Psychology as a Natural Science:::

 chapter 2))::

***The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth. – Norman Cousins

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It has been mentioned earlier that psychology has its roots in philosophy. However, modern psychology has developed because of the application of the scientific method to study the psychological phenomena. Science places a great deal of emphasis on objectivity which can be obtained if there is consensus on the definition of a concept  and how it can be.

measured. Psychology was influenced by Descartes and later on by the developments in physics has grown by following what is called a hypothetico-deductive model. The model suggests that scientific advancement can take place if you have a theory to explain a phenomenon. For example, physicists have what is called a Big-bang theory to explain how the universe came to be formed. Theory is nothing else but a set of statements about how a certain complex phenomenon can be explained with the help of propositions which are interrelated. Based on a theory, scientists deduce or propose a hypothesis, that offers a tentative explanation of how a certain phenomenon takes place. The hypothesis then is tested and proved true or false based on empirical data that one has gathered. The theory is revised if data gathered point in a different direction than the one suggested by the hypothesis. Using the above approach psychologists have developed theories of learning, memory, attention, perception, motivation and emotion, etc. and have made significant progress. Till date, most of the research in psychology follows this approach. Apart from this, psychologists have also been considerably influenced by the evolutionary approach which is dominant in biological sciences. This approach has also been used to explain diverse kinds of psychological phenomenon such as attachment and aggression to mention just a few.

Psychology as a Social Science::

 We mentioned above that psychology is recognised more as a social science because it studies the behaviour of human beings in their socio-cultural contexts. Humans are not only influenced by their socio-cultural contexts, they also create them. Psychology as a social science discipline focuses on humans as social beings. Consider the following story of Ranjita and Shabnam. Ranjita and Shabnam were in the same class. Although, they were in the same class, they were just acquainted with each other and their lives were quite different. Ranjita came from a farmer’s family. Her grandparents, parents and elder brother worked on their farm. They lived together in their house in the village. Ranjita was a good athlete and was the best long distance runner in the school. She loved meeting people and making friends. Unlike her, Shabnam lived with her mother in the same village. Her father worked in an office in a town nearby and came home during holidays. Shabnam was a good artist and loved staying home and taking care of her younger brother. She was shy and avoided meeting people. Last year there was very heavy rain and the river nearby overflowed into the village. Many houses in the low lying areas were flooded. The villagers got together and organised help and gave shelter to people in distress. Shabnam’s house was also flooded and she came to live in Ranjita’s house with her mother and brother. Ranjita was happy helping the family and making them feel comfortable in her house. When the flood water receded, Ranjita’s mother and grandmother helped Shabnam’s mother to set-up their house. The two families became very close. Ranjita and Shabnam also became very good friends. In this case of Ranjita and Shabnam, both are very different persons. They grew up in different families under complex social and cultural conditions. You can see some regularity in the relationship of their nature, experience and mental processes with their social and physical environment. But at the same time, there are variations in their behaviours and experiences which would be difficult to predict using the known psychological principles. One can understand why and how individuals in communities become quite helpful and self-sacrificing in crisis as was the case with the people in the village of Ranjita and Shabnam. But, even in that case, not every villager was equally helpful and also under similar circumstances not every community is so forthcoming; in fact, sometimes, the opposite is true – people become antisocial under similar circumstances  indulging in looting and

