Psychology Optional Strategy - By Dr. Neha R. Jain, Founder, Psychology with ease

Q. Who should choose Psychology as an optional? How to assess oneself before choosing it? What are the criteria for choosing it as an optional?

Ans. In UPSC, one should choose that subject as an optional in which he/she has interest because unlike academic exams, UPSC never asks direct questions.

• Psychology as a discipline trains the human mind to study the behavior of human beings and animals. It is an interesting subject that helps you everywhere, be it personal or professional life. It is suggested to choose it as an optional subject because it is simple and descriptive in nature. Choosing such a subject which is elaborative in nature and fetches good marks is a wise choice. Candidates also select Psychology as it gives limited courses and enough gaps for its preparation.
• So, if your writing skills are good, you can do well with Psychology. Apart from this, one should also possess the ability to Think Critically for objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment and use his/her metacognitive skills to analyze the process of one’s own thinking and learning. It can be scoring because you can use a lot of examples from real life to substantiate your answers.

Q. What is its success ratio in UPSC CSE? On an average, how many candidates appear with this subject? What is the level of competition in this subject? Is it a safe optional?

Ans. Psychology is a safe optional for UPSC as there is less competition, in terms of no. of students appearing from Psychology in Mains -imagine you are running among 5000 vs. running among 300. Many students are able to score 290 - 300 of late. If we refer to previous year data, the success rate in Psychology is 10.9 per cent.

Q. What are the things that need to be kept in mind while preparing for Psychology? What is the ideal approach to prepare this subject?

Ans. Stick to a minimum number of books for this optional which covers about 95% of the syllabus. Do not try to read ten different books and get overwhelmed. Some answers in this optional can be written using your intuition also. NCERTs are very important for this subject, especially if you are learning Psychology for the first time. It is advisable to finish the whole syllabus for Psychology at least once before your Prelims exam. And, do your revision from the same sources.

• You have to take care not to write answers like you would in the GS papers. Sometimes, the questions can be like GS questions, but in the optional, you must write like a specialist. It is also very important to form linkages between the topics in the syllabus; for example, you can use the concepts of memory, learning, intelligence, motivation, etc. (which are present in Paper I) to write answers in Paper II (which deals with applied Psychology).

Strategy for Paper I: Paper I in Psychology is more theoretical in nature. The portions can be divided into: Foundations of Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Personality and Contemporary Psychology.

• You must develop a strong foundation in Paper I because this is going to be your base on which to build answers in Paper II (which is basically applying the concepts in Paper I into practice).
• The chapter ‘Research Methods’ is increasingly becoming popular with the UPSC and many questions are being asked from it.
• A few topics are repeatedly asked and you should be absolutely thorough with them so that these marks are assured. They are working memory, intrinsic motivation, personality, attitude, values and interests, and issues in modern psychology.

Strategy for Paper-II: Paper II deals with applied Psychology. This paper is more application-oriented and requires extra effort and answer writing practice.

• Develop your answers rooted in the concepts of Psychology that you learnt in Paper I.
• Give a lot of examples to support your answers and make sure you quote a majority of Indian examples.
• Sometimes, the UPSC asks unconventional questions in paper II. For this, you have to be armed with a ready-made framework of answer writing because time is a scarce commodity in your Mains exam.
• This framework can go like this – take the basic issue asked in the question (for instance, behavioral change needed for Swachch Bharat, or the problem of teenage drug abuse). Then, divide your answer into sections such as society, institutions, education/awareness, role-models, reinforcement, and finally recent developments if applicable.
• In this framework of answers, incorporate principles like operant conditioning, social psychology, modeling, persuasive communication, etc.

Q. Are study materials and quality guidance available for Psychology optional?

Ans. Ample of study material and guidance is easily available for it. One can go through the books listed below:

• Psychology by Robert A Baron
• Psychology by Saundra Ciccarelli
• Understanding Psychology by Robert S. Feldman
• Tests, Measurements and Research Methods in Behavioral Sciences by A K Singh
• Psychology – Classes XI & XII NCERT textbooks
• Applied Psychology by Smarak Swain

Q. How to start preparation?

Ans. Before starting off with the paper-wise optional strategy, the following basics of studying Psychology for the UPSC must be considered: there are four aspects which you should keep in mind while studying and also while writing answers. They are:

• Basic Concept: This includes the definitions and the underlying concept.
• Experimental Studies: Include these in your answers with names preferably. These studies are very important to the field of Psychology and include them as a fundamental aspect of your preparation. Since Psychology is not an exact science, there is a thin dividing intuition and research-proven facts. So, be extra careful while preparing this aspect.
• Real-life Examples: These boost your score. They are also applied part of Psychology. Include examples from different walks of life. More importantly, use examples from India itself more, because, at the end of the day, you want to be an Indian civil servant!
• Flowcharts: This helps you understand many concepts and also, of course, boosts your score, not to mention saves time during the exam.
• Practice Previous Years’ Psychology Question Papers of UPSC: Last but not least, practice UPSC previous year questions paper of Psychology and apply the above techniques/strategies and test yourself.

Q. Will it help in General Studies/ Essay/Interview also?

Ans. Psychology can help in the Ethics paper because at times, the psychology tends to get philosophical. Ethics is an abstract paper, and psychology can help fine-tune the abstract nature of ethics and help you write better answers. It can also help in certain portions in GS-I (social issues) and the essay paper also. Interview is mainly your personality test. Psychology is a discipline that helps an individual to understand behavior of self and others and on the other part it guides us to learn ourselves in a better way and present the best desired personality of ours.