2.

SELF AND PERSONALITY

Question & Answers

1. ------- refers to those attributes of a person that make her/him

different from others.
Ans: Personal identity.

2. ----- refers to those aspects of a person that link him to a social or

cultural group or are derived from it.
Ans: Social identity.

3. This value judgment of a person about herself/himself is called---- .

Ans: self-esteem.

4. A student who believes that he has the ability to excel in studies

demonstrates high ------.
Ans: Self efficacy.

5. The ability to organise and monitor our own behaviour is known

as :
Ans: Self-regulation.

6. The ability to delay or defer the gratification of needs is called ---.

Ans: Self-control.

7. The characteristic ways of responding to individuals and situations is

called----- .
Ans: Personality.

8. ------ is a biologically based characteristic way of reacting.

Ans: Temperament.

9. A stable, persistent and specific way of behaving is called ---- .

Ans: Trait.

10. Psychologist who proposed typology by grouping people into

introverts and extraverts is:
Ans: Carl Jung.
 11. Psychologists who classified individuals into Type-A and Type-B
personalities are:
Ans: Friedman and Rosenman.

12. Type-D personality is characterised by proneness to ----- .

Ans: Depression.

13. ------ personality is prone to cancer.

Ans: Type-C.

14. A---- is considered as a relatively enduring attribute or quality on

which one individual differs from another.
Ans: Trait.

15. Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) was developed by

----- .
Ans: Raymond Cattell.

16. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was developed by -----.

Ans: H.J. Eysenck.

17. ------ & ----- are the two important methods of eliciting intra-psychic
conflicts in psychoanalysis.
Ans: Free Association & Dream Analysis.

18. According to psychoanalytic theory, id operates according to -----

principle.
Ans: Pleasure principle.

19. According to psychoanalytic theory, ego operates according to -----

principle.
Ans: Reality principle.

20. The instinctual life force that energises the id is called-----.

Ans: Libido.
21. ---- is a type of defence mechanism in which people attribute their own
traits to others.
Ans: Projection.
22. ---- is a type of defence mechanism in which a person totally refuses
to accept reality.
Ans: Denial.

23. ---- is a type of defence mechanism in which a person defends against

anxiety by adopting behaviours opposite to her/his true feelings.
Ans: Reaction formation.

24.experiences of the male child which involves love for the mother,
hostility towards the father is known as :
Ans: Oedipus Complex.

25. Analytical psychology was developed by ----- .

Ans: Carl Jung.

26. Match the following.

A B Correct Answer
Karen Horney Individual Psychology Basic Anxiety

Alfred Adler Identity Crisis Individual Psychology

Erich Fromm Basic Anxiety Social Beings

Erik Erikson Social Beings Identity Crisis

27. Two psychologist who have contributed to the development

of humanistic perspective on personality are:
Ans: Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.

28. A formal effort aimed at understanding personality of an individual

is termed as:
Ans: Personality Assessment.

29. The Rorschach Inkblot Test was developed by:

Ans: Hermann Rorschach.

30. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was developed by:

Ans: Morgan and Murray.
What is self?
Ans: Self refers to the totality of an individual’s conscious experiences,
ideas, thoughts and feelings with regard to herself or himself.

Distinguish between personal self & social self.

Ans: The personal self leads to an orientation in which one feels
primarily concerned with oneself.
The social self emerges in relation with others and emphasises
such aspects of life as cooperation, unity, affiliation, sacrifice, support or
sharing.

What is Self-esteem?
Ans: As persons we always make some judgment about our own value
or worth. This value judgment of a person about herself/himself is called
self-esteem.

What is Self-Control? State the techniques of Self-Control.

Ans: Learning to delay or defer the gratification of needs is called self-
control.
A number of psychological techniques of self-control have also been
suggested.
Observation of own behaviour is one of them. This provides us with
necessary information that may be used to change, modify, or strengthen
certain aspects of self.
Self-instruction is another important technique. We often instruct
ourselves to do something and behave the way we want to. Such
instructions are quite effective in self-regulation.
Self-reinforcement is the third technique. This involves rewarding
behaviours that have pleasant outcomes.

What is personality? Briefly explain the features of personality.

Ans: Personality refers to our characteristic ways of responding to
individuals and situations.
Personality is characterised by the following features:
1. It has both physical and psychological components.
2. Its expression in terms of behaviour is fairly unique in a given
individual.
3. Its main features do not easily change with time.
4. It is dynamic in the sense that some of its features may change due to
internal or external situational demands. Thus, personality is adaptive to
situations.

