Living and Doing Psychology

Abstract

As I look back at about 45 years of my research journey, I see three somewhat overlapping phases showing that my research has co-evolved with the way I have related to my milieu. The fi rst 15 years witnessed my struggle to outgrow the alien framework by conducting research that, I thought, addressed the most salient socio-cultural issues in the Indian context with the methods that seemed to be the most appropriate. For the next 15 years, I tried to claim a legitimate space for my research on the international landscape. My encounters there-enriching and yet frustrating-led me to realise that I can at best be an Indian cultural psychologist. In the third phase, therefore, I returned to focus on my ongoing interest in organisational behaviour that I believe is deeply embedded in the Indian societal culture inheriting psycho-philosophical thoughts from the ancient time. Hence, I have been exploring, through multi-authored, multi-centred and multi-methods research, how the ancient Indian wisdom has fi ltered through contemporary experiences to create an inclusive Indian mindset that manifests in social and organisational behaviour.This is a narrative of how certain persons, events and ideas impacted my research in the last 45 years. I did not start my research with any grand plan nor did I set any high destination to keep calling me. I focused on what I sensed as the most compelling social issues at a particular point in time, examined them with the methods that seemed to be the most appropriate and continued doing so till my research compelled me to move on to a more inclusive framework for a better understanding of the Indian social reality.

A Perspective on Epistemology and Ontology of Indian Psychology

“…IP, thus, is the study of people who hold this world view, and it does permeate in our social interactions and work. We can see in the journey of Sinha (2010) that he started writing about IP with suspicion, and ended up seeing the truth and beauty in the ideas presented in the Upanishads. This is empirical evidence, albeit anecdotal, about how Indians think, feel and act.…”

“…There are many examples of this in the work of Sinha (2010), and some will be identifi ed below for establishing this point. Similarly, the four puruSarthas of dharma (or performing one's duties), artha (or earning money), kAma (or pleasure) and mokSa (or liberation), or the four phases of life of brahmacarya (the fi rst 25 years of student-ship or learning), gArhasthya (being a householder from the age of 25 to 50), vAnaprastha (retreating to the forest for leading a spiritual life at the age of 50) and sannyAsa (living a life of a mendicant from the age of 75) can be used to understand and predict human behaviour in daily life.…”

“…Participants are even willing to show confi dential fi les when a rapport is established through informal dialogue. Sinha (2010) shares a trade secret-it is better to fi rst observe and then ask questions since the questionnaire often draws socially desirable response to make the organisation and managers look good, but the actual behaviours are often different. Sinha also informs us that respondents go back and forth when responding to questions, "as if the items were not discrete but inter-related and hence had to be responded in an integrated way" (Sinha, 2010, p. 108).…”

Perceiving Own and Others Behaviour: An Exploration in Social Perception

“…Further, Sinha (2010) argued that a way out of the problem in investigating a social reality without getting it contaminated by social desirability is to place respondents in the role of informants. In informants' role, respondents are likely to distance themselves from their own personal views and make impersonal observations of the social reality.…”

“…The issue pertaining to the relative merit of respondents versus informant's method is still far from settled because the arguments are still unsupported by a comparative evaluation of the two methods in a single study. Sinha (2010) has indeed reported substantial support in favour of the informant's method, but has not yet compared the two. The present study is an attempt in this direction.…”