Sleeping doesn’t mean that you are lazy!!!

Well, a lot of time people equate a person who sleeps a lot with them being lazy. We all have heard the statement from our family members – Saara din soti rehti hai. 

I also used to believe that I sleep a lot until I got a sleep monitor band. When I started wearing it, I realised that I hardly get more than 6 hours of sleep. Most of the days, it is just 5 hours of good sleep, even if I was actually sleeping for 7 hours according to the clock.

That made me wonder, why do I feel sleepy?

If I am trying to catch up with my sleep, why people think I am wasting my time? And, then I recently read somewhere that March 15 is World Sleep Day. No, that doesn’t mean that we need to sleep all day long on the 15th of March every year.

This day is celebrated every year to create awareness about the benefits of good and healthy sleep.

Most of us suffer from sleep disorders and we don’t actually realise it. In our society, talking about sleep problems is not an ACTUAL problem. Just like depression is equal to being just too sad. Feeling sleepy means you are just lazy.

Sleep is very important for our well being. If I don’t get enough sleep, then I start feeling cranky and end up being irritated on people around me the following day!

Insomnia is so common among youngsters these days. We just spend hours and hours on our phone because we are not able to sleep. And, because of the light and mind activation caused by looking at moving pictures in turn our brain does not get the signal to sleep. We are just not able to switch off everything and try to sleep with our thoughts for 30 minutes. Even I can’t do it. Our mind is so unstable that it keeps getting diverted and then to control our thoughts, we get glued to our smartphones or computers.

It’s high time we need to create awareness about such issues also and start talking to a specialist who can solve our problem. We need to sleep at least 7-8 hours of sound sleep daily.

So, as the slogan of World Sleep Day says, When sleep is sound, health and happiness abound! Sleep well and live fully awake 🙂

 

 

 

 

Originally published on the website Patna Diaries

Are we still “human” enough?

Every time something violent happens in our country, the uproar is huge. And, it should be. We live in a democratic country with freedom of speech, so if something wrong happens, it’s the duty of the citizens to let the government know that they can not tolerate it.

But, apart from this freedom of speech which is used in the democratic way, people start using these opportunities to perceive things differently. And, that is were the problem begins. Everything in India takes a political or religious turn. In such scenario, if you want to speak against the majority, you will be branded by labels like Anti-Nationalist, Stone hearted etc.

I kept thinking about how a certain recent event took religious turn and people of one minority community were targeted again. People of a certain state were abused in various parts of India without any fault of theirs. Why this happens all the time? So, I am trying to explain this from a psychological point of view:

1. Majority Influence  

Pic Credit:Nick Anderson

We are social animals and we want to fit in a group. Humans want to conform to the beliefs of a group to fit in. It is a type of social influence where most of the time we just do things without really believing in it.

For example, if an individual thinks that as everyone on social media is talking against something, even I should do the same. He might not research, not get his facts corrected, but just to feel the part of majority, will post it on his Instagram Story, WhatsApp Status, or Facebook feed.

We keep doing this day in and day out, without even realising. For example, everyone watched a movie, so even I will go and watch it, and then participate in the discussion that everyone is having. Because, I don’t want to feel left out!

2. Displacement of Responsibility

Pic Credit: Amos Biderman

When we are behaving as a part of a group, then we think that the responsibility of doing anything immoral, illegal and violent is not solely on us. We are working as a group, thus the responsibility has been diffused. So, people tend to do things as a group, that they will never even think of doing alone.

For example, if two people are beating a guy on road for some reason, bystanders might start beating the person too. Because, they feel the responsibility of doing something violent is not entirely on them. This is how crowd mentality works.

3. Anger within the individual

Every one is so frustrated these days because of work, studies, home, health, pollution; the list goes on. People have lost their peace of mind and have no outlet to take all this frustration out. It is said that when we are provoked, then our brain releases certain hormones, which make us experience a surge of energy in our body. People feel self-empowered if they give a violent reaction. Thus, getting angry on strangers on the road and on the internet is the easiest escape mechanism in today’s time.

