EMERGENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY (Free Access)

Indian History

• Traditional (ancient) psychology is derivative of scriptures like the Upanishad, Vedas, Dharmashastras, Nitishastra, Smritis, Arthashastra, Mahabharat, Puranas and so on
• Two major ideas in ancient Indian psychology 
  • Dharma
  • Self
• Dharma is translated not correctly in English as ‘proper action’, or ‘moral duty’, or ‘law of human nature’. 
  • Rigvedic concept and later elaborated in Gautam’s Dharmashastra (about 600 B.C.)
  • The Dharma is dependent on four aspects:
    • Guna- physiological and psychological attributes of an individual
    • Desh- the individuals country and region of origin 
    • Kala- the historical context one is born in 
    • Shrama– The work and occupation one is engaged in 
• Self is not only limited to the individual but a larger, all pervasive cosmic reality
  • The self is immensely interdependent and cannot exist as a sole reality

Western civilizations effect on Indian social psychology

• West formed the model for “modern” society
• Began with British colonization
  • Industrialization, market-capitalism, science and tech etc.
  • Indians who were exposed to western ideas brought them to India during the 19th, 20th, and 21^st centuries
  • Root out evil practices like sati, caste system, etc 
    • Tagore, Raja Ram Mohan Roy
  • Some individuals like Gandhi and Tilak rejected western ideals and reasserted Indian spiritual ideas and claimed that these ideas are correct but implemented incorrectly

Pre-Independence psychology in India

• Origin in the first Psychology Department established at Calcutta University.
  • N.N.Sengupta – First chairman of the department, had worked with Hugo Munsterberg (student of  Wundt) at Harvard University.
  • Sengupta with the Eminent Sociologist Radhakamal Mukherjee published “Social Psychology” in 1928 four years after Allport’s (1924)
    • Widely noticed by the academic community.

After Independence

• Nehru considered the adoption of Western Science and Technology
• Academic exchange programmes: large number of Indian scholars went abroad for higher studies and many distinguished western scholars visited India.
• Gardner Murphy, part of UNESCO team, travelled to India and many Indian Psychologists worked with him to understand the social psychological consequences of communal hatred.
• Indian Social Psychologists primarily worked in the areas of Prejudice, Stereotypes, and social attitudes. 
• Large scale surveys were conducted using various attitude measures.
• Adinarayanan (1953; 1957), Rath and Sircar (1960) and Anant (1970) others – Racial & communal attitudes; case attitudes.  
• Attitude change became major themes of research with increasing importance on community awareness plans for health, family planning, agricultural innovations.

Crisis Identity

• Western psychological theories did not provide solutions to the complex problems of social change and development facing the country.
• Sinha (1966; 1977) called for an indigenous psychology 
• Indian studies did not heavily rely on experimental methods or created their own theoretical basis, methods or ideology
• Concern of scholars struggling to recover, revive, and reconstruct indigenous Indian concepts.
• Indian psychology is gradually evolving to create an identify of its own.
• No effort, has been made by any Indian Psychologist to write a textbook on social psychology from an Indian Perspective.
• Future
  • The hope is that by utilizing untapped cultural resources social psychology may find solutions of Indian problems from an Indian perspective. 
  • The hallmark of this perspective would be the interdependence of individual and society
• Western History
  • Western Ideas began with
    • Plato’s idea that the man was supposed to be rational
    • Aristotle idea was that man’s behaviour changes with observation and analysis
    • Greek & Roman ideas was that Man & society were secular and dependent
      • It was important to constantly question aspects around us
        • Rooted in academic skepticism
    • Christianity’s ideal was of supremacy of man on earth as decided by God
    • Rene Descartes by 17^th century developed scientific methods of analysis and rejected Christian doctrine
  • Emergence of Sociology
    • August Comte’s idea was to find a true final science in the highest order to understand society and the individual
  • 1862: Proposed two branches of Psychology: Physiological and social
    • Identity: 
      • American view of identity as being individualistic
      • Gestalt perspective: the environment is not only made up of individuals but also their interrelationships
      • 1924: Floyd Allport introduced experimental methods in psychology 
  • World Wars and Great Depression in America greatly shaped social psychology
    • In 1936 the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) was established. It began by creating ethics and values in research
      • Kurt lewin was a founder
      • “No research without action, and no action without research”
    • By the world wars fascism was a major problem and its anti-intellectual stand led to immigration of social scientists to America
    • Additionally, social behavior knowledge in wartime programs were included
  • After the wars ended social psychology grew in America and its theories began to be used world over 
  • Many prominent social psychologists came out post war:
    • Leon Festinger (1957): Cognitive dissonance 
      • Influence of group on individuals
    • Staley Milgram (1963): Obedience
      • Most people would follow any instruction given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being.  
      • Gordon Allport: Contant hypothesis
        •  Desegregation and reduction of racial prejudice
      • Elaine Hatfield and Ellen Berscheid (1969) – Interpersonal or Romantic Attractions 
      • Zimbardo –  Social roles and its effects
      • Bib Latane and John Darley (1968) – bystander intervention
  • Important milestones:
  • 1970s – European and Latin American SP association founded
  • 1995 – Asian Association of SP was formed

Psychology History 

• Structuralism
  • Wilhelm Wundt
  • Edward Titchener (Wundt’s student)
  • underlying structure that underlie all the things human do
  • power of the will (voluntarism)
  • Wundt’s Theory of Consciousness
    • break down the mind into categories and find relationships between these categories and final relationships between these categories
    • used introspection
      • sensation
      • images
      • affections
• Functionalism
  • William James
  • use of consciousness and the mind
    • to study the functions of consciousness rather than its structure
• Gestalt
• Psychodynamic
  • Sigmund Freud
  • Psychoanalysis
• Humanistic
• Behaviourism
  • John B. Watson
  • Thorndike- Thorndike’s law
  • Pavlov – classical conditioning
  • Skinner- operant/instrumental conditioning
  • Bandura- social cognitive theory/ observation learning
• Cognitive Revolution
  • Aaron Beck –  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
  • Noam Chomsky, 
  • Albert Ellis- Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT)