The keywords in psychology for this distinction are nomothetic vs. idiographic (which are useful as search terms, or for talking with a small subset of people). Nomothetic approaches deal with general trends among a large number of people, and cover most psychology research (e.g. people who are high in Conscientiousness tend to have more successful careers). Idiographic approaches try to engage with a particular individual’s psychology in detail. From what I’ve read, I’d call CT an idiographic approach to motivated reasoning and defensiveness, with promising potential applications.
The keywords in psychology for this distinction are nomothetic vs. idiographic (which are useful as search terms, or for talking with a small subset of people). Nomothetic approaches deal with general trends among a large number of people, and cover most psychology research (e.g. people who are high in Conscientiousness tend to have more successful careers). Idiographic approaches try to engage with a particular individual’s psychology in detail. From what I’ve read, I’d call CT an idiographic approach to motivated reasoning and defensiveness, with promising potential applications.