Idiographic vs nomothetic

The idiographic approach attempts to study the unique personality of the individual whereas nomothetic studies the commonalities in personality across all individuals to establish laws in personality. These laws act as Universal's whereas the idiographic approach focuses on the specific individual. We can easily predict the pattern for behaviour in a nomothetic approach but it's not valid across all individuals. This is where we can use the idiographic approach do reduces the possibility of invalidity. The nomothetic approach is atomistic as it reduces personality to fundamental elements. Both approaches are reductionist as they both try to gain a deeper understanding personality. In nomothetic we reduce personality to Universals for all humans and in idiographic we reduce an indivuduals personality to it's influencing factors.