Understanding Psychology in the Context of Relationship, Community, Workplace and Culture

This book explores the significant deliverables of psychology to society in five sections: identity and relationship, psychology for gainful employment, psychology customized to the community, culturally embedded psychology and alternatives for maximizing psychology.  The authors, social scientists of diverse nationalities, represent novel psychological methods, tools and procedures that can have immense social utility in strengthening the relationship and rejuvenating the community. The first section offers an in-depth perspective on the dynamics between identity and relationship. The second section encompasses psychology's contribution in addressing community-based issues like farmer suicide, cyberbullying, smartphone overuse, substance abuse and collective environmental behaviour. The authors in the third section have deliberated upon the behavioural issues pertinent for gainful employment. The fourth section delineates the influence of culture on specific psychological processes. The last section touches upon means beyond conventional strategies, techniques and approaches that may augment psychology's deliverability. The chapters in this book are based upon evidence-based scholarships from seven different countries. As such, it represents an invaluable resource for research scholars and academicians in psychology, human resource managers and mental health practitioners.

Surendra Kumar Sia is presently working as Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology, Pondicherry University. He has done his M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. in psychology from University of Delhi. Prof. Sia has more than 18 years of teaching and research experience and successfully supervised nine Ph.D. scholars and two M.Phil. students. To his credit, he has more than 30 research publications in journals of national and international repute like South Asian Journal of Human Resource Management, Asia-Pacific Journal of Management Research and Innovation, Global Business Review, Management and Labour Studies, Vision: The Journal of Business Perspectives, Journal of Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Social Science International, etc. Prof. Sia has completed two sponsored research projects, and presently one project is ongoing. He was Executive Committee Member of National Academy of Psychology, India (2011–13). He availed Junior Research Fellowship of UGC during his M.Phil. and Ph.D. work. He was nominated for Sourya Pattanaik Award for best paper in the area of organizational psychology at the XXth Annual Convention of National Academy of Psychology held at JNU, New Delhi, in December 2010. His areas of interest include organizational behaviour, environmental psychology, psychology of elderly and positive psychology.


Lauren S. Crane is Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the East Asian Studies Programme at Wittenberg University in Ohio, USA. As a cultural psychologist, she has taught and conducted research related to Asia for 25 years, including work in India, Japan, South Korea and China. Most recently, her research focuses on the socializing effects of religious schooling in South Asia and the USA, and she currently serves as P.I. for a collaborative US–India Global Religion Research Initiative grant funded by the Templeton Religion Trust. She was Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Scholar at Banaras Hindu University in India and Lecturer (Koushi) at Nagasaki Junior College in Japan. In addition, she provides cross-cultural communication training seminars to business executives and US military personnel. She earned her B.A. from Yale University and her Ph.D. from Stanford University.


Ajay K. Jain (Ph.D., Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur) is Full Professor of Organizational Design and Behaviour at Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. He is also Visiting Professor to several international universities including Aarhus University, Denmark; IULM University, Milan, Italy; University of Free State, South Africa; and Indian Institute of Management Lucknow and Ranchi. He has published 45 research articles in journals including Journal of Managerial Psychology, Personnel Review, Journal of Knowledge Management, Psychology and Marketing, Personnel Review, Journal of Management History, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Leadership are among others. He is Recipient of best paper awards from National Academy of Psychology India and Emerald for his research papers. He has received postdoctoral fellowships from Aarhus University, Denmark, and Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He delivers training programmes for companies including ABB, Nestle, Taijin, Denso, Suzuki, etc. His training sessions on leadership from within and emotional intelligence have received appreciation from the senior and top managers. He teaches courses on organizational design, leading transformations, emotional intelligence and research methods. He has research interests in the field of distributed leadership, emotional intelligence, organizational citizenship behaviour, employee silence, knowledge management, career orientation, and stress and well-being.


Shabana Bano is Associate Professor of psychology at Banaras Hindu University, India. She received her Ph.D. at Banaras Hindu University. She has been Shastri Fellow at the University of Guelph (Canada). Her research interests are focused on issues of social identity, acculturation, mutual attitudes and intercultural relations of Hindu and Muslim groups in India. Different forms of schooling, such as Sanskrit and Quranic, and their influence on social–psychological development of children and adolescents have been a central theme of her research. She has widely published in scientific journals and edited books in these areas. She is Co-author of a textbook, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, which has been published in Hindi. She seeks to apply her research findings for the promotion of harmonious intercultural relationships in the multicultural society of India. In the past two decades, she has participated in cross-cultural research projects based in Canada, Germany, Switzerland and USA.