DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

group data and statistical analysis. Nomothetic psychologists are therefore seen to
be unconcerned with particular instances in their search for generic laws, while
idiographic researchers are seen to have little concern with theory and general law
in their portrayal of individuals; theory is seen to swamp the uniqueness of
individuality while individuality undermines the uniformities of theory (Holt,
1978).
This idiographic/nomothetic distinction does not fit well with qualitative
research, because most forms of qualitative research simultaneously inform general
theory in a nomothetic sense and highlight individuals in an idiographic sense. This
can be done within three kinds of research problem; case-by-case theory generation,
case-specific theory testing and theory exemplification.
Case-by-case theory generation involves generating a theory that applies to
all, not to most, individuals within its remit. Such a theory can be a very abstract
theory, if the remit is human beings in general, or very local if the remit is a specific
demographic group or specific type of person. When developing theory in a case-bycase
manner, there can be no averaging, no probabilistic statistical relationships, but
instead there must be analysis of each individual case in order to find those patterns,
structures or processes that hold for all. Individual cases are often presented within
these forms of report, allowing idiographic illumination to occur alongside the search
for theory. Therefore this kind of research is both nomothetic and idiographic; it
seeks laws and commonalities while highlighting the individuality of the persons
within the sample that inform the theory. In fact this case-by-case form of theory
development is arguably more nomothetic than traditional quantitative research, for it
applies to all individuals within its remit, rather than to the majority or the average of
a group (Lamiell, 1998).
Grounded Theory is probably the best known approach that focuses on this
form of research problem (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Miles and Huberman’s (1994)
approach attempts to strike a similar balance between theory and case. Newell and
Simon (1972) developed their theory of human problem-solving using protocol
analysis, which takes each individual as indicative of, and informative of, the
developing theory. Another example of case-by-case theory development is
Czikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow (Czikszentmihalyi, 1990). He gathered thousands
of descriptions of optimal experience episodes and analyzed them qualitatively to
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