The term ‘Psychology’ is derived from two Greek words; Psyche means “soul or breath” and Logos means “knowledge or study” (study or investigation of something). The word ‘Psychology’ was not in common use before the nineteenth century, and the field of psychology did not become an independent science until the middle of the nineteenth century.

Psychology has been defined in several ways by various authors. Psychologists had been debating on whether psychology should focus on “mind”, “consciousness” or “behaviour”. Let us look at how the definitions of psychology
have come a long way over the past 130 years. According to Bagga & Singh (1990), the term Psychology was first used by
Rudolf Goeckle, in 1950. They have chronologically given the definitions of psychology.

modern Psychology has been defined as a science of behaviour.’Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes. Behaviour includes all of our outward or overt actions and reactions, such as verbal and facial expressions and movements.

Mental processes refer to all the internal and covert activity of our mind such as thinking, feeling and remembering. It is a scientific study because to study behaviour and mental processes, psychologists use scientific methods for understanding more precisely and accurately.

Scope of Psychology:

The field of psychology can be understood by various subfields of psychology making an attempt in meeting the goals of psychology.

1. Physiological Psychology:

Humans are biological creatures in the most basic sense. Our behaviour is influenced by both our body’s structure and physiological processes. The branch that focuses on it is biopsychology. Bio-psychologists may investigate the connections between particular brain regions and illnesses like Parkinson’s disease or they may look for connections between our feelings and our actions.

2. Developmental Psychology:

Here, research is focused on how people develop and evolve over the course of their lives, from the prenatal period through childhood, adolescence, and old age. Developmental psychologists are employed in a range of institutions, including universities, hospitals, businesses, nonprofit groups, and government agencies. They are also heavily involved in research on disturbed kids and giving parents advice on how to help these kids.

3. Personality Psychology:

This branch explains how the influences of parents, siblings, playmates, school, society, and culture over the course of a person’s life—from birth to death—can explain both constancy and change in that person’s behaviour. Additionally, it investigates the unique characteristics that set one person’s behaviour apart from another’s.

4. Health Psychology:

The relationship between psychological variables and physical sickness and disease is examined in this. Health psychologists concentrate on maintaining good health and promoting healthy behaviours like exercise, and good habits, and discouraging bad behaviours like smoking, drug use, and drinking.

In addition to conducting research in colleges and universities, health psychologists work in healthcare settings. They evaluate the healthcare system, work to make it better and create health policy.

5. Clinical Psychology:

It addresses the evaluation and treatment of aberrant behaviour. Others maintain that some of these patterns are simply learned responses that can be unlearned with training. Still, others are in conflict with the knowledge of thinking that there are biological bases to certain psychological disorders, especially the more serious ones. Some people observe and believe that psychological disorders arise from a person’s unresolved conflicts and unconscious motives. Clinical psychologists work in clinics, private practices, and hospitals. They frequently collaborate closely with other mental health professionals.

6. Counselling Psychology:

This largely focuses on issues with educational, social, and career adjustment. Counselling psychologists offer advice to students on how to study effectively and the kind of jobs they might be most qualified for. They also assist with minor social issues and support healthy lifestyles, financial, and emotional modifications.

They employ assessments to gauge people’s aptitudes, interests, and personality traits. They also offer techniques to strengthen family ties and marital and family counselling.

7. Educational Psychology:

All educational concepts are of interest to educational psychologists. This includes researching motivation, IQ, personality, how rewards and punishments are used, class size, expectations, the efficiency of the instructor based on their personality traits, student-teacher relationships, attitudes, etc. Designing examinations to assess student achievement is another concern. Additionally, they assist in developing the curriculum to make learning more engaging and fun for kids.

Educational psychology is used in elementary and secondary schools, planning and supervising special education, training teachers, counselling students having problems, and assessing students with learning difficulties such as poor writing and reading skills and lack of concentration.

8. Social Psychology:

This research examines how society affects people’s attitudes, motivations, and behaviours. Our behaviour is influenced by more than just our personality and genetic makeup. Our thoughts, words, and actions are influenced by social and environmental circumstances. To ascertain the impact of various groups, group tensions, and influence on behaviour, social psychologists undertake experiments.

They look at the consequences of racial prejudice, violence, conflict, conformity, propaganda, and persuasion. Many instances that would be challenging to understand without these investigations are now clear. Most social psychologists work for colleges, universities, and other businesses.

9. Industrial and Organizational Psychology:

Both commercial and governmental enterprises use psychology in management and employee training, staff monitoring, improving internal communication, providing employee counselling, and reducing labour conflicts.

Thus, we can conclude that in organizational and industrial sectors, workers’ physical well-being is given consideration in addition to the psychological repercussions of their working attitudes.

10. Experimental Psychology:

It is the field of study that applies scientific approaches to the processes of sensing, perceiving, learning, and thinking, among others. Cognitive psychology, which focuses on researching higher mental functions including thinking, knowing, reasoning, judging, and decision-making, is the result of experimental psychology. Animals are commonly used as experimental subjects in the lab by experimental psychologists.

11. Environmental Psychology:

It emphasizes the interactions between people and their social and physical environments. For instance, the relationship between population density and crime, the detrimental consequences of noise pollution, the impact of crowding on our way of life, etc.

12. Psychology of Women:

This concentrates on psychological facets of women’s behaviour and development. It focuses on a wide range of issues, such as violence against women, gender discrimination, the possibility that men and women have different structural differences in their brains, the influence of hormones on behaviour, the cause of violence against women, the fear of success, and women’s propensity to outsmart men in a variety of achievements.

13. Sports and Exercise Psychology:

It studies the role of motivation in sports, social aspects of sports and physiological issues like the importance of training on muscle development, the coordination between eye and hand, the muscular coordination in track and field, swimming and gymnastics.

14. Cognitive Psychology:

Its foundations are found in the Gestalt principles’ cognitive viewpoint. In order to gain insight into higher-order human brain processes including insight, creativity, and problem-solving, it investigates thinking, memory, language, development, perception, imagery, and other mental processes. The spread of the theories of this school of thought is linked to psychologists with names like Edward Tolman and Jean Piaget.

Methods of Psychology:

Psychologists use many scientific methods for research purposes to understand various psychological issues more scientifically. These scientific methods reduce bias and errors in understanding various behavioural aspects.

The relevance of these scientific methods extends beyond testing and evaluating theories and hypotheses in psychology. Though there are many such methods used by psychologists, each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Some of the important methods are:

A. Introspection method

Introspection or self-observation may be considered as a old method but it is something we are doing almost constantly in our everyday life. Introspection is a method of studying the consciousness in which the subjects report on their subjective experiences. It is a method that requires long and difficult training. It gives in-depth information about the individual.

In introspection, the subject is taught to achieve a state of “focused attention” in which he can closely observe his own conscious experiences. He will be able to report the smallest possible elements of awareness. Thus the goal of introspection is to learn about the basic building blocks of experience and the principles by which they combine to give us our everyday consciousness.

Limitations:

1. It is not possible to observe one’s own behaviour and at the same time experience it. If such an attempt is made, the experience disappears. Thus the subject has to depend upon memory which itself may be subject to distortions, omissions and commissions.

2. The results obtained from introspection are subjective and so lack scientific validity. They cannot be verified and have to be accepted at face value.

3. The method cannot be used to study children, animals, insane people, feeble­minded and those who are not good at verbal expression.

4. Because experiences are unique, they cannot be repeated and so introspection cannot be repeated.

5. Many experiences are either partly or wholly unconscious and cannot be observed consciously and analyzed.

6. All experiences cannot be verbalized.

B. Observation Method:

This is the most commonly used method especially in relation to behavioural science, though observation as such is common in everyday occurrences, scientific observations are formulated in research places. It is systematically planned, recorded and subjected to check and control its validity and reliability.

In this method, we not only ask the subject to report his experiences but also gather information by direct observation of overt behaviour. When observations are carried out under standardized conditions they should be observed with a careful understanding of the units, that is the style of recording observed information and the selection of dependent or related data of observation concerned, then it is called structured observation. But when observation takes place without this consideration it is called unstructured observation.

Structured observation is useful in descriptive studies, while unstructured observation is useful in exploratory studies. Another way of classifying observation is that of participant and non-participant types of observation. In participant observation, the observer makes himself a member of the group which is being observed.

In non-participant observation, the observer detaches himself from the group that is being observed. Sometimes, it so happens that the observer may observe in such a way that his presence is unknown to the people he is observing. This is called disguised observation.

The method of participant observation has a number of advantages, the researcher can record the natural behaviour of the group and he can gather information which cannot be easily obtained; if he stays outside the group, and also he can verify the truth of statements made by the subjects in the context of schedule or questionnaires.

The other way of classifying observation is that of controlled and uncontrolled observations:

a. Uncontrolled observation:

It is that which takes place in a natural setting. Here no attempt is made to use precautional instruments or methods. Here the major aim of this type of observation is to get a spontaneous picture of the life of the person.

b. Controlled observation:

In this, behaviour is observed according to definite pre­arranged plans involving experimental procedure. Here mechanical or precision instruments are used to aid accuracy and standardization. This provides formalized data upon which generalizations can be built with considerable accuracy. Generally, controlled observation takes place in various experiments which are carried out in labs under controlled conditions.

