In the previous section, you got some idea of the various branches of psychology. If you were to ask a simple question about “what psychologists do?”, the usual answer will be that they do several things while working in a variety of settings. However, if you try to analyse their work, you will notice that they basically engage in two kinds of activities. One is research in psychology; the other is application of psychology.
What are some of the themes which provide direction to research and application of psychology? There are several such themes. We will focus on some of them.
Theme 1 : Psychology like other sciences attempts to develop principles of behaviour and mental processes.
In research, the main concern is with the understanding and explanation of behaviour and mental events and processes. Psychologists, who choose to engage in research, function more like other scientists. Like them, they draw conclusions which are supported by data. They design and conduct experiments or studies under controlled conditions on a wide range of psychological
phenomena. The purpose is to develop general principles about behaviour and mental processes.
The conclusions drawn on the basis of such studies apply to everybody and are, therefore, universal. Experimental, comparative, physiological, developmental, social, differential and abnormal psychology are generally regarded as domains representing “basic psychology”.
The themes of research in these fields differ from each other. For example, experimental psychologists study the processes of perception, learning, memory, thinking, and motivation, etc., using experiment as their method of enquiry, whereas physiological psychologists attempt to examine physiological bases of these behaviours.
Developmental psychologists study qualitative and quantitative changes in behaviour from
the beginning of human life to its end, whereas social psychologists focus on the study of experience and behaviour of individuals as they take place in social contexts.
Theme 2 : Human behaviour is a function of the attributes of persons and environment.
Kurt Lewin first proposed the famous equation B = f(P,E) – which suggests that behaviour is the product of a person and her/ his environment. What this equation simply tells us is that the variations we find in human behaviour are largely due to the fact that persons differ with respect to their various attributes because of their genetic endowments and diverse experiences and so
do the environments they are placed in. Here the environment is conceptualised as it is perceived or made sense of by the person.
Psychologists have for a long time considered that no two individuals are the same, if one considers their psychological attributes. They vary with respect to their intelligence, interests, values, aptitudes and various other personality characteristics. In fact, psychological tests came to be constructed to measure such differences. A discipline called, differential psychology, which focused on individual differences emerged and flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Most of it still remains in the form of personality psychology.
Psychologists believe that although, core psychological processes are universal, they are
susceptible to individual dispositions. Besides individual differences, psychologists also believe that there are variations in behaviour which occur due to environmental factors.
This is a view which psychologists have taken from anthropologists, evolutionary theorists
and biologists. Psychologists look for explanations of various psychological phenomena based on individual-environment interactions. Although it is difficult, psychologists do seek out the relative
importance of heredity and environment in explaining human behaviour.
Theme 3 : Human behaviour is caused.
Most psychologists believe that all human behaviour can be explained in terms of causes which are internal (to the organism) or external having location in the outside environment. Causal explanations are central to all sciences because without understanding them no prediction will be possible. Although, psychologists look for causal explanations of behaviour, they also realise that simple linear explanations, such as X Causing Y do not hold true. There is no one cause of behaviour. Human behaviour has multiple causes.
Psychologists, therefore, look for causal models where a set of interdependent variables are used to explain a behaviour. When it is said that behaviour has multiple causes, it means that it is difficult to pinpoint one cause of a behaviour because it may itself be caused by another variable, which in turn may be caused by some other.
Theme 4 : Understanding of human behaviour is culturally constructed.
This is a theme which has recently surfaced. There are psychologists who believe that most psychological theories and models are Euro-American in nature and therefore, do not help us in understanding behaviours in other cultural settings. Psychologists from Asia, Africa and Latin America have been critical of Euro-American approaches which are propagated as universal. A similar critique is made by feminists who argue that psychology offers a male perspective and
ignores the perspective of women. They argue in favour of a dialectical approach which will
accommodate both male and female perspectives in understanding human behaviour.
Theme 5 : Human behaviour can be controlled and modified through the application of psychological principles.
Why do scientists like to know how certain events can be controlled, be they physical or
psychological? Their concern arises from their desire to develop techniques or methods that
will improve the quality of human life.
Psychologists also seek the same while applying knowledge generated by them.
This often requires removal of certain difficulties or adverse conditions that individuals experience in different phases of their life. Consequently, psychologists make certain interventions into the lives of needy people. This applied role of psychologists has, on the one hand, brought the subject closer to the life of people in general than other social science subjects and in knowing the limits of the applicability of its principles. On the other hand, this role has also been very helpful in popularising psychology as a subject in itself.
Thus, several independent branches of psychology have emerged that try to use psychological theories, principles and facts to diagnose and resolve problems related to industrial and organisational settings, clinical services, education, environment, health, community development and so on. Industrial psychology, organisational psychology, clinical psychology, educational psychology, engineering psychology and sports psychology represent some of the areas in which psychologists are engaged in delivering services to individuals, groups or institutions.
Basic vs Applied Psychology It may be noted at this point that various areas put under the rubrics of “basic” and “applied” psychology are identified only on the basis of their emphasis on the study of certain subject matters and broader concerns. There is no sharp cleavage between research and application of psychology. For example, basic psychology provides us with theories and principles that form the basis of application of psychology and applied psychology provides us with different contexts in which the theories and principles derived from research can be meaningfully applied. On the other hand, research is an integral part of even those fields
of psychology that are mainly characterised by or subsumed under the category of application.
Due to ever increasing demands of psychology in different settings, many fields that were regarded as primarily “researchoriented” in previous decades, have also gradually turned into “application-oriented”.
Newly emerging disciplines like applied experimental psychology, applied social psychology, and applied developmental psychology indicate that in fact all psychology has the potential of application and is basically applied in nature.
Thus, there is seemingly no fundamental difference between research and application of psychology. These activities are highly interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Their mutual interactions and pervasive influences on each other have become so specific that
several offshoots have emerged in recent years with very specific emphasis on their subject
matters. Thus, ecological psychology, environmental psychology, cross-cultural psychology, biological psychology, space psychology, and cognitive psychology, to mention a few, have come up as new and frontier areas of research and application that previously formed part of other fields of psychology. These newer developments require highly specialised research skills and
training on the part of researchers than ever before.
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