COMMENTARY

Knowledge in Society as an Empirical Base for Indian Psychology

Raghubir Singh Pirta

Received: 1 August 2013 /Accepted: 5 August 2013# National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India 2014

Abstract Indian society has enormous complexity and diver-sity of religion and culture. The Indian Psychology will be trulyenriched if it explores and integrates these experiences at theindividual and group levels. In addition there is perhaps some-thing to learn from the Positive Psychology as to how to bestutilize the knowledge in Indian society for the sake of humanity.

Keywords Samadhi . Flow .Measurement .

Positive psychology

Cogito ergo sum “I think therefore I am” Rene Descartes(1596–1650).

Tūai tabai āhaon “You are therefore I am” Shadi ra Deo (alocal deity in Himachal Pradesh, India).

Dazzling success of Positive Psychology (PP) from 2000 to2010 is envious. It is not the only factor that may haveprompted K. Ramakrishna Rao to imagine ‘archetypal’ linksbetween Indian Psychology (IP) and PP. That IP with hersound theories and concepts has an edge over PP, so Rao’scounsel to enlarge IP’s empirical base is timely.

If IP’s empirical base is not near PP, it is absolutely imper-ative to ponder why this is so! There is no doubt about IP’smagnificent heritage of theories and concepts, but we arepaying more attention to re-presenting them, rather buildingits empirical base. A reflection on the contents of the recentvolumes on IP may help us to set our goals in this direction.For example, according to Rao, IP has concept of ‘Samadhi’which can replace ‘flow’, do we intend to build a new empir-ical base for ‘Samadhi’? If so, we have to accept underlyingmaterial assumption, of which PP seems aware.

An empirical study has material base, and involves assign-ment of numerals to some observable event, physical or

mental, according to its nature (ordinal, nominal, interval orratio). It is the nature of physical or mental event that hasimmense significance and IP has commentaries on it which inmy view fall short of coming with a solution that allowsmeasurement. Rather it appears to me there is at times con-scious attempt to distance concepts of IP frommeasurement. Ishall take this issue later, let me briefly recapitulate the revisedgoals of PP and reforms in measures.

After 10 years of grand success, PP is no more a search forhedonistic pleasure and personal meaningful life, but intendsto take responsibility of entire human species. PP’s novelgoals are: to define human nature, for example, taking insightsfrom ensuing work on religious and evolutionary basis ofcooperation, help and altruism; to search for rules of newsocial contract in concepts such as mahatma—in being mag-nanimous; and, to rediscover joy or happiness in good work.And the objective is to encompass positive physical, mentaland social well—being by taking subjective, biological andfunctional measurements. Although subjective measures arevalued by IP, they indeed have certain benefits, such experi-ence, however, rests on person’s prior knowledge of phenom-enon in question, be that going into Samadhi or perception ofone’s physical health.

In pursuance of IP’s call for building an ‘empirical base’,we have to reflect on IP’s reproach of ‘psychology in India’,which Rao’s article reiterates. First, IP disapproves the eager-ness of psychology as a science, for it is a deviation from coreissues of psychology which are subjective (or not amenable toempirical study). This I think is false perception. Consider, forexample, how far or near we are from understanding ‘how dowe see’ or ‘how do we hear’, yet physical scientists go onproposing theories of seeing and hearing (even borrowingideas from psychology and physiology). Whatsoever theoriesand measures, they provision instruments to expand our see-ing and hearing.

Second, IP often expresses worry about ‘teaching andpractice of psychology in India’ as it is Western transplant. I

R. S. Pirta (*)Department of Psychology, Himachal Pradesh University,Shimla 171005, Indiae-mail: rspirta@yahoo.co.in

Psychol StudDOI 10.1007/s12646-014-0246-x

disagree with this, because our primary aim is acquisition ofknowledge, irrespective of its place of origin. And, no onewho acquires knowledge is oblivious of its use. However, I amwith Rao for IP as a distinct school of psychology and topursue it vigorously, but to repudiate other schools does nogood to IP.

