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Military psychology is a specialized field of applied psychology that defines itself not through its subject content or methodological concerns, rather through its goal of optimally fulfilling the requirements of its end user, the armed forces. It is a distinctive domain where varied sub-disciplines of psychology converge in pursuance of ensuring efficiency, effectiveness, and sustained performance by the armed forces in specific contexts and under exceptional circumstances. It is focused on building, enhancing, and optimizing the human capital. Though psychological principles have always been used by humankind in warfare, military psychology as a modern discipline found expression as recently as the First World War. Remarkably, the relationship between military and psychology has been almost symbiotic, the two growing in tandem and benefitting mutually. While the German military was a pioneer in utilizing the expertise of psychologists in the war effort, using aptitude testing for recruitment into different occupation, during the First World War, utilization of psychological expertise by Britain and France remained limited. After entering the First World War in 1917 the United States effectively utilized psychological knowledge in recruitment, classification, and training. Large-scale use of psychology gave impetus to the growth of psychology and resulted in the establishment of the Division of Psychology in the office of the Surgeon General of the US Army in 1917. Psychology in the military grew exponentially during the years of the Second World War. Psychologists were recruited in various branches of the armed forces, overseeing personnel selection, health care, training, proficiency measurement, and leadership. The American Psychological Association recognized the contributions of psychology to the war effort by including the Division of Military Psychology (Division 19) as a formal sub-division in 1945. The psychologists gained a formal entry in the British civil services during the postwar period. As the world settled into an uneasy peace and a Cold War, military psychology found ever newer avenues. While ensuring person-job fit remained a prime domain, clinical intervention, human factor engineering, leadership, propaganda, and other social processes provided military psychologists with new research opportunities. In the current era of techno-centric warfare, military psychology is finding applications in varied domains of optimizing man-machine interface for enhanced operational efficiency, enhancing cognitive capabilities through artificial intelligence supported decision networks and an improved understanding of personality processes. Also, as the changing nature of warfare necessitates that the nations find alternative ways of securing their interests beyond war, military psychology today stands at a juncture facing not only methodological challenges, but also unprecedented challenges of an ethical nature.

Suicide is the end product of complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors. Challenging and life-threatening events compel both genders towards self-destructive behaviour. Existing research evidences depict males having higher rates of suicide completion as compared to females. Gender differences in terms of suicide attempts and completions depend upon the lethality of methods adopted by the individual. Mental health complexities are at higher risk of suicidal behaviour. However, not all people who take their life display mental illness. The presence of certain mental illnesses like depression, cognitive rigidity, aggression, and impulsivity, feelings of hopelessness, neuroticism, anxiety and vulnerabilities towards psychosis proneness aggravate suicidal behaviour. Poor mental health significantly affects the quality of life and psychosocial functioning of the individual. The quality of social connectedness contributes towards enhanced mental health and well-being. Social connectedness reduces the feelings of loneliness and promotes positive relationships between individuals that tend to serve as an important protective factor towards suicidal behaviour. In the present article, an integrative approach towards suicidal behaviour has been discussed within the diversity of extensive collection of research that has been instrumental in providing rich insights with respect to specific aspects related to gender disparities, mental health issues and social connectedness.

The act of ending the pain of living not only leaves the family members devastated, but the outcome of this traumatic event also affects the family system at many levels. Given the complexity of the phenomenon of suicide itself, the aftermath of suicide within families has often been overlooked. This chapter addresses the various layers of the phenomenon of suicide bereavement through the lens of different “suicide survivors” such as parents, children, spouses, siblings and persons closely associated with the individual. The trajectory of suicide is so sudden that it leaves pallbearers of the deceased individual vulnerable to a plethora of melancholic emotions that usually do not attain closure. The situation is made more difficult because such incidents are followed by inescapable feelings of angst, anger, guilt, shame, hopelessness, betrayal and lack of a sense of control. Since the tragic event leaves many questions unanswered, the survivors struggle in coping with the traumatic event of losing a person close to them. With an event that leaves the lives of the family members forever altered, its impact is not limited to the individual but affects the functioning of the family altogether. It alters family dynamics in a way that may escalate the grief reaction of the bereaved individual. Additionally, the chapter attempts to outline the various factors that influence the process of bereavement for suicide survivors and explore outcomes of this situational crises experienced by them. Lastly, it is important to pave the path of recovery for suicide survivors. Therefore, preventive measures and strategies are suggested to aid the bereavement process, and reduce the psychosocial vulnerabilities of suicidal behaviour in members of the family.

