ASSUMPTIONS of the Individual Differences Approach:
- Individuals differ in their behaviour and personal qualities (personality, gender etc) so not everyone can be considered ‘the average person’. This relates to 'disposition' where behaviour is caused by you as an individual, rather than the situation.
- Every individual is genetically unique and this uniqueness is displayed through their behaviour. So everyone behaves differently
- All human characteristics can be measured and quantified .The measures gained from one person are different to those gathered from another
- All psychological characteristics are inherited and as everyone inherits different characteristics, everyone is different and unique
Strengths:
1) I- Allows psychologists to learn more about human behaviours because all behaviours, not just average ones, are studied. E- C- 2) I- Allows psychologists to measure differences between individuals in qualities such as personality, intelligence, memory etc. E- C- 3) I - Studies are often high in ecological validity as they often take place in real life environments. E- C- 4) I- Allows both qualitative and quantitative data to be gathered which provides rich, in-depth data about the behaviour under consideration. E- C- |
Weaknesses:
1) I- Techniques used are often not fully objective and therefore open to bias making the validity of results questionable. E- C- 2) I- It creates divisions between people because individuals are identified as being ‘different’ E- C- 3) I- It is difficult to define and measure individual qualities such as personality, intelligence etc. E- C- 4) I- Ethical concerns, generic to the approach, may be raised (but must be explained). E- C- |
Similarities & Differences between the Individual Differences Approach studies summarised below in the Venn diagram: