PSYCHOLOGY
Unit-I : FUNDAMENTALS OF PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY Definition: Psychology is the science of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study
of conscious and unconscious phenomena, as well as feelings and thought. It is an academic discipline of
immense scope. Psychologists also seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking
the discipline to neuroscience.
Goals of Psychology : 4 goals
1. Describe
We describe things every day with no conscious thought or effort, but the describing of psychology has a
slightly different meaning than the describing we do in our day-to-day lives. Accurately describing a
problem, an issue, or a behavior is the first goal of psychology. Descriptions help psychologists to
distinguish between typical and atypical behaviors and gain more accurate understandings of human
and animal behaviors and thoughts. A variety of research methods, including case studies, surveys, self-
tests, and natural observation allow psychologists to pursue this goal.
2. Explain
In addition to describing, psychologists seek to be able to explain behaviors. The goal of explaining is to
provide answers to questions about why people react to certain stimuli in certain ways, how various
factors impact personalities and mental health, and so on. Psychologists often use experiments, which
measure the impacts of variables upon behaviors, to help formulate theories that explain aspects of
human and animal behaviors.
Many psychologists have developed numerous theories over the past two centuries to explain various
human behaviors. Some theories have been debunked or replaced by more recent findings, while others
have endured and maintained their acceptance by the scientific community. Some theories focus on
explaining small aspects of human behavior, like Pavlov's theory of classical conditioning and Bowlby's
attachment theory. Others set out to describe human behavior in its entirety, like Erickson's eight stages
of human development and Freud's Freudian theory of personality.
3. Predict
Making predictions about how humans and animals will think and act is the third goal of psychology. By
looking at past observed behavior (describing and explaining), psychologists aim to predict how that
behavior may appear again in the future, as well as whether others might exhibit the same behavior.
Psychologists can use knowledge gleaned from previous studies to predict why, when, and how
observed behaviors might happen in the future. Psychologists can then foresee a pattern of behavior. By
being able to predict patterns of behavior, psychologists can better understand the underlying causes of
our actions. Prediction, at least in theory, gives psychologists the ability to change or control behavior,
the last goal of psychology.
4. Change / Control
Psychology aims to change, influence, or control behavior to make positive, constructive, meaningful,
and lasting changes in people's lives and to influence their behavior for the better. This is the final and
most important goal of psychology. These four goals of psychology are not that different from how you
would naturally interact with others. Suppose, for example, that someone did something they weren't
supposed to do, and this action had a negative impact on their life. You may want to try to help or
resolve the issue and the following questions might naturally run through your mind:
● "What happened?" (describing)
● "Why did they do that?" (explaining)
● "What would happen if they did this?" (predicting)
● "What can they do next time to reach a different outcome?" (changing)
The Growth of Psychology from middle 19th century:
Psychology became a science in the nineteenth century. The roots of this new science were many.
Philosophers provided psychology’s conceptual framework: physiologists provided knowledge of the
nervous system and experimental methods; and social reformers and psychiatrists provided motives for
using science to improve the human condition.
Central Controversies
What does psychology study? The Cartesian paradigm gave one answer: Psychology is the study of
consciousness, and the first psychologists defined psychology as the science of consciousness. They
claimed a fixed subject matter, consciousness, and a unique method, introspection, for examining it.
However, no science of human nature could completely avoid studying what people do. In Germany,
Immanuel Kant proposed a science of behavior called anthropology, and in Britain, John Stuart Mill
proposed a similar science called ethology. As the human sciences sorted themselves out in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, psychology gradually extended its scope to include everything
about human beings as individuals, adding the studies of individual behavior and individual differences
to the study of consciousness. The other human sciences came to focus on human society (sociology),
culture (anthropology), and history. Read more about Central Controversies.
Mind or Matter?
In severing the mind from the world, Rene Descartes severed the mind from its body. As a consequence,
the role and even existence of mind became problematical. How are mind and body related? Do minds
exist? Are there other minds? Read more about Mind or Matter?
Innovations
Innovations of the nineteenth century transformed philosophical psychology into scientific psychology.
From ancient times thinkers had proposed speculative theories of how mental processes were linked to
the brain and nervous system. However, not until the nineteenth century did physiology, including
neurophysiology, make real progress. By the time scientific psychology began, a general, if limited,
picture of neural and brain processes had emerged from two parallel tracks of research. Read more
about Innovations.
Methods
Following the scientific revolution, being a natural scientist meant quantitatively measuring one’s
subject matter, and ideally, performing experiments. In the nineteenth century, experimental and
psychometric methods came into existence. Read more about Methods.
Institutions
Social institutions important for the new scientific psychology changed or were created in the
nineteenth century. Because psychology began as an academic discipline, it was shaped by institutions
of higher education that varied significantly from country to country. Germany led the world in scientific
research and postgraduate education. Before Bismarck created the second German Empire in 1871, the
German-speaking world was a collection of petty princedoms. Because each prince wanted his own
university, Germany had more of them than any other nation. Moreover, Germany created the modern
secular, government-supported, research-oriented university. Read more about Institutions.
Founding Psychologies
Scientific psychology had three foundings. The first was the psychology of consciousness established by
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920). The second was the psychology of adaptation, begun by popular writer
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), but given greatest voice by William James (1842-1910). The third was
psychoanalysis, launched by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Read more about Founding Psychologies.
Development of Psychology in India:
Long before the advent of scientific psychology in the West, India, like most countries of the developing
world, had its own religious and metaphysical systems that contained elaborate theories about human
nature, actions, personality, and interrelationships with the world. Though they constituted a vast
storehouse of psychological knowledge, it consisted largely of intuitions of seers, speculations, and often
contained elements that were mysterious and even at times esoteric. Modern methods of controlled
observation and experimentation did not have a place, and it was not “scientific” in the strict sense of
the term (Sinha, 1965). However, the intellectual soil for the growth of psychology was there. But the
kind of psychology that was transplanted to India as a part of the total imperialist domination of the
West came as a ready-made intellectual package ill the first decade of the century, and replaced almost
wholesale the intellectual traditions and indigenous systems that had existed for thousands of years.
Enduring issues Application of Psychology to societal problems Contributions of Weber:
Psychology can contribute to our understanding of real-life problems and how it can inform rational
interventions in any area of social life. By reviewing some of the most recent achievements in applying
social psychology to pressing contemporary problems, Forgas, Crano, and Fiedler convey a
fundamentally optimistic message about social psychology’s achievements and prospects.
Unit-II
METHODS OF PSYCHOLOGY: Types of research: Descriptive, evaluative, diagnostic and prognostic;
Methods of Research: Survey, observation, case-study and experiments; Characteristics of experimental
design and non-experimental design, Quasi-experimental designs; Focused group discussions, brain
storming, grounded theory approach.
5 Research Methods Used in Psychology
● Case Study
● Experiment
● Observational Study
● Survey
● Content Analysis
1. Case Study
Case study research falls under the qualitative branch of research methodology. Case studies involve
deep inquiry into individuals, groups, communities, or events. They often combine a multi-
methodological approach that integrates participant interviews and unobtrusive observations. Case
studies in the psychology discipline are typically conducted on specific individuals. A psychology case
study most often collects salient and seminal biographical moments from a patient’s past as well as
important events in the individual’s daily life that may animate maladaptive behaviors and thinking.
2. Experiment
Although this is introduced as a broad kind of research that can be a component of many methods, the
term here is used to denote a specific procedure. In science, experiments are an often-used method of
research, and there are certain principles involved in its employment. One is the presence of a control
group. This is an individual or a group of individuals that is not manipulated.
Another principle is the control of variables. That is, the experiment should be as free of extraneous data
as possible. This factor enables psychologists to repeat the experiment, and that is one requirement of
reliable research.
A third principle is the consistency of measurements. Allowing differing standards makes replication
impossible and the results unreliable.
The fourth principle involved is showing cause and effect. That is, the manipulations performed in the
experiment led to the results, and nothing else was involved. Experiments can be laboratory-controlled
like sleep studies, field experiments that allow the psychologist to manipulate the subject but not his
environment, or natural experiments which allow no control and are largely observational.
There are three main types of experiments: field experiments, lab experiments, and natural
experiments. Lab experiments are conducted in highly controlled settings and may or may not be
conducted in a scientific laboratory. The strengths of this methodology are that these experiments are
easy to replicate and allow for fastidious control of variables. Limitations include the artificial setting,
which may cause unnatural reactions and potential research bias.
3. Observational Study
Observational study is qualitative research that can be carried out in a myriad of differing ways using
non-experimental means where behavior is simply observed systematically. The main objective of
observational research is to discover variables that may impact behaviors in individuals, groups, and
social constructs. The research is described as non-experimental because it occurs in a natural setting
without controls. Observational research can involve mixed methods that may include multiple
qualitative techniques and quantitative methods.
4. Survey
Survey research can be both quantitative and qualitative, and it is widely used in not only psychology
research but across the sciences. Respondents (those answering the questions) are sent surveys and are
asked to self-report their actions, thoughts, and feelings to measure how certain variables may impact
them. One of the most critical aspects of survey research is the sampling method used. Most
researchers prefer large samples that are representative of the population they are studying to obtain a
representative estimate of what is accurate among the population. Samples in psychology are often
random and large.
5. Content Analysis
This method of research involves analyzing large amounts of text-based data in an effort to identify
meanings and thematic consistencies. It can be used in quantitative and qualitative contexts. For
example, quantitative researchers may search for specific words or phrases and add them for a final
count. Qualitative content analysis search more for the meaning of texts through the identification of
themes in the data. Qualitative analysis of this kind relies on the practice of coding and categorizing the
content to make sense of it. Researchers often use a technique known as close reading, in which phrases
are turned into coded units. The text is read repeatedly until all of the texts are coded and the point of
data saturation has been reached. This process is inductive analysis because no theory is being tested;
rather the data is coded in an effort to see if a theory emerges. This process is known as conventional or
formative analysis.
Characteristics of experimental design and non-experimental design:
Characteristics:
Experimental research is usually quantitative, controlled, and multivariable. Non-experimental research
can be both quantitative and qualitative, has an uncontrolled variable, and also a cross-sectional
research problem.
The characteristics of experimental research are the direct opposite of that of non-experimental
research. The most distinct characteristic element is the ability to control or manipulate independent
variables in experimental research and not in non-experimental research.
In experimental research, a level of control is usually exerted on extraneous variables, therefore
tampering with the natural research setting. Experimental research settings are usually more natural
with no tampering with the extraneous variables.
Non-Experimental & Experimental Research
Alright! It's time to learn something using research by … performing a non-experimental study?
Wait, wait, wait! Is it possible to have a non-experimental study? Is that sort of like sugar free candy? Is
it something that you're supposed to have that is replaced by something that makes you scratch your
head? Before we discuss research designs, though, you need a brief walkthrough of some of the terms I
am going to throw at you.
A predictor variable is the portion of the experiment that is being manipulated to see if it has an effect
on the dependent variable. For example, do people eat more Gouda or cheddar cheese? The predictor
variable in this is the type of cheese. Now, every time you eat cheese, you'll think about predictor
variables. When I say subjects, I just mean the people in the experiment or the people being studied.
Experimental research is when a researcher is able to manipulate the predictor variable and subjects to
identify a cause-and-effect relationship. This typically requires the research to be conducted in a lab,
with one group being placed in an experimental group, or the ones being manipulated, while the other
is placed in a placebo group, or inert condition or non-manipulated group. A laboratory-based
experiment gives a high level of control and reliability.
Non-experimental research is the label given to a study when a researcher cannot control, manipulate
or alter the predictor variable or subjects, but instead, relies on interpretation, observation or
interactions to come to a conclusion. Typically, this means the non-experimental researcher must rely
on correlations, surveys or case studies, and cannot demonstrate a true cause-and-effect relationship.
Non-experimental research tends to have a high level of external validity, meaning it can be generalized
to a larger population.
Differences
So, now that we have the basics of what they are, we can see some of the differences between them.
Obviously, the first thing is the very basis of what they are looking at: their methodology. Experimental
researchers are capable of performing experiments on people and manipulating the predictor variables.
Non-experimental researchers are forced to observe and interpret what they are looking at. Being able
to manipulate and control something leads to the next big difference.
The ability to find a cause-and-effect relationship is kind of a big deal in the world of science! Being able
to say X causes Y is something that has a lot of power. While non-experimental research can come close,
non-experimental researchers cannot say with absolute certainty that X leads to Y. This is because there
may be something it did not observe, and it must rely on less direct ways to measure.
For example, let's say we're curious about how violent men and women are. We cannot have a true
experimental study because our predictor variable for violence is gender. To have a true experimental
study we would need to be able to manipulate the predictor variable. If we had a way to switch men
into women and women into men, back and forth, so that we could see which gender is more violent,
then we could run a true experimental study. But, we can't do that. So, our little experiment becomes a
non-experimental study because we cannot manipulate our predictor variable.
Pros & Cons of Non-Experimental Research
There appears to be only disadvantages to non-experimental research. It cannot find cause-and-effect
relationships, cannot manipulate predictor variables and the methods of study are often correlation or
case studies. There are clear cut disadvantages to non-experimental designs. However, non-
experimental research does have at least some advantages over experimental design. A non-
experimental study picks up the slack from an experimental design. As discussed earlier, to study the
effects of gender, you have to be able to manipulate a person's gender. Other examples of non-
experimental research include predictor variables like:
● Age
● Ethnicity
● Prison sentences (real prisoners, not like Zimbardo's students)
● Bereavement
● Current opinions
If you can't manipulate it, then you can't run an experimental study. However, non-experimental
researchers are able to take the variables that cannot be manipulated and controlled. The non-
experimental design can study and examine questions experimental researchers cannot.
Quasi-experimental designs:
A quasi-experiment is an empirical interventional study used to estimate the causal impact of an
intervention on target population without random assignment. Quasi-experimental research shares
similarities with the traditional experimental design or randomized controlled trial, but it specifically
lacks the element of random assignment to treatment or control. Instead, quasi-experimental designs
typically allow the researcher to control the assignment to the treatment condition, but using some
criterion other than random assignment.
Unit-III
STRESS & HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY:
Stressors have a major influence upon mood, our sense of well-being, behavior, and health. Acute stress
responses in young, healthy individuals may be adaptive and typically do not impose a health burden.
However, if the threat is unremitting, particularly in older or unhealthy individuals, the long-term effects
of stressors can damage health. The relationship between psychosocial stressors and disease is affected
by the nature, number, and persistence of the stressors as well as by the individual’s biological
vulnerability (i.e., genetics, constitutional factors), psychosocial resources, and learned patterns of
coping. Psychosocial interventions have proven useful for treating stress-related disorders and may
influence the course of chronic diseases.
Sources of stress: Life changes, Everyday hassles, Thinking critically, Self-imposed stress, Stress &
Individual differences
Coping with stress, Stress & Health: The biology of stress, staying healthy:
Stress management
1. maintain a healthy diet.
2. aim for 7-8 hours of sleep each night.
3. exercise regularly.
4. minimize your use of caffeine and alcohol.
5. stay socially connected so you can get and give support.
6. make time for rest and relaxation, or self-care.
7. learn meditation techniques such as deep breathing.
Coping with stress, Stress & Health:
● Stay focused on the positive and avoid negative energy.
● Avoid drugs and alcohol.
● Rest your mind: Sleep, do yoga, meditate and perform relaxation exercises that can help restore
energy.
● Get help from a psychologist when you're overwhelmed.
● Identify what's causing stress and take action.
● Build strong, positive relationships: Connect with supportive friends and family members when
you're having a difficult time.
● Get regular exercise, eat nourishing food and participate in activities you enjoy.
The biology of stress:
Research1 has shown when an individual appraises a situation as being stressful, the adrenal medulla
releases the hormone adrenaline, which prepares the body for a fight or flight response. This increases
heart, sweating, blood pressure, and breathing rates. The hypothalamus, which is a brain structure
associated with emotional reactions, such as fear responds to stress by activating the pituitary gland,
which in turn secretes adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) that activates the adrenal glands to release
the hormone corticosteroid. Cortisol helps the body to maintain steady supplies of blood sugar.
When the stress response (flight/fight response) is activated. It is important to get it back to its baseline.
Learning to relax can make a tremendous difference in alleviating stress. This can be achieved by
activating the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to elicit
what Dr. Benson2 termed the relaxation response, which is a “physical state of deep rest that changes
the physical and emotional responses to stress.” The relaxation response works in the opposite way of
the fight-or-flight response. It lowers the stress hormone levels and lowers blood pressure.
Extreme stress: Sources, Post- traumatic stress disorders:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event
— either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe
anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.
Most people who go through traumatic events may have temporary difficulty adjusting and coping, but
with time and good self-care, they usually get better. If the symptoms get worse, last for months or even
years, and interfere with your day-to-day functioning, you may have PTSD.
Getting effective treatment after PTSD symptoms develop can be critical to reduce symptoms and
improve function.
Kinds of traumatic events
The most common events leading to the development of PTSD include:
● Combat exposure
● Childhood physical abuse
● Sexual violence
● Physical assault
● Being threatened with a weapon
● An accident
Unit-IV PERCEPTION, MOTIVATION & EMOTION:
Definition and concept of perception:
Perception is a process of receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting, checking and reacting to stimuli.
This is like an input-through put-output process in which the stimuli can be considered as 'inputs'
transformation of 'input' through selection, organization and interpretation as 'through puts' and the
ultimate behaviour/action as 'output'.
Definition of perception
Perception means perceiving, i.e., giving meaning to the environment around us. It can be defined as a
process which involves seeing, receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting and giving meaning to the
environment.
Nature of perception
(1) Perception is the intellectual process.
(2) Perception is the basic cognitive or psychological process.
(3) Perception becomes a subjective process and different people may perceive the same event
differently.
Perceptual Process:-
Perception is a process of receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting, checking and reacting to stimuli.
This is like an input-through put-output process in which the stimuli can be considered as 'inputs'
transformation of 'input' through selection, organization and interpretation as 'through puts' and the
ultimate behaviour/action as 'output'. The whole perceptional process can be presented as follows :
These are explained one by one
1. Receiving Stimuli : The first process in the perception is the presence of stimuli. The stimuli are
received from the various sources. Through the five organs. It is a physiological aspect of perception
process. Stimuli may be external to us (such as sound waves) and inside us (such as energy generation
by muscles).
2. Selection of Stimuli : After receiving the stimuli or data, some are selected. Others are screened out.
Two types of factors affect selection of stimuli for processing : external and internal factors. External
factors relate to stimuli such as intensity of stimuli, its size, movement, repetition, etc. Internal factors,
relate to the perceiver such as his/her age, learning, interest, etc. Normally, he will select the objects
which interest him and will avoid that for which he is indifferent. This is also called 'selective perception'.
3. Organization of Stimuli : Organising the bits of information into a meaningful whole is called
"organization". There are three ways by which the selected data, i.e., inputs are organised. These are :
(i) Grouping, (ii) Closure and (iii) Simplification.
(i) Grouping : In grouping, the perceiver groups the various stimuli on the basis of their similarity or
proximity. For example, all the workers coming from the same place may be perceived as similar on the
basis of proximity.
(ii) Closure : When faced with incomplete information, people fill up the gaps themselves to make the
information meaningful. This may be done on the basis of past experience, past data, or hunches. For
example, in many advertisement, alphabets are written by putting electric bulbs indicating the shape of
the concerned alphabets but broken lines. In such cases, people tend to fill up the gap among different
bulbs to get meaning out of these.
(iii) Simplification : People identify main stimulus features and assesses how they are organized. He
interprets a stimulus situation, the perceiver simples the information.
Biological factors in perception:
1. Physiological. Information through our senses, then the information retrieved will this
affect and complement efforts to give meaning to the environment around it.
2. Attention. The individual requires a certain amount of energy is expended to pay attention
or focus on the physical and mental facilities that exist on an object.
3. Interest. Perception towards an object varies depending on how much energy or perceptual
vigilance that is moved to mempersepsi.
4. Direct needs. These factors can be seen from how strong an individual searching for objects
or messages that can provide answers to correspond with him.
5. Experiences and memories. The experience can be said depending on the memory in the
sense of the extent to which a person can recall the events of the past …
6. Mood. Emotional state affects the person’s behavior, mood shows how feelings of a person
at a time can affect how a person in a receiving, react and remember.
Perceptual organization-influence of past experiences:
We used primed matching to examine the microgenesis of perceptual organization for familiar (upright
letters) and unfamiliar (inverted letters) visual configurations that varied in the connectedness between
their line components. The configurations of upright letters were available for priming as early as 40 ms,
irrespective of connectedness between their line components. The configurations of connected
inverted-letter primes were also available this early, but the configurations of disconnected inverted
letters were not available until later These results show that past experience contributes to the early
grouping of disconnected line segments into configurations. These findings suggest an interactive model
of perceptual organization in which both image-based properties (e.g., connectedness) and input from
object memories contribute to perceptual organization.
These results show that past experience contributes to the early grouping of disconnected line
segments into configurations. These from object memories contribute to perceptual organization. jects.
Humans perceive an organized visual world consisting of dis- crete objects that are coherently arranged
in space.
Psychological and physiological basis of motivation and emotion:
• Emotions can serve as motives, goals, or accompaniments of motivated behaviour. Intense emotions
involve widespread bodily changes that result from activation of the sympathetic division of the
autonomic nervous system. The James-Lange theory proposes that feedback from these bodily
responses determines the quality of an emotion.
• The concept of motivation is central in our attempt to understand behaviour and its causes. The term
itself comes from the latin word movere, meaning ‘to move’. Motivation is a process that influences the
direction, persistence and vigor of goal directed behaviour.
• The process of motivation functions in a cycle i.e., Need —» Drive —» Arousal —» Goal Directed
Behaviour -» Achievement -» Reduction of Arousal -» Need.
• Motives can be classified as Biological motives and Psychological motives.
• Biological motives emphasise on inborn, biological causes like Neurotransmitters, hormones and the
nervous system.
• Psychological motives emphasise on Socio-environmental factors, e.g,, Achievement . need, affiliation,
power, curiosity, etc.
Words That Matter
1. Motivation: The process of persistent behaviour directed towards a specific goal, which results from
certain driving forces, is called motivation.
2. Need: Lack or deficit of some necessity.
3. Drive : A state of tension or arousal produced by a need.
4. Instinct : Inborn patterns of behaviour that are biologically determined rather than learned.
5. Affiliation: Seeking other human beings and wanting to be close to them both physically and
psychologically is called affiliation.
6. Need for power: Ability of a person to produce intended effects on the behaviour and emotions of
another person.
7. Need for achievement : It energises and directs behaviour as well as influences the perception of
situations.
8. Frustration: It occurs when an anticipated desirable goal is not attained and the motives is blocked. It
is an aversive state and no one likes it.
9. Conflict: Choosing between contradictory needs, desires, motives, or demands.
10. Emotion: It is stirred up state. A complex pattern of arousal that involves physiological activation,
conscious awareness of feeling, and a specific cognitive label that describes the process.
11. Mood : Affective state of long duration but of lesser intensity that emotion.
12. James Lange Theory : A theory of emotion that holds that body’s reaction to a stimulus produces
emotional perceptional; the overt feeling of emotion is a result of the bodily changes.
13. Canon-Bard Theory: This theory claims that the entire process of emotion is mediated by thalamus
which after perception of the emotion provoking stimulus, conveys this information simultaneously to
the cerebral cortex and to the skeletal muscles and sympathetic nervous system.
14. Anxiety : It is a condition that an individual develops in case of failure to adopt an appropriate ego
defence.
15. Emotional intelligence : The ability to monitor one’s own and other’s emotions to discriminate
among them and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions.
Measurement of motivation and emotion:
An interesting development regarding the measurement of the dynamics of motivation and emotion is
the adoption of state-traits models, based on the distinction between variable states and stable traits.
In this section we will take a look at the state-trait distinction and the way in which it has been applied in
theory and research.
Effects of motivation and emotion on behaviour:
Motivation is incredibly important because it i s the central point of behavior which directly influences a
person’s daily emotions and it also affects long term hopes and dreams. It can have both a positive
effect on our behavior or a negative effect by the absence of motivation.
Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation:
Extrinsic Motivation:
Behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. This type of
motivation arises from outside the individual.
Intrinsic Motivation:
The undertaking of an activity, as a hobby, without external incentive; also, personal satisfaction derived
through self-initiated achievement.
The following video “Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Motivation by ASCatRIT” explains extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation.
Factors influencing intrinsic motivation:
● Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation refers to the drive that comes from within. It is
an internal inspiration that pushes you to work hard and achieve what you desire. The
endpoint is always the inner satisfaction, and it does not depend upon any external
incentives or rewards
● Extrinsic Motivation: Quite obviously, it is the exact opposite of what intrinsic motivation
is. Extrinsic motivation is mainly quipped with any external incentive like earning rewards
or avoiding an imminent punishment.
1. Curiosity
The satisfaction of one’s curiosity drives us to explore the many avenues that come with a particular
work and learn about them just for the sake of attaining pleasure in learning and mastering.
2. Challenge
Setting challenges and short goals aid us to work at our maximum efficiency to achieve those meaningful
goals.
3. Control
This comes from our intrinsic aspiration to be in control of the possible outcomes and placing ourselves
in the driving seat when it comes to making decisions that affect the outcome.
4. Recognition
We reserve an innate desire to be appreciated and feel a sense of accomplishment when our efforts
receive the desired attention and appreciation by others.
5. Cooperation
Cooperation with others imbibes a sense of belonging towards your peers or your team. One feels
extremely satisfied when one helps others and works collectively to achieve a shared goal.
6. Competition
A sense of competitiveness creates a challenge for one and increases the validation and reasoning we
place on doing well and achieving something.
7. Fantasy
The basic definition of fantasy includes implementing mental or virtual images to stimulate one’s
behavior towards particular work or a task at hand. One proper example of this scenario is a virtual
game that requires you to provide an answer to a question or solve a particular problem and overcome
hurdles to move on to the next level. Some motivational applications use a similar approach to imbibe a
sense of accomplishment.
Emotional competence and the related issues:
Emotional competence describes the ability a person has to express his or her own emotions with
complete freedom, and it is derived from emotional intelligence, which is the ability to identify
emotions. Competence is the level of skill with which someone interacts constructively with other
people.
Health problems related to emotional competence It has been shown that internalizing emotions can
lead to a deterioration of physical and mental health. This can include an increase in stress levels,
which can cause dangerous conditions like hypertension, a rapid increase or loss in weight, or fatigue.
Unit-V
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY:
Social psychology is the scientific study of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are
influenced by the actual, imagined, and implied presence of others, 'imagined' and 'implied presences'
referring to the internalized social norms that humans are influenced by even when they are alone.
Social cognition:
● Historical development. Social cognition came to prominence with the rise of cognitive
psychology in the late 1960s and...
● Social schemas. Social schema theory builds on and uses terminology from schema theory
in cognitive psychology, which...
● Cultural differences. Social psychologists have become increasingly interested in the
influence of culture on social...
Impression formation:
Impression formation in social psychology refers to the processes by which different pieces of
knowledge about another are combined into a global or summary impression. Social Psychologist
Solomon Asch was a pioneer in Gestalt Psychology. He is credited with the seminal research on
impression formation and conducted research on how individuals integrate information about
personality traits.
Interpersonal attraction:
● Interpersonal Attraction. All human beings are heavily influenced by interpersonal
attraction (IA) in their everyday...
● Interpersonal Attraction, Psychology of. Interpersonal attraction is traditionally defined in
social psychology as a...
● Psychology. Of all attitudes, one of the most interesting is the attitudes of others and
factors that influence...
● Children’s Friendship. There is a long tradition extending back to the late 1920s of using
sociometric measures, or...
Attitudes: Nature, Prejudice & discrimination, attitude change
Social influence: Cultural influence, Cultural assimilators. Social action: Deindividuation, Helping
behaviour, Group decision-making, organizational behaviour
