Psychology In India Volume 2 Social And Organizational Processes

Revised version of papers presented at the National Workshop for Fifth ICSSR Survey of Psychological Research, held at Delhi during 23-24 October 2006.

This volume focuses on basic and applied social psychology. The aspects discussed include attitudes and cognition; social influence processes; problems specific to the third world; inter-group relations and social tension; issues related to awareness, preception, motivation and attitudes; research on the social psychology of education.

Psychology in India, Volume I: Basic Psychological Processes and Human Development comprises six original essays and analyses research conducted on psychological processes. It integrates biological and ecological approaches to the study of behaviour; recent research in developmental psychology; studies on language acquisition and language processes, reading, and bilingualism and multilingualism; contributions from neuroscience, cognitive science, and cultural psychology towards the knowledge of cognitive processes; research on affective and motivational processes; and studying personality. Concepts, methods and theories have been covered.

Psychology in India Volume 3: Clinical and Health Psychology is part of the periodic surveys in the major disciplines of the social sciences to assess disciplinary developments and to identify gaps in research conducted by The Indian Council of Social Science Research. This volume comprises six original essays. It deals with the broad domain of disciplinary developments in the areas of clinical psychology and health psychology and explains developments, applications, analysis; psychology; geropsychology in India and the significant trends.

Psychology in India Volume IV: Theoretical and Methodological Developments is part of the periodic surveys in the major disciplines of the social sciences to assess disciplinary developments and to identify gaps in researches conducted by The Indian Council of Social Science Research. Six essays cover appraisal of the methodological developments in psychological research, efforts towards developing indigenous perspectives in psychology etc. Also psychoanalytic contributions, concerns of gender in psychological research, and some other critical perspectives are also discussed.

This book highlights the significance of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding children and childhoods in the Indian context. While it is recognised that multiple kinds of childhoods exist in India, policy and practice approaches to working with children are still based on a singular model of the ideal child rooted in certain Western traditions. The book challenges readers to go beyond the acknowledgement of differences to evolving alternate models to this conception of children and childhoods. Bringing together well-known scholars from history, politics, sociology, child development, paediatrics and education, the volume represents four major themes: the history and politics of childhoods; deconstructing childhoods by analysing their representations in art, mythology and culture in India; selected facets of childhoods as constructed through education and schooling; and understanding issues related to law, policy and practice, as they pertain to children and childhoods. This important book will be useful to scholars and researchers of education, especially those working in the domains of child development, sociology of education, educational psychology, public policy and South Asian studies.

The Survey of Psychology series presents critical reviews of and reflects the major changes in psychological research in India. After a comprehensive introduction, this, the third volume in the series, begins with a chapter that critically highlights the major contributions in the areas of attitudes, social cognition and justice from a theoretical and cultural perspective. The second chapter examines individualistic as well as traditional collectivist Indian values arguing that both can co-exist. This is followed by a chapter on the various dimensions of poverty, the poor and deprivation. Chapter Four reviews the major theoretical approaches to the subject, and the next chapter presents the prevalent trends and shortcomings of the conceptual and methodological problems in the relatively new area of environmental psychology. Chapter Six provides various pertinent issues related with motivation, leadership and human performance within a conceptual framework and with theoretical perspectives. The last chapter critically examines the changes and the general shift in the content of research as well as the strength and weaknesses of the discipline of psychology at the start of the new millennium.