Psychology Chapter 9 Developing Psychological Skills

For becoming an effective psychologists, following competences are essential:

(a) General Skills (b) Observational Skills (c) Specific Skills

(a) General Skills:

• General skills are essential for all professional psychologists.

• These skills include personal as well as intellectual skills.

• Once ensuring that a student has these skills subsequent training in his/ her area of specializations to him/her intellectual and personal skill are as follows:

Interpersonal Skills: Ability to listen and be empathic. It may be verbal or nonverbal.

• Cognitive:

— Ability to solve problems

— Having curiosity and flexibility

• Affective Skills:

— Openness to ideas

— Agreeableness

— Honesty

• Expressive skills: Ability to communicate in verbal and non-verbal form.

• Reflective Skills:

— Intrapersonal intelligence

— Ability to examine own motives, attitude and behaviour.

• Personal skills:

— Personal hygiene

— Time management

(b) Observational Skills:

Psychologists should have training in objectives and systematic observation.

• They should have skill to observe various aspects of surrounding including people and varying events.

• Psychologists should engage in observing people and their actions with following precautions:

— Patience.

— Optimistic curiosity.

— Respecting clients privacy.

— Awareness of people reactions, emotions and motivation.

— Training good questions which could be answered during observation.

(c) If the psychologist wants to work in a specialized field then professional training in specific skill development is essential.

The main specific skills are as follows:

(a) communication skills

(b) Psychological testing skill

(c) Interviewing skill

(d) Counselling skill

General/Generic Skills :

• These are essential for all professional psychologists.

• These skills include personal as well as intellectual skills.

Generic (intellectual and personal skills) are as follows:

Interpersonal Skills: Ability to listen and be empathic. It may be verbal or non-verbal.

• Cognitive:

— Ability to solve problems

— Having curiosity and flexibility

• Affective Skills :

— Openness to ideas

— Agreeableness

— Honesty

• Expressive Skills: Ability to communicate in verbal and non-verbal form.

• Reflective Skills:

— Intrapersonal intelligence

— Ability to examine own motives, attitude and behaviour.

• Personal skills :

— Personal hygiene

— Time management

Communication is a conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which feelings and ideas are expressed as verbal and/or non-verbal messages that are sent, received and comprehended. Component of the Communication:

The most important component of communication is speaking with the use of language.

• Language involves use of vocabulary which includes words by symbols.

• Communicator must know how to use words appropriately in organized and understandable form.

• It is necessary to be clear and precise.

• Communication takes place within a context and needs to consider the other's frame of reference.

• It is important for the speaker to adjust his vocabulary level and choice of words to fit the level of the listener.

• Slang expressions, words unique to a culture, euphemism can become obstacles in good communication.

• Listening may appear as a passive behaviour, as it involves silence. But this is far from true.

• Listening requires a person to be attentive, patient, non-judgmental and have the capacity to analyze and respond.

• It is an active process.

• Hearing and listening are not the same, hearing is biological mechanism. It involves reception of a message through sensory channels.

• Developing the skills of psychological testing is important since tests are important tools used for the assessment of individuals for various purposes. Proper training is required for administration, scoring and interpretation of tests.

• Psychologists study individuals, differences based on factors such as occupation, age, gender, education, culture, etc.

• While using psychological test, following factors must be kept in mind:

1. An attitude of objectivity

2. Scientific orientation

3. Standardised Interpretation must be kept in mind. For example, in organizational and personnel work, in business and industry, where specialized tests are used to select individuals for specific jobs, it is essential to use actual performance records or ratings as a criterion for establishing validity of a test.

• Suppose the personnel department, wants to know whether a certain psychological test can help it to identify potentiality of best stenographers.

• It must be established that the test differentiates among employees of several performance levels.

• It should be found the performance on the job of a newly employed worker selected on the basis of test indeed matches with his/her test scores.

Interview refers to purposeful conversation through face-to-face interactions.

• It follows a basic question-answer format.

• First, the objectives of the interview are set.

• The interviewer then prepares on interview format.

• There is a basic format which is followed, regardless of the interview's purpose; i.e., an interview has three stages :

— Opening

— The body

— The closing

A. Opening of the Interview:

1. In involves establishing report between the two communicators, so that the interview becomes comfortable.

2. Generally, the interviewer starts the conversation and does most of the talking at the outset. This serves two functions:

(a) It establishes the goal of the interview

(b) It gives the interviewee time to become comfortable with the situation and the interviewer.

B. Body of the Interview:

1. This is the heart of the process.

2. In this stage, the interviewer asks questions in an attempt to generate information and data that are required to fulfil/required for the purpose.

Sequence of Questions:

To accomplish the purpose of an interview, the interviewer prepares set of questions called a schedule for different domains or categories he/she wants to cover.

1. To form the schedule, the interviewer must first decide on the domain/ categories under which information is to be generated. For example for questions used in job interview (box 9.5), the interviewer selected various categories such as not use of the organization last worked for, satisfaction with the past job, views on product etc.

2. These domains/categories and the questions within them are formed ranging from easy to answer to difficult to answer.

C. Closing of the Interview:

While closing the interview, the interviewer should :

1. Summarise what she/he has been able to gather.

2. Give a chance to the interviewee to ask questions or offer comments. One should end with a discussion of the next step to be taken.

• The Skill is individual's ability to perform a task with ease and precision.

• It is proficiency or dexterity that is acquired through training and experience.

A client refers to an individual/group/organization who on his/her own seeks help from a psychologist with respect to any problem.

Client is active. The success of counselling depends on client as well as the counsellor.

Patient is passive. He/she simply takes drug or follows instruction given by the doctor.

Personal organization, personal hygiene, time management and appropriate desires are examples of personal skills.

American Psychological Association (1973) identified skills essential for professional psychologists, and recommended at least three sets of skills :

— Assessment of individual differences

— Behaviour modification skills

— Counselling and guidance skills

Recognization and application of these skills & competencies have strengthened the foundation & practices of applied psychology in a positive way.

Primary ways of learning about the way people behave in a given setting. Let us take an example :

Suppose you are interested to know how people behave in response to a heavy discount. For this, you could visit the shopping mall where the discounted items are displayed and systematically observe what people do and say before and after the purchases have been made.

There the observer is actively involved in the process of observing by becoming an active member of the setting where the observation takes place. For example, For the problem above, the observer may take a part-time job in a shopping mall variations in the behaviour of customers. This technique is widely used by anthropologists.

Speech is a biological act. It involves the utterance of sound and possible use of language.

Communication involves two people who give and receive meaningful message. Thus speech may not have any meaning in the true sense but communication is essentially a meaningful process.

Hearing is 'a biological activity involving reception of message through sensory channels. It is a part of listening.

Listening involves reception of message with giving attention to the message, and responding to the message received.

Paraphrasing is one of the tools of the effective communication involving careful listening.

'Paraphrasing' stands for restatement of the message received in the listener's own words which conveys that message has been understood and ensures effective communication.

• Major advantage of observation is that it allows behaviour to be seen & studied in its natural setting.

• People from outside or those already working in a setting can be trained to use it.

• One disadvantage of observation is that events being observed are subject of bids due to the feelings of the people involved as well as of the observers.

• Generally day-to-day activities in a given setting are fairly routine which can go unnoticed by the observer.

• Mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results/observations.

• Core/basic to the field of psychological service, For example psychologists working in clinical settings need to be trained in various techniques of therapeutic interventions, psychological assessment and counselling.

• Specific skills of competencies are required for a very specialized professional functioning nonetheless, all skill sets do overlap quite a bit.

• Not exclusive to an area.

Learning how to be an effective communicator is not just an academic exercise. It is one of the most important skills you will need to succeed in life. For example to do well in class one should be able to ask and answer questions, summarize opinions, distinguish facts from opinions and interact fruitfully. One should also have good listening. Skill is order to comprehend the information presented in class and what others say verbally and non-verbally. And requires good presentation skills to give briefings or to present reports on projects etc.

Major component of communication is speaking with the use of language.

• Language involves use of vocabulary which includes words by symbols.

• Communicator must know how to use words appropriately in organized and understandable form.

• It is necessary to be clear and precise.

• Communication takes place within a context and needs to consider the other's frame of reference.

• It is important for the speaker to adjust his vocabulary level and choice of words to fit the level of the listener.

• Slang expressions, words unique to a culture, euphemism can become obstacles in good communication.

Listening is most important component of communication. It can be improved through following ways:

• Both the sender as well as the receiver are equally responsible for effective communication.

• Be a patient listener.

• Avoid ego speech, i.e., Allow others also to put their point of view.

• Control distractions.

• In a doubt paraphrase.

• Appropriate posture while listening.

• Good listening is an important characteristic and skill of a counsellor.

Direct Question: They are explicit and require specifying information. For example, 'Where did you last work?'

Open-ended Question: They are less direct and specify only the topic. For example, 'How happy are you with your job on the whole?'

Close-ended Question: They provide response alternatives, narrowing the response variations. For example, 'Do you think knowledge of a product or communication skill is more important for a salesperson?'

Bipolar Question: It is a form of close-ended question. It requires a 'yes' or 'no' response. For example, 'Would you like to work for the company?'

Leading Question: It encourages a response in favour of a specific answer. For example, 'Wouldn't you say you are in favour of having officer's union in the company?' Mirror Question: They are intended to get a person to reflect on what he or she had said and expand on it. For example, you said, 'I work so hard but I am unable to get success.' Please explain as to why this happens.

The answer can be found by asking questions like:

— Professional training

— Educational background

— Institutional affiliation

— His/her experience in a particular specified field.

(a) Training as a research and internalization of certain professional value is critical. Knowledge of tools used by psychologists, their methods and theories are required to develop psychological expertise.

For example, a professional psychologist addresses the problem in a scientific level. They take their problems to the laboratory or field settings to solve various problems. He/She tries to find the answer in mathematical probability. Only then he/sher arrives to psychological principles or laws.

(b) Some psychologists carry out research to propound or investigate theoretical formulations while others and concerned with our daily life activities and behaviour.

We need scientists to develop theories and others to find solutions to human problems. Both are real psychologists.

(c) Conditions and competencies are necessary besides research skills for a psychologist.

(d) Basic skills or competencies which psychologists have identified for becoming an effective psychologists are :

(i) General skills (ii) Observational skills (iii) Specific skills

Psychologists as researchers and practitioners pay attention, watch and listen carefully. They use all their senses, noticing what is seen, heard, smelt, touched, tasted. A psychologist, thus, is like an instrument that absorbs all sources of information from the environment.

Psychologists should have training in objectives and systematic observation.

• They should have skill to observe various aspects of surrounding including people and varying events.

• Psychologists should engage in observing people and their actions with following precautions:

— Patience

— Optimistic curiosity

— Respecting clients privacy.

— Awareness of peoples reactions, emotions and motivation.

— Training good questions which could be answered during observation.

Communication is a conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which feelings and ideas are expressed as verbal and/or non-verbal messages that are sen, received and Comprehended. Characteristics of communication:

• Dynamic process, because it is constantly in a state of change.

• Continuous process, because it never stops.

• Irreversible because, once we send a message, we cannot take it back.

• Interactive because, we are constantly in contact with other people and with ourselves.

The process of communication may occur in three forms:

• Accidental—communication without intention.

• Expressive—resulting from emotional state of the person to express his/her feelings or ideas.

• Rhetorical —resulting from the specific goal.

The process of human communication occurs at following levels:

(a) Intrapersonal—communicating with oneself e.g., thought processes or decisionmaking.

(b) Interpersonal—occurs between two or more persons.

(c) Public—characterized by a speaker sending a message to an audience. It may be direct or indirect, e.g., messages through radio or TV.

The process of communication involves two or more than two people, i.e.,

(a) Sender

(b) Receiver.

• The sender encodes the message.

• Encoding refers to taking ideas, giving meaning to it and putting them in message form.

• Receiver does decoding.

• Decoding refers to translating the message into understandable forms using his primary signal system.

Between encoding and decoding, various factors like non-verbal cues, aspects of paralanguage, communication channel, actual words used, artifacts, amount of information and noise influence the communication.

• Listening may appear as a passive behaviour, as it involves silence. But this is far from true.

• Listening requires a person to be attentive, patient, non-judgmental and have the capacity to analyze and respond.

• It is an active process.

• Hearing and listening are not the same. Hearing is biological mechanism. It involves reception of a message through sensory channels.

Listening involves following components:

1. Reception:

• Reception is initial step in the listening process.

• A message could be auditory or/and visual.

• Reception refers to an overall effect of various sense organs. People also listen through their visual system. They observe person's facial expressions, posture and appearance which provide important cues that may not be obvious merely by listening to the verbal part of the message.

2. Attention:

• Once the stimulus/message is received, it reaches the attention stage.

• In this stage, the other stimuli recede so that we can concentrate on specific words or visual symbols.

• Normally attention is divided between what you are attempting to listen to, and what is happening around you, and what is going on in your mind. For example, you are watching a movie. The person in front of you is constantly whispering to his/her friend. There is a buzz in the sound system. So your attention is being pulled in different directions. This makes it difficult for you to receive signals/messages.

3. Paraphrasing:

• Paraphrasing is summarizing the content in ones own words.

• It allows you to understand how much he/she understood of what was communicated.

• If someone cannot write or repeat a summary of what was communicated, he/she probably didn't get the whole message.

4. Assignment of Meaning: The process of putting the stimulus we have received into some predetermined category develops as we acquire language, e.g., categorising the word 'cheese' may include factors as the taste, dairy product, colour, etc.