Perhaps IP will do better by widening its vision as mindand its phenomena are open for enquiry. And some schools arealready making greater strides, where IP seems yet to begin.Consider the Mind and Life dialogues between Buddhists andscientists initiated by the XIV Dalai Lama from Dharamsala,they are historic, besides that, while some scientists becameBuddhists, a few monks joined neurology laboratories inAmerica. For the Dalai Lama redefined Buddha as one whoaspires for knowledge.

What IP can do is to use knowledge in society in India forthe sake of humanity, which is in consonance with our ancientculture and civilization, as well as goal of science includingPP. I think when some proponents of IP, directly or indirectly,confine IP to national boundaries it paints a hue of polity.History tells us about the enormity of migration of culturalartifacts and changes in territorial boundaries. We ought tomake precise statements about time and space, not as if Vedasare eternal and India was always like that. At best we mayaspire for humble ‘gnostic intermediaries’, in the true sense ofthe term, of the knowledge that we claim to inherit.

Let me return to the issue which Rao wants us to pursue—to build an empirical base of IP to ground its theories andconcepts. As referred earlier, we have to develop measures ofevents, which is essentially assignment of numerals accordingto nature of events. I am sure psychology is far ahead from theother social sciences in this practice as it has history ofbringing complex phenomena in the realms of measurement.Given this proficiency acquired over 100 years or so, we arecapable of developing arbitrary and nonarbitrary metrics. Arenot color, pain, depression, self-esteem and self-efficacycomplex phenomena or constructs! Consider a measure ofassociation between two events inside brain or mind, theamount of saliva elicited by a child or a dog to CS and UCSpresented in some temporal relationship. For narrowing down,one measures electrical and chemical events in brain duringthe establishment of CS-UCS association by exploring the gillwithdrawal reflex of aplysia or sea snail, a Kantian a priori forassociation between two events. In this case the numeralsassigned are nonarbitrary. Now compare it with the numeralsassigned in a measure of self-esteem obtained from responseson a 1 to 7 rating scale, which of course is an arbitrary metric.This is perfectly right and in line with empirical method, on

similar lines we can measure correlates of experiences during‘flow’ or ‘Samadhi’ in records of EEG or fMRI.

Science has done phenomenal progress evenwhenwe haveno measure or way of assigning numerals to an observation.Development of ethology, a naturalistic study of human andanimal behavior, is an example. When it began as a curiosityamong a group of European naturalists, they described whatthey saw using categories or units of behavior to take notes.Not only was there high agreement among different observers,a curious observation was that in animals or human children alarge part of the catalogue of behavior did not require learning;it was innate. This was enough to refute the claim of(American) behaviorists’ argument that human or animalmind at birth was tabula rasa or a blank slate. This however,in no way brings disrepute to experimental method, for this iswhat wemake out of our observations. Thus neither subjectivenor objective method is free from observer bias. Drawings,paintings, verbalizations, including video, during the states ofecstasy are near to naturalistic records of events.

We have numerous examples how psychologists haveproceeded to develop theories, concepts and measures ofcomplex phenomena or constructs. Rao has taken an examplefrom PP, the concept of ‘flow’, which he compares with‘Samadhi’ in IP. Such comparisons, I think need a cautiousapproach on our part. However, for us the important point is ascrutiny of the measure of ‘flow’ as well as ‘Samadhi’. Raohas every right to raise questions about the concept of ‘flow’and its measures. But at the same time I do feel that on similarlogic ‘Samadhi’ is no better. There is no question about themultiplicity of practices about going into ‘Samadhi’, I how-ever doubt about its empirical measure in IP. Perhaps it is withregard to objective measurement that Rao has fittingly chosenfor IP to collaborate with PP, as the latter is well ahead indeveloping an empirical base, whereas the former excels intheories and concepts, keeping in view the similarities be-tween IP and PP in the phenomena under study.

To conclude, I would like to underline that IP has to shedoff its aversion toward ‘psychology in India’ and make moreprecise statements in its content, and about time andspace. I see IP leaning in its content towards a schoolof Indian thought. We have enormous cultural diversityon the Indian landscape, where individual experiencesderive from, and in turn contribute to, almost all tradi-tions. And IP will be truly enriched if it explores andintegrates these individual and group level experiencesof particular time and under specific conditions, andthen think about how to best utilize this knowledgefor society.

Psychol Stud