PSYCHOLOGY SHAPING INVENTION

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In this world full of life if I sit to observe each and every person in my visual field, what is one general observation which I will get? I find difference in behaviour of each and every being. Now the next question which should arise in my mind should be why is it so? The answer lies in ‘psychology’. Psychology can be defined as a scientific study of mental processes and behaviour. Our behaviour is associated with a lot of things, one of them is a mental process taking place at that moment in our brain. There is always a brain activity associated with our behaviour.

Since ancient times the phrase that, “necessity is the mother of invention” has been proved, whenever man has discovered something new there has always been a cause behind it. This new discovery is known as invention and psychology behind it is known as psychology of invention. The term ‘psychology of invention’ was coined by Jacques Hadamard. Every invention is one’s intellectual property. What is intellectual property? In simple words it is the creation of mind. Human brain is a sink of infinite number of questions and knowingly or unknowingly we all are trying to find answers to our questions. In the process of finding answers our brain leads us to either a new question or to a solution. This further leads us to invention. Inventions are end result of creative thinking of our brain. And as our needs advance we try to innovate our creation for our convenience. 

From the beginning of our race we humans have tried to make things easy for us. In early times, discovery of fire made life comfortable, it became their source of light at night, medium for cooking food and a defense from wild, but as time passed and external conditions changed man felt a necessity for more inventions and hence he invented a light bulb, a gas stove and a gun.

 Jacques Hadamard perceived images instead of words in his brain to solve mathematical problems. He also experimented it on 100 physicists of his time and found similar process of thinking. There are 5 basic functions of thinking which is collectively known as Circle of Thought. These 5 functions are describe, elaborate, decide, plan and act. Firstly, our senses collect information from our surrounding, then it is elaborated in our mind which is the imperfect picture of the reality, further we move on to decide what is required by our surrounding, after this we plan and lastly we act on what we have planned to get a desired outcome. And this leads to invention. There is always a creative mind behind every invention. Invention is the end result of a series of mental processes. Like Barbara Rothbaum created virtual reality based therapy that could help people to overcome fear of heights. Positive psychological approach to problems leads us to inventions which benefit the mankind. Therefore, we can say that psychology and invention are intertwined to each other and hence are integral part of our lives. We live in ever evolving world where necessity changes with time and leads to new inventions. Invention widens our perspective and observational capacity which ultimately leads to innovation.

“All perceiving is also thinking, all reasoning is also intuition and all observation is also invention.”

                                                                                                                      -RUDOLF ARNHEIM

We must practice mindfulness and keep a positive approach towards problems in order to discover the undiscovered and to invent the uninvented.

AUTHOR: Chetna Srivastava, BSc. (Psychology Hons.), MMV- BHU

DISCLAIMER- 

The views are that of author’s own and not necessarily the views of IPTSE Academy. This blog is a platform for academic discussions and hence authors have been given flexibility to convey their thought process. 

AUTHOR:

Chetna Srivastava, BSc. (Psychology Hons.), MMV- BHU