5. Role of Culture in Listening: Culture influences our listening and learning abilities. For example, Asian culturs like Indians are silent communicators when receiving messages from seniors.

Some cultures focus on controlling attention. For example, Buddhism have a notion called 'Mindfulness'. It means devoting your complete attention to what you are doing.

According to Wechsler, intelligence is a global capacity to think rationally, deal effectively and act purposefully.

It means intelligence is inborn, although by and large it is product of nature and nurture.

Intelligence-related activities are logical, coherent, and relevant.

Adaptability/adjustment - a person who is intelligent has number of solutions to cope with the demands.

Intellectual activities are goal-directed.

J.C. Raven of England.

It is the original test on the basis of which other tests i.e. advanced progressive matrices & colored progressive matrices have been developed.

Items are arranged in the increasing difficulty level.

It measures general intelligence (g-factor) (educative reasoning).

The problems are in the form of designs and patterns.

Items are grouped into 5 sets. Each set has 12 items. So, total number of items are 60.

• Answers to all the items are checked with the help of scoring key.

• Total number of correct answers are added for each part.

• Scores for all the parts are added to get a total score.

• Scatter of scores are checked from expected score table to find out discrepancies.

• Corresponding percentiles and grades are calculated with the help of manual.

Mental age is a measure of intellectual functioning expressed in terms of age. The concept was given by Alfred Binet.

• It is the ratio between MA and CA.

• It is not intelligence. It is simply a measure of intelligence.

• William Stern gave the concept of IQ.

(i) IQ is relatively constant.

(ii) Average IQ is always 100.

Mental age/chronological age × 100

To get the score in %tage and to avoid decimals.

A test that does not discriminate examinees on the basis of their cultural experiences e.g., RSPM.

A test in which the role of language is minimised. The task requiring overt motor responses other than verbal, e.g., Bhatia's Battery of intelligence test.

The tests, which are scored on the basis of speed and accuracy are known as speed tests. e.g. Stanford Binet Test or Wais.

The tests which are scored only on the basis of accuracy, are known as power tests. Here time is not the variable. e.g., RSPM.

Battery is a collection of tests.

Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale.

Wechsler's Adult intelligence scale (WAIS).

General Mental Ability Test (GMAT) by Dr. Mohsin.

SPM.

Percentage refers to a score attained out of hundred. Percentile is position of the individual among hundred.

These are standard scores indicated on standard ten point scale.

(i) Short scales

(ii) long scales

48.

Frustration is a feeling of failure or obstacle of attainment of goal.

It is coping with expectations of significant people.

It is discharge of pent up emotions through verbal expression.

It is standardized set of questions. Initially developed by Woodworth in USA.

1. Maudsley Personality Inventory by Eyesnck.

2. Mennisotta Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI).

It is a mental hospital in London.

Personality refers to a person's unique and relatively stable quality which characteristics his behaviour patterns in different situations.

It is characteristic pattern of behaviour.

Projective techniques are tools to measure personality in which the stimulus is unstructured and provides better opportunity to get unconscious material expressed. For example, TAT, RIT, WAT etc.

Projection is a defence mechanism. The process of attributing one's own traits, attitude or subjective process to others.

1. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
2. Rorschach Ink Blot (RIT)

In Scientific Aptitude, thinking variable is high whereas in mechanical aptitude concrete variables are tested.

Intelligence is general energy whereas aptitude is special ability.

Intelligence is product of nature and nurture whereas aptitude is largely determined by nature.

Training is not required for the growth of intelligence but, for aptitude, training is required.

Under one generalized aptitude test many aptitudes can be measured whereas in specialized ones only one aptitude can be assessed.

Anxiety is state of psychic distress characterised by fear, apprehension and psychological arousal.

Anxiety is subjective because its cause is not known to the person whereas worry is objective because the cause is known.

Concept of existential anxiety was given by Victor Frankl. It is neurotic anxiety of spiritual origin.

When anxiety becomes prolonged, diffused and persistent without any apparent cause then anxiety becomes a disorder.

Pattern of responses an organism makes to the stimulus event that disturbs the equilibrium.

Reaction of stress.

Prolonged feeling of anxiousness and apprehension without any apparent cause.

Neurotic tendencies like anxiousness, apprehension, feeling of discomfort, sleep disturbances, physical symptoms etc.

Low motivational level.

It is psychological process of coping with the demands.

Adaptation is structural or functional change that enhances the organism survival value. It is a biological process.

Emotional area Educational area and Social area.

• Global Adjustment Schedule by Sanjay Vohra.

• Bell's Adjustment Inventory.

• Physical • Social

• Temperamental • Educational

• Moral • Intellectual

It is totality of conscious experiences which is a cognitive structure and starts developing at the age of two.

