Summary of the Area
Principles of the Individual Differences Area
  • Individuals differ in their behaviour & personal qualities so no-one is average
  • Everyone is genetically unique and this uniqueness is displayed through their behaviour. So everyone behaves differently.
  • All behaviour can be measured.
 
Types of Behaviour Studied
  • Understanding disorders – what causes phobias? What causes autism?
  • Measuring differences – how effectively can we measure intelligence?
 
Practical Applications
  • Issues of Mental Health – is mental illness a myth the pharmaceutical companies dreamed up?
  • Child Psychology – why do some teenagers take terrible risks?
  • Criminal Psychology – if a person has a ‘criminal’ gene, should they avoid punishment?
 
Debate it strongly links with
  • The individual differenes area takes a strongly interactionist view of the nature/nurture debate as it assumes that both the upbringing and biology of a person causes people’s behaviours.
 
Strengths
  • Allows psychologists to learn more about human behaviours because all behaviours are studied.
  • Allows psychologists to measure differences between individuals in qualities such as personality, intelligence, memory etc.
  • Studies are often high in ecological validity as they often take place in real life environments.
  • Allows both qualitative and quantitative data to be gathered.
 
Weaknesses
  • Research Methods used may not be objective, so open to bias lowering the external validity
  • It creates divisions between people because some are seen as ‘different’.
  • It is difficult to define and measure things such as personality, intelligence etc.
  • Ethics – protection from psychological harm (being called different)
 
Research Methods
  • Methods can be longitudinal showing development of behaviour
  • Use of case studies open to subjectivity affecting validity
  • Case studies difficult to replicate so issues with reliability of findings
 
Methodological Issues
  • Reliability an issue as difficulty in generalising results from small sample
  • Allows both qualitative and quantitative data to be gathered which provides rich, in-depth data about the behaviour under consideration.
  • Ethics can be questioned due to possible labelling as different or abnormal
 
Core Studies