PEACE IN CONSCIOUSNESS: RABINDRIK PSYCHOTHERAPY APPROACH

PEACE IN CONSCIOUSNESS: RABINDRIK PSYCHOTHERAPY
APPROACH

What is peace ?
Peace is the equilibrium state across layers of consciousness. This definition is limited to consciousness of individual and group.

What is equilibrium ?
A state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced. Our consciousness is filled with opposing forces. Disequilibrium occurs when the opposing forces over power others. After disequilibrium resilience occurs to maintain equilibrium.


PEACE IN CONSCIOUSNESS: RABINDRIK PSYCHOTHERAPY APPROACH

What is Peace?

Peace is when people are able to resolve their conflicts without violence and can work together to improve the quality of their lives. Peace is when everyone lives in safety, without fear or threat of violence, and no form of violence is tolerated in law or in practice.

PEACE PSYCHOLOGY

Peace Psychology is a subfield of Psychology and Peace Research that deals with the psychological aspects of peace, conflict, violence, and war. Peace psychology can be characterized by four interconnected pillars: (1) research, (2) education, (3) practice, and (4) advocacy.

UNIT OF ANALYSIS
Peace psychology research focuses on peace in individual and group levels. Peace research in group level assumes that
peace is not merely the absence of personal (direct) violence and war (= negative peace), but also the absence of structural (indirect) and cultural violence (= positive peace).


STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE

Structural violence means
deprivation of a group's political participation or access to professional employment.
      Direct violence refers to events that harm or kill individuals or groups as contrasted with structural violence which is manifest in social inequalities. In structural violence, hierarchical relations within and between societies privilege those who are on top while oppressing, exploiting and dominating those who occupy the bottom. Like direct violence, structural violence also kills people but does so slowly, by depriving people of basic necessities. There are important psychological reasons why people tolerate and rationalize structural violence and we identify some of these reasons in this volume. We examine structural violence within societies but also include in our analysis the problem of militarization, which contributes to structural violence globally, most often depriving those with the fewest resources, usually women, children and indigenous people.

Cultural violence refers to aspects of a culture that can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence, and may be exemplified by religion and ideology, language and art, empirical science and culture.

PEACE PSYCHOLOGY

A. To Freud, peace is rooted from two instincts –eros and thanatos. Eros leads to peace motivation and thanatos  inhibits it.

B. William James:  Morton Deutsch (1995) referred to William James as the first peace psychologist in an article that appeared in the first issue of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology.

C.1986, Ralph K. White published an important volume on "Psychology and the Prevention of Nuclear War" which helped identify some of the content of peace psychology. The destructive consequences of mutual enemy images was focal in the book and approaches to peace emphasized tension reduction strategies.

D.  In 1990, institutional support was forthcoming when the American Psychological Association recognized a new division, the Division of Peace Psychology (Division 48).

E.Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century" edited by D. Christie, R. Wagner, and D. Winter (2001) is now available from Prentice Hall.
       DANIEL J. CHRISTIE is Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University. He is a former president of the Division of Peace Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and serves on the editorial board of its journal. His research explores children's perceptions of violence, models of intercultural sensitivity, and structural peacebuilding. He teaches courses in psychology and international studies at the OSU Marion campus, has served as president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and does applied work on local and international programs that enhance the educational and economic opportunities of minority and indigenous ethnic groups.



PEACE IN CONSCIOUSNESS : CURRENT STUDY

Consciousness is awareness of present environment or surroundings. Consciousness has three layers- Murto, Raag and Saraswat. Murto layer includes ability to sense, perceive;Raag layer includes ability to feel, to learn, to think, to memorize. Saraswat layer includes ability to harmonize self and environment. The harmony provides peace.
















Advocates of Peace psychology focus on the psychological aspects of the formation, escalation, reduction, and resolution of conflicts in society at large. To Freud, peace is rooted from two instincts –eros and thanatos. Eros leads to peace motivation and thanatos  inhibits it.  Throughout history, above and beyond the fray of competing political parties or rival economic powers, differences in race, gender, ethnicity, language, one constant force has remained: the enduring strength of human values. No matter who we are, or where we come from, we seek to find fulfilment and peace in life. Values on peace are our road markers. Value is  "an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence". (Rokeach, 1973). One value creates conflict with other values.