Limitations:

1. It is expensive with respect to time and money.

2. The information provided by this method is very less or limited.

3. Sometimes, unforeseen factors may interfere with observation.

Merits:

1. If observation is done accurately, subjective bias is eliminated.

2. The information obtained under this method relates to current happenings. Either past behaviours or future intentions, do not complicate it.

3. This method is independent of the subject willingness to respond and so does not require the active participation of the subject. Because of this, the method is especially suitable for subjects who are not capable of giving verbal reports of their thoughts and feelings.

The naturalistic observation method which is the systematic study of behaviour in natural settings, can be used to study the behaviour of animals which are in the wild or in captivity. Psychologists use naturalistic observation whenever people happen to be at home, on playgrounds, in classrooms and in offices.

In the observation method of studies, it is important to count or measure the behaviour. Careful record-keeping ensures accuracy and allows different observers to crosscheck their observations. Crosschecking is necessary to make sure that observations are reliable or consistent from person to person.

C. Experimental Method:

The experimental method is most often used in a laboratory. This is the method of observation of the behaviour or the ability of the individual under controlled conditions or fixed circumstances. It is the performing of an experiment that is a tightly controlled and highly structured observation of variables.

The experimental method allows researchers to infer causes. An experiment aims to investigate a relationship between two or more factors by deliberately producing a change in one factor and observing its effect on other factors. The person who conducts the experiment is called the experimenter and the one who is being observed is called the subject.

An experiment begins with a problem. The problem is the relationship which the experimenter wishes to study between two or more variables. Then a hypothesis is formed; it is a suggested answer to the problem under investigation, based on the knowledge that exists in the field of study. To test the hypothesis, the relationship between variables is examined. Variables are the factors that can change.

There will be two variables. An independent variable is a variable that the experimenter selects. He can control this variable according to the requirements of the experiment. The dependent variable is the factor that varies with the change in the independent variable which is the subject’s behaviour.

Experimenters will not wait for the behaviour to occur in nature rather the behaviour will be created in the situation by presenting a stimulus to the organism. The behaviour that occurs will be co-related with the stimulus.

From this, it is possible to predict the nature and types of responses or responses that may occur to a given stimulus. The changes observed in the dependent variable may be influenced by a number of factors. To establish a clear-cut relationship between a stimulus and response, all other possible influences must be eliminated.

Conditions of Experimental Study:

a. The control group

b. The experimental group.

If the experiment has to be successful, the subjects (patients/clients) must be selected carefully. This is called sampling. A random sample is one where every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected. When this is not the case, the sample is said to be a biased sample (manipulated). A random sample of the entire population is not always necessary or even desirable.

For instance, an experimenter may begin by conducting an experiment on a particular population and then repeat the experiment on broader or more representative samples. Once the experiment has been conducted, the results have to be summarized and a conclusion drawn.

a. Control group provides a baseline against which the performance of the experimental group can be composed.

b. The group that receives the experimental treatment is called the experimental group (The group that receives no treatment is called the control group).

Limitations:

1. The situation in which the behaviour is studied is always an artificial one.

2. Complete control of the extraneous variables is not possible.

3. All types of behaviour cannot be experimented on.

4. Experimental method requires a laboratory and is expensive.

5. We cannot accumulate information from abnormal people using this method.

Merits:

1. The results are clear and straightforward.

2. The results are usually expressed in terms of numbers which makes it convenient for comparison of performance and analysis.

3. The experiment can be replicated by other researchers and verified.

4. Highly dependable cause-effect relationships can be established.

D. Case Study (History) Method:

It is a detailed description of a particular individual. It may be based on careful observation or formal psychological testing. It may include information about the person’s childhood dreams, fantasies, experiences, relationships and hopes that throw light into the person’s behaviour.

Case studies depend on the client’s memories of the past and such memories are highly reliable to understand the problems. As case studies focus on individuals, we cannot generalize about human behaviour.

E. Questionnaire Method:

A questionnaire is an instrument of data collection. It is a method of data collection through which both qualitative as well as quantitative data can be collected by formulating a set of interrelated questions.

A questionnaire consists of a number of questions printed or typed in a definite order, one set of forms to which the respondents are supposed to answer unaided, by writing the answers in the space provided for the purpose. Where this questionnaire is mailed to the respondents instead of directly administering it is called a mailed questionnaire.

This method of data collection is especially popular when large-scale enquiries have to be made. The questionnaire is sent to the person concerned with a request to answer the questions. It consists of a number of questions printed in a definite order which the respondents have to answer. It is considered the heart of survey operation. In order to construct a good comprehensive questionnaire, some points have to be kept in mind.

They are:

1. The general form

2. The question sequence

3. Question formulation and wording.

1. The general form:

This refers to whether the questionnaire is ‘unstructured’ or ‘structured’. A questionnaire which includes definite, concrete and predetermined questions and a highly structured questionnaire is one in which all questions and answers are specified and comments by the respondents are held to the minimum.