 It is 'How one views himself'.

How one values his self or worth of himself in his own eyes.

Ones own effectiveness in the group. People with high self-efficacy believe that their life outcomes are under their own control. The concept was given by Bandura.

Awarding 5, 4, 3, 2,1 according to sequence.

Self is the core whereas personality is its manifestation.

Psychological tests are standardised tools to measure abilities and personalities traits. It may be verbal, non-verbal or performance.

Psychological tests are standardized whereas ordinary tests are not standardized.

In experiment we prove or disapprove a hypothesis in controlled conditions whereas in psychological test we measure interest or psychological characteristics.

It is an assumption or tentative answer.

Which one can vary.

The 'cause' manipulated by the experimenter.

The effect.

Any variable other than independent variable which influences dependent variable is known as intervening variable.

William Wundt in 1879 at Leipzig University in Germany.

Francis Galton.

Dr. Sigmund Freud.

Alfred Binet.

Psychometric tests are standardized and objective measuring instrument used to assess an individual's standing relative to others on some mental or behavioural characteristics.

Psychological attributes can not be reduced to zero.

According to Thorndike-

Concrete—ability to deal with objects.

Abstract—ability to deal with symbols and numbers.

Social—ability to deal with people and their activities.

It is report of self-analysis.

Most of our behaviour patterns are very complex and subjectively determined which can be revealed by the individual only.

A set of ascending or descending values used to designate position of a trait or ability e.g., Scale uses inches or centimetres.

Advantages of observation technique

1. It allows the behaviour to be seen and studied in its natural setting.

2. People from outside or those already working in a setting can be trained to use it.

self regulation

Skill may be defined as:
According to the Webster dictionary - It is 'possession of the qualities required to do something or get something done'.
It also defined expertise, ease or the ability to do things assiduously that one gain through practice and experience.

The characteristics of an effective counsellor are:

1. Authenticity: Authenticity means that the behavioural expressions of a person are in consonance with what they value and the way they feel and related to their self-image. A greater degree of authenticity means a larger awareness of self. A client feels easier to communicate with a person with a high degree of authenticity.
2. Positive regard for others: A positive approach to the client helps the counsellor to win the trust of the client. When the client and the counsellor are on the same wavelength; it eliminates the 'I' messages, there is freedom to express and counsellor does not label themselves/himself or the client.
3. Empathy: This is the core quality of a Counsellor. Empathy is the ability of a counsellor to understand the feelings of another person from her/his viewpoint. It is the ability to feel the pain and troubles of the other person.

Difference between interpersonal and intrapersonal communication:

1. Neurotic anxieties arise when the problems of life are attached to physical, psychological or spiritual aspects of one's existence.
2. The role of spiritual anxiety leads to meaninglessness.
3. It is called an existential anxiety, i.e., the neurotic anxiety of spiritual origin which causes problems/disorders.

Interpersonal Communication refers to the Communication that takes place between two or more persons who establish a communicative relationship. For example, interview, small group discussion.

Components of Human Communication

1. encoding
2. decoding
3. speaking
4. the communication channel
5. listening
6. reception
7. attention
8. paraphrasing

The process of human communication occurs at following levels:

1. Intrapersonal—communicating with oneself e.g., thought processes or decisionmaking.
2. Interpersonal—occurs between two or more persons.
3. Public—characterized by a speaker sending a message to an audience. It may be direct or indirect, e.g., messages through radio or TV.

The process of communication involves two or more than two people, i.e.,

1. Sender
2. Receiver.

• The sender encodes the message.
• Encoding refers to taking ideas, giving meaning to it and putting them in message form.
• Receiver does decoding.
• Decoding refers to translating the message into understandable forms using his primary signal system.

Between encoding and decoding, various factors like non-verbal cues, aspects of paralanguage, communication channel, actual words used, artefacts, amount of information and noise influence the communication.

Communication is conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which feelings and ideas are expressed as verbal and non¬verbal messages that are sent, received and comprehended.

The process of communication can be accidental (without intent), expressive (resulting from an emotional state of a person) or rhetorical (resulting from the specific goal of the communicator). Communication can also be divided as follows:

1. Intrapersonal communication.
2. Interpersonal communication
3. Public communication.

Components of Human Communication: Communication includes the following components:

Speaking: It involves the use of language in an appropriate manner which is the precise and clear use of slang expressions and words unique to a culture can impede effective communication.

Listening: It involves reception, attention, assignment of meaning and listener's response to the message given out.

Body Language: It forms the non-verbal aspect of communication and includes all those messages that people exchange in addition to words.