This suggests presence of desirable and undesirable values. Hofstede (2010) has noted differences in desirable and undesirable value preference by cultures.  Noble Laurate, Rabindranath Tagore, suggested universal values in the songs. By analysis of his songs,  three layers of consciousness – murta (objectivism), raag (emotion) and saraswat (the harmony with surroundings and the peace) are observed. This paper will focus on how the word 'Peace' flows across layers of consciousness and how it resolves the conflict by Rabindrik Psychotherapy. Rabindrik psychotherapy refers to the way of self-awakening with therapeutic postulates extracted from the literary works of Rabindranath Tagore. It is the paradigm shift in changing disequilibrium state of consciousness through self-awakening. It is not mere understanding own ability, personality traits etc. It is the awakening of self. When individual is able to awaken the self, he becomes independent to make own decision. So there will be total independence and feeling of freedom. Rabindrik psychotherapy is free from labeling. It gives emphasis on performing arts therapy to reconstruct the cognition when there is any cognitive dysfunction. In Rabindrik psychotherapy, psychotherapist facilitates the environment and client him or her self can customize the situation through Rabindrik performing arts. In Rabindrik psychotherapy client never labels him or herself and can not think how he or she is recovered.Rabindrik psychotherapy assumes that consciousness is composed of three layers - Murta, Raag and Saraswat. Attention, sensation, perception are adversely affected when murta layer is deformed or disoriented. Feelings and emotions affect our cognitions in Raag layer. Saraswat layer minimizes errors in cognition, emotion and strengthens harmony with environment. Saraswat layer provides feeling of peace, and negative entropy. The layers are dynamic.  Dynamicity is determined by the changes in the physical environment or in the psychological field. Any change causes vibration and vibration starts to move across layers. Impact of vibration on consciousness depends on the strength, duration, properties of vibrating agents, resiliency, and acceptability of consciousness. Rabindrik therapist customizes dynamicity in the consciousness through positive vibration followed by consciousness diagnostics. Rabindrik psychotherapist must be proficient with (a) consciousness layer dynamics, (b) therapeutic postulates, (c) customization and precautions in therapy.  This paper will focus on these three things with case studies.

Questionnaire reliability and validity estimation

ESTIMATING RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF QUESTIONNAIRE: LECTURE NOTES

Debdulal Dutta Roy

Psychology Research Unit

Indian Statistical Institute

203, B. T. Road

Kolkata - 700108

Questionnaire is not mere set of questions rather it is a device to assess individual differences. Any good questionnaire has following characteristics:
1. It is made of set of questions or items having good discrimination power
2. It should measure response consistency by time and internal structure
3. It measures what it intends to measure
4. It is free from subjectivity. There is uniformity in instructions, scoring and evaluation
5. It has norm for assessment of individual differences

B. QUESTIONNAIRE IN EPIDEMIOLOGY
1.  Questionnaire is a device to assess individual differences in responses through set of questions. A good questionnaire must be reliable and valid.
2.  Question is unit of questionnaire. Questionnaire measures some construct or the abstraction of concept. The set of questions measure some characteristics of questionnaire.
3.  Questionnaire is of two types : uni and multidimensional.  Sometimes construct is defined by multiple dimensions.  In that case,  questionnaire becomes multidimensional.  And it is uni dimentional when construct is measured with single characteristics.  For example,  socio-economic status may be measured with only level of income and sometimes it is measured with housing conditions besides level of income.
4.  Questionnaire can be administered through paper pencil format and sometimes through computer assisted instruction. In paper pencil format, supportive interview can be provided when responder can not follow meaning of questions.
5. Each item includes two things - item stem and responses.
6. Number of items in the questionnaire depends on scope of construct, dimensionality, Error probability,respondent characteristics and time allocated for data collection.
7. One item should not measure multiple construct. Therefore, item stem should be simple sentence with single finite verb
8. For respondents with less intelligence, or with highly inhibitive temperament, item stem should not be complex.
It should be easy to understand.
Researcher can use        Interrogative sentences  with yes and no response categories.
9. In bio-medical research questionnaire is useful on Epidemiological survey. Three types of data can be provided. These are Descriptive Epidemiology, Analytical epidemiology and Evaluation epidemiology.
9.1 Descriptive Epidemiology: Descriptive Epidemiology determines the distribution of a disease. It describes the health problem, its frequency, those affected, where, and
when. The events of interest are defined in terms of the time period, the place and the
population at risk.
9.2 Analytical epidemiology compares those who are ill with those who are not in order
to identify the risk of disease or protective factors (determinant of a disease). It
examines how the event (illness, death, malnutrition, injury) is caused (e.g.
environmental and behavioural factors) and why it is continuing. Standard
mathematical and statistical procedures are used.
Example: Investigating an outbreak of an unknown disease in a displaced
population settlement.
9.3 Evaluation epidemiology examines the relevance, effectiveness and impact of
different programme activities in relation to the health of the affected populations.
Example: Evaluating a malaria control programme for displaced populations.
Item

