Book Review: “APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY – India Specific and Cross Cultural Approaches”

AUTHOR: SMARAK SWAIN

My 150th Blog posting, I thought to make it special. The book review is my work at Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Executive Interns Training Programme, Chennai. I tried to include as much interpretations as I could in the book review!

Psychology defined is general terms is a study of human mind, his behaviours and his thoughts. Applied psychology is an applied science of psychology, where psychological knowledge is applied, to study and solve various human problems in society. Though the book, “Applied Psychology: India-specific and Cross-cultural Approaches,” written by Smarak Swain, organised and formatted in a form to suit aspirants preparing for Civil Service Examination with Psychology optional, the book contains whole sets of psychological interpretations which can help people to look into their day-to-day experience and current social problems from psychological perspective.

Can a healthy body without disease still be unhealthy? The author says ‘yes’ by substantiating it, with the definition of health as defined by World Health Organisation (WHO), “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely as the absence of disease and infirmity.” So, in order to maintain a sound health, it requires a holistic well-being of body, mind and our relationships. There are inferences from various philosophical and spiritual works that the mind well maintained and controlled can indeed be more powerful in treating other ailments of body and relationship. For instance, take the Placebo Effect, where Placebo is something that is prescribed for a patient that contains no medicine, but given for the positive psychological effect because the patient believes that he is receiving treatment and his ailment goes off, but in reality no effect the medicine leaves over the body.

Defining the concept of well being, the author touches the two facets of well being: Economic well being and Subjective well being. Economic well being is a general economic status of an individual, while Subjective well being defined in crude terms as general feeling of happiness. Reflecting on Psychologist Seligman works, the author subscribes three ways to improve our subjective well being or happiness. First, maintaining a ‘pleasure state of mind’ or positive emotions. Second, ‘engagement of activities’ that leads to intrinsic gratification. And third, finding ‘meaning in life’ through knowledge, altruism, family and community welfare, and spirituality.

In the part Educational Psychology, for explaining Value Education and its role in Personality Development, the author exposes the concept that our values are stronger and indelible than our attitude. For a person, values represent principles or standards ingrained in his life since his early stages of life. While attitude evolves or forms during our developmental stages and it gets altered many times during our lifetime. Unlike attitude, the values are permanent and once formed cannot be changed or altered. The author places special emphasis on Values because Values form a basic part of our personality structure, so, it has to be properly formulated at early stages, for healthy personality development. A child normally develops three types of values during its development stage, learned specially in family, school and social environment, which is classified as: First, Universal values, highest order of values like sensitivity to humanity, love, brotherhood, compassion and empathy; Second, Cultural values, learned from family and significant others; and Third, Personal Values, affect individual’s motivation and strive for success. All the three values render its significant role in the personality development of an individual.

In Human Resource Development and Entrepreneurship topic, the author questions: What drives hard-core entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Mark Zukerberg, Bill Gates, Ratan Tata, and Dhirubhai Ambani in their venture? The author aided with supporting research works exposes the truth by stating, “For ‘super-achieving’ entrepreneurs profit motive is not their ulterior motive in their entrepreneurship venture. But, they are characterised to possess higher need for achievement and interested in ‘excellence’ in their chosen area of expertise, than just being content with monetary rewards.”

The author while putting forth various leadership styles gives special emphasis on Transformation Leaders, who are in need of much demand in developing and changing societies like India. Transformation leaders are those who rise into prominence in times, especially when organisation faces change and transition. Such leaders exert considerable influence over their followers by imbibing on them a clear vision and they design and articulate to their followers the means of attaining the vision. Such leaders possess all enchanting charisma which gets expressed in their personality and interpersonal skills. Such leaders posses high consideration for their followers and they are highly proactive. Through their intellectual stimulation, the leader tries to initiates his followers to venture into new areas for solving their perplexing problems. Rhyming with the author’s claim that Transformation Leadership is in high demand in Indian Society, I will quote a saying by an anonymous writer, “Swami Vivekananda promised that he would bring change in the world, if ten highly motivated and determined youths are ready to follow his ideals. Look at current situation, we have more than ten determined and motivated youths to follow, but we lack single Swami Vivekananda to provide leadership!”

Giving some psychological touch in the economic sphere, the author describes the reason for failure of our development programmes, proposed soon after Independence. India initiated comprehensive development programmes for bringing wide scale social change and development. The programmes, designed by Economist and policy makers, focussed on ‘Village as prime factor for India’s development.’ They packed their ideologies and philosophies in the name of Five Year Plans and mechanistically enforced over nation with intention of bringing nation development. But, however, all attempts made by them fraught with failure and didn’t achieve the real expectations. The Psychologist, who critically analysed Economist Models found inherent contradictions with basic fundamentals of social change and development. They criticised it for lacking the basic concern for human factor in social change, participation of stake holders, centralised decision-making, and it was devoid of humanism in development.

The concept of social energy discussed by author, especially, validates itself in the background of current events like violence and riots raging in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries and Anti-corruptions movement in India. Such, collective behaviours by citizens in the form of social movements or social actions are driven by social energy. The author compares phenomenon by stating that ‘just like fossil fuel drives an automobile, the social energy drives the collective social actions.’ The source of origin of such social energies roots from extreme social deficit, high inequality, social dependency, social fallacy, etc, which exposes itself as social movements. The author advises the current political leadership for constructive use of social energies by providing proactive leadership through proper redirection or channelization of social energies towards super-ordinate social goals. Otherwise, they tend evolve as destructive forces and detrimental to our current social cohesion.

Describing every concept in brief and lucid manner, the author has covered every ideas of applied psychology with parallel connection with current social, economic, political and individual problems and he guides the reader by providing constructive solutions. As a whole, the 384 page book will provide the reader an edifying and enjoyable experience in psychology, as such.