Integrating nomothetics and idiographics in personality science and beyond

The distinction between nomothetics and idiographics (and adjacent issues such as heterogeneities, generalizability, and ergodicity) is fundamental to a deeper understanding of personality-related phenomena and any psychological structures and processes in general. Thus, ignoring nomothetics and idiographics threatens the validity of inferences in personality and psychological science. As fruits from an EAPP-funded expert meeting, three articles (Phan et al., Kuper et al., and Modersitzki et al.) provide systematic accounts of nomothetics and idiographics from conceptual, methodological, and applied perspectives. Together, this tripartite article collection argues that nomothetics and idiographics (a) are each multi-faceted (i.e., are not uniform), (b) require nuanced interpretation and precise terminology, and (c) do not stand in opposition to each other but can be complementary and fruitfully integrated to enrich our understanding of psychological phenomena. In this mantle article, we explicate guiding motivations for addressing nomothetics and idiographics in the first place, provide more context and history on the issues involved, introduce and summarize main take-aways from the three articles, and conclude with a view on bigger picture issues and suggestions on ways forward. We also introduce and invite to join the recently founded Personality Consortium on Research in Idiographics and Nomothetics (PECORINO).