                               Reliability

Reliability refers to the consistency of scores obtained by the same persons when re-examined with the same questionnaire on different occasions, or with different sets of equivalent items, or under other variable examining conditions (Anastasi, 1990). It indicates the extent to which individual differences in questionnaire scores are attributable to “true” differences in the characteristics under consideration and the extent to which they are attributable to chance errors.  Reliability of a questionnaire is given by the proportion of true variance resulting from the presence of specific situation under consideration and error variance resulting from the presence of some factors irrelevant to the present situation. Four principal techniques are used for measuring the reliability of questionnaire scores: 

Test – retest reliability:  Reliability is tested by repeating the identical questionnaire on the second occasion. In this technique, the error variance may result in part from uncontrolled testing conditions, such as extreme changes in weather, sudden noises and other distractions. To some extent, however, they arise from changes in the condition of the questionnaire takers themselves, such as illness, emotional strain, worry, recent experience of pleasant or unpleasant nature and the like. Pearson’s Product moment correlation coefficient can be used to assess test – retest reliability when the sample size is large. 

Alternate – form reliability: Instead of repeating the same questionnaire on second occasion, a parallel form having the same characteristics of the original form is administered in successive session. The error variance in this case represents fluctuations in performance from one set of items to another. Under this condition, the reliability coefficient becomes an index of equivalence of the two forms of the questionnaire. This method is satisfactory when sufficient time has intervened between the administration  of the two forms to weaken or eliminate memory and practice effects. In developing alternate forms, care must be exercised to match the materials for content, difficulty and form; and precautions must be taken not to have the items in the two forms too similar. If possible, an interval of at least two to four weeks should be allowed between administration of the test. 

Split-half reliability: In this method, the questionnaire scores is divided into two equivalent halves and reliability coefficient is measured between these two halves following Spearman-Brown prophecy formula:

Spearman-Brown prophecy formula = ((2+reliability coefficient of the half-test)/(1+ reliability coefficient of the half-test))

Any difference between a person’s scores on the two halves represents the error variance.  This type of reliability coefficient is sometimes called a coefficient of internal consistency, since only a single administration of a single form is required. The split-half method is employed when it is not possible to construct parallel forms of the test nor advisable to repeat the test itself. This method  has few advantages – (a) collection of data in one occasion and (b) assessing good internal consistency. This method can not be used when sample items in both halves are not correlated.  This is not applicable where in statements were arranged in terms of the order of difficulty.

Rational equivalence: This technique is applicable when responses are binary in nature as Yes, No. It stresses the inter-correlation coefficients of the items in the questionnaire and the correlation coefficients of the items with the questionnaire as a whole. It utilizes a single administration of a single form and is based on the consistency of responses to all items in the questionnaire (inter-item consistency). This inter-item consistency is influenced by two sources of error variance: (i) content sampling (ii) heterogeneity of the behavior domain sampled.  The formula is given below:

r_tt = (n/(n-1)) X ((s²t- åpq) / s²t)

in which,

r_tt= reliability coefficient of the whole test

n= number of items

s_t= the SD of the total scores

p= proportion of the group giving ‘yes’ responses

q= (1-p)= the proportion of the group giving ‘no’ responses

When questionnaire responses are not dichotomous but multiple in nature. In stead of rational equivalence, the useful method is Cronbach’s coefficient alpha (Cronbach, 1951).