exploitation when some crisis occurs. This shows that psychology deals with human behaviour and experience in the context of their society and culture. Thus, psychology is a social science with focus on the individuals and communities in relation to their sociocultural and physical environment. UNDERSTANDING MIND AND BEHAVIOUR You will recall that psychology was once defined as a science of the mind. For many decades, the mind remained a taboo in psychology because it could not be defined in concrete behavioural terms or its location could not be indicated. If the term “mind” has returned to psychology, we should thank neuroscientists like Sperry and physicists like Penrose, who have given it the respect which it deserved and now has. There are scientists in various disciplines including psychology, who think that a unified theory of the mind is a possibility, although it still is far away. What is mind? Is it the same as brain? It is true that mind cannot exist without brain, but mind is a separate entity. This can be appreciated on account of several interesting cases that have been documented. Some patients whose occipital lobes, which are responsible for vision, were surgically removed have been found to be responding correctly to location and configuration of visual cues. Similarly, an amateur athlete lost his arm in a motorcycle accident but continued to feel an “arm” and also continued to feel its movements. When offered coffee, his “phantom arm” reached out to the coffee cup and when someone pulled it away, he protested. There are other similar cases documented by neuroscientists. A young man who suffered brain injury in an accident, after he returned home from the hospital, claimed that his parents had been replaced by their “duplicates”. They were imposters. In each of these cases, the person had suffered from damage of some part of the brain but his “mind” had remained intact. It was earlier believed by scientists that there is no relationship between the mind and the body and that they were parallel to each other. Recent studies in affective neuroscience have clearly shown that there is a relationship between mind and behaviour. It has been shown that using positive visualisation techniques and feeling positive emotions, one can bring about significant changes in bodily processes. Ornish has shown this in a number of studies with his patients. In these studies a person with blocked arteries was made to visualise that blood was flowing through her/ his blocked arteries. After practicing this over a period of time, significant relief was obtained by these patients as the degree of blockage became significantly less. Use of mental imagery, i.e. images generated by a person in her/his mind, have been used to cure various kinds of phobias (irrational fears of objects and situations). A new discipline called Psychoneuroimmunology has emerged which emphasises the role played by the mind in strengthening the immune system. Imagine and visualise yourself in the following situations. Mention three psychological processes involved in each situation. 1. You are writing an essay for a competition. 2. You are chatting with a friend on an interesting topic. 3. You are playing football. 4. You are watching a soap opera on TV. 5. Your best friend has hurt you. 6. You are appearing in an examination. 7. You are expecting an important visitor. 8. You are preparing a speech to deliver in your school. 9. You are playing chess. 10. You are trying to figure out the answer of a difficult mathematics problem. Discuss your answers with the teacher and classmates. 

POPULAR NOTIONS ABOUT THE DISCIPLINE OF PSYCHOLOGY::

 We mentioned above that everyday, almost everyone of us acts like a psychologist. We

try to understand why someone behaved in the manner in which s/he did and come up with ready explanations. Not only this, most of us have developed our own theory of human behaviour. If we want some worker to perform better than s/he has in the past, we know that we will need to push her/him. Maybe even use a stick because people are basically lazy. Such popular theories of human behaviour based on common sense may or may not be true if investigated scientifically. In fact, you will find that common sensical explanations of human behaviour are based on hindsight and explain very little. For example, if a friend you love goes away to a distant place, what will happen to your attraction for her/him? There are two sayings which you may recall to answer this question. One of them is “Out of sight, out of mind”. The second one is “Distance makes the heart grow fonder”. Both of them make opposite statements, so which one is true. The explanation you choose will depend on what happens in your life after your friend leaves. Suppose you are able to find a new friend, the saying “Out of sight, out of mind” will be used by you or others to explain your behaviour. If you are unable to find a new friend, you will keep remembering your friend fondly. In this case, the saying “Distance makes the heart grow fonder” will explain your behaviour. Notice that in both cases the explanation follows the occurrence of behaviour. Common sense is based on hindsight. Psychology as a science looks for patterns of behaviour which can be predicted and not explained after the behaviour occurs. Scientific knowledge generated by psychology often runs against common sense. One such example is a study performed by Dweck (1975). She was concerned with children who gave up too easily when faced with a difficult problem or failure. She wondered how they could be helped. Common sense tells us to give them easy problems in order to increase their success rate so that their confidence goes up. Only later should we give them difficult problems which they will be able to solve because of their new-found confidence. Dweck’s study tested this. She took two groups of students who were trained for 25 days in solving math problems. The first group was given easy problems which they were always able to solve. The second group had a mix of easy and difficult problems. Obviously, in case of difficult problems, they failed. Whenever this happened Dweck told them that their failure was because they had not tried hard enough and persuaded them not to give up and keep trying. After the training period was over, a new set of math problems were given to the two groups. What Dweck found goes against common belief. Those who had always succeeded because they were given easy problems, gave up much faster when they faced failure than those who had experience of both success and failure and were taught to attribute failure to their lack of effort. There are many other common sense notions which you may not find to be true. Not too long ago it was believed in some cultures that men are more intelligent than women or women cause more accidents than men. Empirical studies have shown that both of these are untrue. Common sense also tells us that one is not able to give one’s best if you are asked to perform before a large audience. Psychological studies have shown that if you have practiced well, you may actually perform better because the presence of others helps your performance. It is hoped that as you go through this textbook you will discover that many of your beliefs and understanding of human behaviour will change. You will also gather that psychologists are different from astrologers, tantriks and palm readers because they systematically examine propositions based on data to develop principles about human behaviour and other psychological phenomen