Suicide is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. The array of suicidal behaviours poses a challenge to the researchers not only regarding definitional issues, conceptualization and theorizing, but also about translating the theoretical understanding into effective prevention strategies. Moreover, availability of multiple disciplinary perspectives on causal pathways emphasizing varied domains of risk and protective factors adds on to the complexity of the field of suicidal studies. Present paper is aimed at providing a conceptual overview of the scope and structure of suicide studies from a multidisciplinary perspective. It provides a succinct description of major theoretical perspectives on suicidal behaviour, along with a critique about their usefulness for designing preventive strategies and programmes. In discussing varied disciplinary standpoints and theoretical models emphasizing varied sets of causal and protective factors, it brings out the need to evolve a broader and deeper conceptualization that would provide an overarching framework for basic as well as applied research in suicidal behaviour and its prevention, and allowing for incorporation of various specificities of individual behaviour at the same time acknowledging underlying generalities.

Culture has always been a source of influence on human behaviour. It affects the way in which individual processes information and reasons in negotiation and other organisational decisions. In today's competitive world, the work place is more unstable and unpredictable than before. To make right judgment in the right context is the right choice of the present time. This study made an attempt to establish a link between organizational culture and managerial thinking. This kind of analysis would help managers to adapt particular tactics to effectively deal with people in one cultural context. The objective of the study was to examine the impact of organizational culture on managerial thinking and to develop possible OD interventions to enhance executive effectiveness. The present study followed a 2x2x2 factorial design of research where 400 managers/executives (front line and middle level) of MNCs and PSUs in manufacturing and service-oriented organisation were administered on Organisational Culture Questionnaire (Udai Pareek, 1989) and Managerial Thinking Style Inventory (Gangopadhyay, 1993). The findings of the study revealed that there exist significant difference between managers of MNCs and PSUs with regard to Managerial Thinking Styles and preference for a particular Organisational Culture Profile. The managers in MNCs preferred autocratic, technocratic and entrepreneurial culture profiles in comparison to managers of PSUs who showed preference for bureaucratic culture. With regard to managerial thinking, it was observed that managers of MNCs relied more on analyzer and implementer type of thinking style than the managers of PSUs who believed in collaborator style of thinking. The future implications of the study were discussed in the light of present findings in this paper. The authors have also suggested few possible OD interventions to enhance executive effectiveness.

The study examines the influence of human resource (HR) flexibility on organisational effectiveness. It also examines the mediating role of organisational citizenship behaviour between HR flexibility and organisational effectiveness. Using structural equation modelling on survey data collected from 350 executive respondents randomly selected from various manufacturing industries of public sector organisations in India, the study has revealed significant influence of HR flexibility on organisational effectiveness. The findings also reported that organisational citizenship behaviour has significant mediating effect on the relationship between HR flexibility and organisational effectiveness. The findings have very important implications for organisations to nurture good citizenship behaviour among its executives to achieve optimum organisational effectiveness. The study also suggests that HR flexibility is the essence for any organisation to deal with the global business demands in a timely manner. Thus organisations must practise HR flexibility for maximum benefit with minimum investment in its HRs. The future scopes of the research along with other managerial implications are discussed in the light of empirical evidences.

The present study was carried out to examine the influence of employee wellbeing on psychological empowerment (i.e., meaning, competence, self-determination and impact). Efforts have been made to investigate the mediating role of happiness in relationship between employees' wellbeing and empowerment. A set of standard questionnaires on psychological empowerment, wellbeing and happiness was used for data collection. Data were collected on 96 executives randomly selected from Indian service sector. Multivariate statistics were used for analysis of the data. The results of the study revealed that employee wellbeing was positively associated with employee empowerment. Happiness was found to be a significant mediator between employee wellbeing and empowerment. Implications of the study were discussed in the context of Indian service industry for possible organisational development interventions to enhance employee wellbeing for greater empowerment.