Cronbach’s coefficient alpha

Perhaps it is the most pervasive of the internal consistency indices. If all items are perfectly reliable and measure the same thing (true score), then coefficient alpha is equal to 1. The formula of alpha is below:

 α= (k/(k-1)*[1- ^Σ(s²_i)/(s² _sum]

α = coefficient alpha

s²_i ⁼ the variances for the k individual items;

s² _{sum =} variances for the sum of all items;

Alpha varies with inter correlation among the items Box 1.3. Dutta Roy (2000) noted increase in alpha value when item total correlation coefficient was high and significant. This suggests that alpha denotes internal structure of test.  

                                Validity

Content validity: It involves systematic examination of the questionnaire content to determine whether it covers a representative sample of the behavior domain to be measured. Content validity is built into a questionnaire from the outset through the choice of appropriate items. The preparation of items is preceded by a thorough and systematic examination of relevant materials as well as by consultation with subject-matter experts. 

Construct validity: Construct is an abstraction consists of a set of propositions about its relationship to other variables – other constructs or directly observable behaviour. The extent to which the questionnaire measures a theoretical construct for which the questionnaire has been  developed is called construct validity. There are different techniques for assessing construct validity as factorial, convergent and divergent validity.

Convergent validity: In case of factorial validity, item correlation with extracted factors was studied. This is made within the measures of questionnaire. But in case of convergent validity, the extracted construct is valid or not is tested using other measure assessing same construct. 

Divergent validity: It indicates that the results obtained by this instrument do not correlate too strongly with measurements of a similar but distinct trait. For example, a questionnaire measures global work satisfaction should relate more closely to other general work satisfaction scales than to measure of specific facets of job satisfaction. Instead of correlation, ANOVA can be used to assess divergent or discriminative validity of questionnaire.

Criterion related  validity: It indicates the effectiveness of a questionnaire in predicting an individual’s performance in specified activities. Performance on the questionnaire is checked against a criterion, a direct and independent measure of that which  the questionnaire is designed to predict. The criterion measure against which the questionnaire is validated may be obtained at approximately the same time as the questionnaire scores or after a stated interval. On the basis of these time relations between criterion and questionnaire the 1985 Testing Standards differentiate between predictive and concurrent validation. 

Predictive validity: It means prediction from the questionnaire to any criterion situation or in the more limited sense of prediction over a time interval. It describes how closely scores on a questionnaire correspond (correlate) with behavior as measured in other contexts in future.

Source: Dutta Roy, D. (2009). Principles of Questionnaire Development with Empirical Studies

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Experimental and Quasi-experimental design for B.Stat (psy)

Experimental Design : The framework of an experiment 

SOME BASIC CONCEPTS:

1. Independent and Dependent variables
2. Extraneous variable
3. Control
4. Confounded relationship
5. Research hypothesis
6. Experimental and Control group
7. Treatments
8. Principles of experimental design
8.1 Replication
8.2 Randomization
8.3 Local control



The method to assess effect of independent variable (manipulated by researcher) on dependent variable in controlled conditions (making other variables constant or controlled in order to  prevent them from influencing the dependent variable and confusing the result.

Types of experiments:

True experiment:    In a true experiment, subjects are randomly assigned to the treatment conditions (levels of the independent variable). The only differences in the groups would be due to chance. True experiments are excellent for showing a cause-and-effect relationship.

There are three criteria that must be met in a true experiment

1. Control group and experimental group
2. Researcher-manipulated variable
3. Random assignment

Quasi-experiment:  

Quasi-experiments are sometimes called natural experiments because membership in the treatment level is determined by conditions beyond the control of the experimenter (subjects are already in the box). An experiment may seem to be a true experiment, but if the subjects have NOT been randomly assigned to the treatment condition, the experiment is a quasi- experiment (quasi = seeming, resembles).