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 21st 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 17th 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)
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