Foreword - Professor Ariel Merari Preface I: SUICIDE TERRORISM: A PHENOMENON Suicide Terrorism: Delineating the Construct - Swati Mukherjee, Updesh Kumar, and Manas K Mandal Suicide Terrorism Explained: A Psychosocial Approach - Luis de la Corte Ibanez Evolutionary Psychological Science of Suicide Terrorism - James R. Liddle and Todd K Shackelford Suicide Terrorism as Social Noise: A Communicative Perspective - Jonathan Matusitz 'Mumbai Style': Exploration of a Concept - Mark Dechesne Suicide Bombing: Homicidal Killing or a Weapon of War? - Riaz Hassan II: SUICIDE TERRORISM: A PROCESS The Psychology of Suicide Terrorism - Jerrold M. Post, Farhana Ali, Schuyler W. Henderson, Stephen Shanfield, Jeff Victoroff, and Stevan Weine The Militant Jihadi Ideology of Martyrdom as Short-lived Psychological First-Aid for Trauma and Loss - Anne Speckhard Are Suicide Terrorists Suicidal? - Bruce Bongar, Uri Kugel, and Victoria Kendrick The Role of Military Psychologists and Psychiatrists in Understanding Suicide Terrorism - Uri Kugel, Laurie Black, Joseph Tomlins, Elvin Sheykhani, Bruce Bongar, Morgan Banks, and Larry James The Use and Abuse of Children/Youth in Terrorism and Suicide Bombing - Edna Erez and Anat Berko Deterring Suicide Terrorism - Dushyant Singh Author Index Subject Index

The term ‘stress’ is used to denote varied type of concepts in different disciplines. The concept of stress and has gained augmented attention of researchers during the past century, and it still continues to remain a popular research domain. Researchers and scientists of different behavioral and health sciences have attempted to look into the concept of stress from varied perspectives. Literature witnesses that numerous paradigms exist to delineate the conceptual understanding and stress research; however, there is hardly any meta-analytic synthesis that presents different perspectives and paradigms together to the reader. Present article reviews different existing perspectives for the thorough understanding of the concept of stress from multiple viewpoints. Different research paradigms, running through which the topic of stress has gained a huge momentum, have been discussed concisely. The authors present a meta-analytical review of different conceptual models and research approaches to stress. Beginning with the early physiological notions of 1920s, the genetic, epigenetic, biophysiological, psychological, sociological, developmental, environmental stress, and occupational stress paradigms have been reviewed and more future researches with combined methodological approaches tested with multivariate analytic methods have been called for to further simplify the understanding of the concept of stress from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Symbolism in Terrorism: Motivation, Communication, and Behavior explores an important but under-represented aspect of terrorism: the meanings of both physical and non-physical symbols in terrorism,...

The plant Givotia rottleriformis have been used traditionally for treating skin diseases like psoriasis, for which there is no complete cure till date. Psoriasis, is a genetically determined chronic inflammatory dermatosis immuno disorder associated with over expression of proinflammatory cytokines characterized by red, scaly and raised patches that affects 2.3% of the population worldwide. According to American academy of dermatology, antibacterial therapy could also be used for treating psoriasis. In view of this, the present investigation was carried out to study the antibacterial activity with respect to their traditional use as antipsoriatic agents. The powdered bark was successively extracted with ethyl acetate and methanol and subjected to preliminary phytochemical analysis and HPTLC finger print analysis. The antimicrobial studies of ethyl acetate and methanol extract was carried out by agar diffusion method. Among the ethyl acetate and methanol extract, methanol extract exhibited highest zone of inhibition at the concentration of 1000 ppm against Staphyloccocus aureus (18 mm) which has been one of the organisms which aggravate conditions like psoriasis, while moderate activity against Streptococcus pyogenes (12 mm). The zone of inhibition of ethyl acetate extract against Escherichia coli was 11 mm and against Streptococcus pyogenes was 14 mm at higher concentration (1000 ppm). The methanolic extract was ineffective against the fungal strain Candida albicans and ethyl acetate extract exhibited moderate effect (11 mm) against fungal strain at higher concentration (1000ppm). The minimum inhibitory concentration was also determined and found that the methanolic extract was required in relatively lesser quantities for arresting the growth of the tested organisms. The results obtained may provide validation for its reported medicinal uses.