and Greene, R.L., 2017. Handbook of personality assessment. John Wiley & Sons.
• Woods, W.C., Gates, K., Stepp, S.D., Pilkonis, P.A. and Wright, A.G., 2018. Integrating Nomothetic and Idiographic Approaches to Understanding Transdiagnostic Processes in Psychopathology. PsyArXiv. November, 2.