I just hope that one day, we all will be a humanist first and then be of a certain religion. Humanity is loosing it’s hold on us. We are getting carried away without rationalising things. So, before doing any action, be it reacting on Facebook, Instagram or among your friends, please stop for a moment and think.

Hoping the world will be a better place and peace will prevail. Happy living  🙂

MA Psychology – First Year Books

When I searched for the recommended books for IGNOU MAPC First Year books, then I was not able to find much information. Being an open university, you don’t really know whom to ask for these kind of things.

Most of the people told me that if you want to pass your papers, IGNOU material is enough. But, my motto for studying MA Psychology is not to just pass the examinations. I want to learn as much as possible.

So, I went through all the units reference books and bought these books. I found them pretty decent and informative.

These are the reference books that I am used. Feel free to give your suggestions in the comments below.
Paper 1: Cognitive Psychology by Solso
(Can be skipped)
I found this book very interesting. Though, if you will try to match it with our syllabus topics, then you will not find most of the things. But, it has a very good explanation about memory and thinking.

Paper 2: Development Psychology by Elizabeth Hurlock
(Can be skipped)
This book has loads of information. It became an information overload for me after a point. And, then I started reading from our IGNOU material books 🙂
It is very good to understand child psychology. I really didn’t go through the adult and old age span from this book.

Paper 3: Theories of Personality by Schultz
It is a very good book. Highly recommended. It gives the biography of each theorist which is interesting. Our professor told us that if we really want to understand a personality theory totally, then we need to know the life history of the person who gave that theory. It also has some extra theories.

Paper 4: Social Psychology by Baron
Again a highly recommended book. Among all the books, I have gone through this one from start to end. I enjoyed the examples given in the book. This book was the main reason I found social psychology one of the most interesting paper in First Year.

Paper 5: Test, Measurement and Research Methods in Behavioural Sciences by A K Singh (Can be skipped)
This book has a lot of information about various research methods with examples. But, then for this paper again I went through our reading material only. So, this book can be skipped.

Paper 6: Statistics in Psychology and Education by S K Mangal
If you are new to statistics, then the starting chapters of this book is necessary to go through. It helps you to understand the basics of statistics. Also, for this paper I concentrated on numericals. I went through the question papers from 2015 onwards (as their was a question pattern change that year) and solved each and every numericals. The steps are more clear in S K Mangal book than the reading material provided by IGNOU.

Apart from these books, I found the website – Simply Psychology very interesting. It explains all the topics in a very easy manner.

Hope this will help you. Happy Reading 🙂

Why we stereotype?

According to Psychology, stereotype is a generalised belief about a particular group of people. It is a technique used by our brain to reduce the amount of thinking that is required when we meet a new person.

As a child, we start learning by characterising things into different schema. A child begins by making a  schema for every object he/she sees and then categorise them. That is how they start recognising things. So, if a child will see a couple of different type of cats, they will have a schema in their brain which responds to that. When they see a lion, then the schema will be different from that of a cat.

Similarly, according to me, stereotypes are also built upon the mental schemas we make about a group of people to simplify our thinking process. We have a schema for everything, from “Mothers”, “Postman”, “Rock Star” to “Teachers”. So, when I say the word “Mother”, then you will imagine a caring woman.

These schemas are then extended into stereotypes, where we add some qualities and beliefs with the whole group. So, “Punjabis are jovial”, “Biharis are hard working”, “South Indians eat rice”. This stereotyping helps us to respond to a situation rapidly. When we meet a Punjabi, then we are automatically comfortable with them, or we meet a Bihari employee then we know he/she will complete the assigned work.

The stereotypes can be positive or negative. For example, “Biharis cannot speak good English” is a negative stereotype that people have. It is not necessary that these generalisations that we make are true.

The disadvantage of stereotype is that when we generalise we just ignore all the individual differences that that the group can have. In most of the cases, even when we see a person who is contradicting our generalised belief, we do not tend to alter our stereotype. We will just put that person in a special category of exceptions.

And, then there are times when we also start believing and behaving according to the stereotypes that exists for the group we belong to. People can suffer from low self esteem when they meet a new person if they know that there is a negative stereotype for them. Thus, stereotypes can be harmful.