In an unstructured questionnaire, the researcher is presented with a general guide on the type of information to be obtained, but the exact question formulation is not set. Thus the structured questionnaires are simple to administer and relatively inexpensive to analyze.

2. The question sequence:

In order to make a questionnaire effective the question sequence must be clear and should have a smooth flow. The relation of one question to another should be readily apparent to the respondent.

The first few questions are particularly important, because they are likely to influence the attitude of the respondent. Questions which are causing very much strain on the memory, personal questions and questions related to personal wealth, etc. should be avoided.

3. Question formulation and wording:

Each question must be clear because any kind of misunderstanding can harm the survey. Questions must be impartial and constructed to the study, the true state of affairs. They should be simple, easily understood and concrete. They should convey only one thought at a time. They should conform as much as possible to the respondent’s way of thinking.

Limitations:

1. The method can only be used when respondents are literate and cooperative.

2. The questionnaire is not flexible because there is no possibility of changing the questions to suit the situation.

3. There is the possibility of ambiguous responses or omission of responses to some questions.

4. Interpretation of omissions is difficult.

5. It is difficult to know whether the sample is really representative.

Merits:

1. When the sample is large, the questionnaire method is economical.

2. It is free from the bias of the interviewer.

3. Respondents have adequate time to give well-thought-out answers.

4. Large samples can be used so the results can be made dependable and reliable.

F. Interview Method:

This involves the collection of data by having direct verbal communication between two people. Personal interviews are popular but telephone interviews can also be conducted as well. This method is also called face to face method.

In personal interviews, an interviewer asks questions generally in a face to face contact with the person being interviewed. In direct personal interviews, the investigator collects information directly from the sources concerned. This has to be used when intensive investigation is required.

But in some cases, an indirect examination is conducted where the interviewer cross-examines other persons who are supposed to have knowledge about the problem under investigation. This is used where ever it is not possible to directly contact the required person to be interviewed.

Types of Interviews:

a. Structured interview involves the use of predetermined questions and standardized techniques of recording. The interviewer follows a rigid procedure of asking questions in a framed prescribed order.

b. Unstructured interview is flexible in its approach to questioning. Here it does not follow the system of predetermined questions and standardized techniques for recording the data. Here the interviewer is allowed much greater freedom to ask supplementary questions or to omit some questions if required and he may change the sequence of questions.

He also has freedom while recording responses, whether to include some aspects or exclude others. This may lead to a lack of comparability and also difficulty in analyzing the responses.

Other types of interviews are:

i. Focused interview

ii. Clinical interview

iii. Non-directive interview.

i. Focused interview:

In focused interviews, attention is paid to a given experience and its effects on the respondent. This is generally used in developing the hypotheses and constitutes a major type of unstructured interview.

ii. Clinical interview:

In clinical interviews, concern is given to the feelings or motivations of individuals’ life experiences. Here the interviewer simply encourages the respondent to talk about the given topic with a minimum of direct questioning.

iii. Non-directive interview:

The researcher acts as a catalyst for a comprehensive expression of the subject’s feelings, beliefs and of the frame, of reference within which such feelings are expressed by the subject’s personal significance.

Limitations:

1. It is a very expensive method.

2. Interviewer bias as well as respondent bias may operate while gathering information.

3. Certain types of respondents may not be available for interviews.

4. This method is relatively time-consuming.

5. Because the interviewer is present on the spot, the respondent may become overstimulated and give imaginary information just to make the interview more interesting.

6. Selecting, training and supervising the field staff is very complex.

Advantages:

1. More information about the subject can be obtained in greater depth. The interviewer can obtain a perfect idea about the subject through other means of assessment. As the person is directly accessible he can use other means of communication to assess the individual.

2. First-hand information can be collected about the subject’s background, and economic and educational considerations.

3. The overall personal aspect of an individual can also be assessed.

G. Survey Method:

This method involves asking large numbers of individuals to complete the given questionnaires or through interviews by interviewing people directly about their experiences, attitudes or opinions.

That is, for example, surveys on healthcare reform, or economic reform, voting preferences prior to elections, consumer reactions to various products, health practices, public opinion and complaints with safety regulations and so on. Surveys are often repeated over a long period of time in order to trace the shifts in public opinion. Surveys can provide highly accurate predictions when conducted carefully.

H. Testing Method:

This method makes use of carefully devised and standardized tests for measuring attitudes, interests, achievements, intelligence and personality traits. Intelligence tests measure the intellectual capacity of an individual and achievement tests light on the achievement of students in various subjects they are studying.

So by adopting all these methods, psychology collects information about behaviour, which helps us to study behaviour systematically. There are different methods used in psychology to study behaviour.