Now, my question is when we start getting all hyped up with a person about making stereotypes, then is putting that person alone at fault is also correct? Stereotyping is basically related to how our brain is wired as a human being. Thus, it is a meta cognitive thing, we need to think, how we really think. So, start thinking. 🙂

Image Courtesy: SikhPark

 

Is Psychology a Science?

 Psychology was a branch of Philosophy. Psychology was established as a science when in 1879, German scientist Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory in Leipzig to study experimental research. It is a relatively new science.

Science is a discipline where knowledge is obtained with the help of a systematic study through observation and experiment.

The features of science are:

1. Empirical observation and objectivity
2. Systematic study and theory
3. Controlled experimentation and other scientific methods
4. Quantification
5. Applicability
6. Verification and Repetition
7. Progressiveness
8. Formation of laws and principles

As Psychology has all these qualities, we can say that Psychology is a science which seeks to understand and predict human and animal behaviour.

 

So what are we studying in Psychology?

Psychology has two major goals:

1. To understand behaviour
2. To predict behaviour

For this, in psychology, we study the mental processes, experiences and behaviour in different context.

Mental Process

A mental process such as memory, learning, perception, emotion come under the study of psychology. It can be reflected as brain activity and can be observed using brain imaging techniques.

Experience

We always react to a situation based on our experience. It is embedded in our consciousness. It is subjective in nature. Experience is based on internal and external conditions of the person who is experiencing it. We can not directly observe a person’s experience. Thus, the nature of experience can be understood by analysing.

Behaviour  

Behaviour is our response to any activity. It can be explicit or overt, which means that the activity can be observed by naked eyes. Or it can be internal or covert and we need tools for observing them. Behaviour is always triggered by some stimulus.

So, we can conclude that psychology is a science that attempts to analyse the cause of behaviour with the help of systematic and objective observation, measurement and analysis, combined with theoretical interpretations and prediction.

Psychology – Subject Matter

The term Psychology is derived from two Greek words “psyche” and “logia”. It means the study of the soul. The early Greek thinkers thought that the mental activities of a human being hidden from the outer sense, which they called the soul.

As science progressed, thinkers began to feel that the term soul should be changed to a more appropriate word – mind. They felt soul is something unknown. Thus, psychology was defined as the study of the human mind.

Later the psychologists realised that even mind as a substance is unknown. So, they introduced the term “experience” and defined psychology as the study of experience.

The term mind and soul are unobservable and indemonstrable. Further, an experience is something which is personal.

Thus, to establish itself as a scientific discipline, it was defined that psychology is the systematic study of behaviour and all the factors that influence behaviour.

P.S. I started a Facebook page to learn more about psychology.

Stationery Love

Stationery shopping has always been my first love. I still dream of having a stationery shop of my own. I just enjoy visiting stationery shops and end up buying things even when I don’t need them 🙂 But, this time, I went with a purpose. I had to buy stuff to be prepared for writing notes for the MA Psychology course I am starting soon.
So, I got bright colourful notebooks. Several pens and Post-It notes. You can never have enough of stationery.
Do let me know if you love stationery as much as I do 🙂

How The Journey Began

I always wanted to study four subjects since I passed out my 10th boards – Computers, Psychology, Philosophy and English Literature. Even though I knew that I had to do MCA (Computers were my first love), I still look Humanities instead of Science in 12th grade. So, my subjects were Maths, Psychology and Logic.

After completing my BCA and then MCA, I started working as  a mobile application developer. But, still the hope to study other three subjects always remained. I always used to share this thought with my friends but they used to laugh at me.

Finally, in June 2017, I took admission in Masters in Psychology (MAPC) from IGNOU. Being an open university course, it is going to give me the freedom to study at my own pace. I am very excited to be able to study again. Believe me or not, I miss studying and giving exams 🙂 Yes, I know I am a nerd!

I am still waiting for the induction of my course to happen. The admission closes on 31st July, 2017. I have downloaded the syllabus, have bought some books already and I am all ready to start rolling.

I am starting this blog to discuss about books, topics of my interest and anything interesting in the world of psychology.

Happy Learning to me 🙂

P.S. Link to the Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1789273844698165/