Discuss the personality types given by Sheldon.

Ans: Sheldon proposed the Endomorphic, Mesomorphic, and
Ectomorphic typology.
The endomorphs are fat, soft and round. By temperamentthey are relaxed
and sociable.
The mesomorphs have strong musculature, are rectangular with a strong
body build. They are energetic and courageous.
The ectomorphs are thin, long and fragile in body build. They are brainy,
artistic and introvert.

Differentiate between introverts and extraverts.

Ans: Carl Jung has proposed an important typology by grouping people
into introverts and extraverts.
Introverts are people who prefer to be alone, tend to avoid others,
withdraw themselves in the face of emotional conflicts, and are shy.
Extraverts are sociable, outgoing, drawn to occupations that allow dealing
directly with people, and react to stress by trying to lose themselves among
people and social activity.

State the characteristics of Type-A, Type-B, Type-C & Type-D

personality.
Ans: Type-A personality possess high motivation, lack patience, feel short
of time, be in a great hurry, and feel like being always burdened with work.
Such people find it difficult to slow down and relax. People with Type-A
personality are more susceptible to problems like hypertension and
coronary heart disease (CHD).
Type-B personality are the individuals who have the absence of Type-A
Characteristics.
Type-C personality are prone to cancer. Individuals characterised by this
personality are cooperative, unassertive and patient. They suppress their
negative emotions (e.g., anger), and show compliance to authority.
Type-D personality are the people characterised by proneness to
depression.
What is a Trait?
Ans: A trait is considered as a relatively enduring attribute or quality on
which one individual differs from another.

Compare the trait approaches given by Allport and Cattell to

understand personality.
Ans: Gordon Allport proposed that individuals possess a number of traits,
which are dynamic in nature. He categorised traits into cardinal, central,
and secondary.
Cardinal traits are highly generalised dispositions. They indicate the goal
around which a person’s entire life seems to revolve. Mahatma Gandhi’s
non-violence and Hitler’s Nazism are examples of cardinal traits. Such
traits often get associated with the name of the person so strongly that they
derive such identities as the ‘Gandhian’ or ‘Hitlerian’ trait.
Central traits are warm, sincere, diligent, etc. are often used in writing a
testimonial or job recommendation for a person.
Secondary traits. The least generalised characteristics of a person are
called secondary traits such as ‘likes mangoes’ or ‘prefers ethnic clothes’
are examples of secondary traits.

Raymond Cattell developed a common structure on which people differ

from each other. He applied a statistical technique, called factor analysis,
to discover the common structures. He found 16 primary or source traits.
The source traits are stable, and are considered as the building blocks of
personality. Besides these, there are also a number of surface traits that
result out of the interaction of source traits. Cattell described the source
traits in terms of opposing tendencies. He developed a test, called Sixteen
Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), for the assessment of personality.

Describe Eysenck’s Theory of personality.

Ans: H.J. Eysenck proposed that personality could be reduced into two
broad dimensions. Each dimension subsumes a number of specific traits.
These dimensions are:
Neuroticism vs. emotional stability : It refers to the degree to which
people have control over their feelings. At one extreme of the dimension,
we find people who are neurotic. They are anxious, moody, touchy, restless
and quickly lose control. At the other extreme lie people who are calm,
even-tempered, reliable and remain under control.
Extraversion vs. introversion : It refers to the degree to which people are
socially outgoing or socially withdrawn. At one extreme are those who are
active, gregarious, impulsive and thrill- seeking. At the other extreme are
people who are passive, quiet, cautious and reserved.
Psychoticism vs. Sociability: In a later work Eysenck proposed a third
dimension, called Psychoticism vs. Sociability, which is considered to
interact with the other two dimensions mentioned above. A person who
scores high on psychoticism dimension tends to be hostile, egocentric, and
antisocial.
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire is the test which is used for studying
these dimensions of personality.

What are the three levels of consciousness proposed by Sigmund

Freud?
Ans: Freud described the human mind in terms of three levels of
consciousness :
Conscious: It includes the thoughts, feelings and actions of which people
are aware.
Preconscious: It includes mental activity of which people may become
aware only if they attend to it closely.
Unconscious: It includes mental activity that people are unaware of.

Describe the unconscious as stated by Freud.

Ans: According to Freud, the unconscious is a reservoir of instinctive or
animal drives. It also stores all ideas and wishes that are concealed from
conscious awareness, perhaps, because they lead to psychological
conflicts. Most of these arise from sexual desires which cannot be
expressed openly and therefore are repressed. People constantly struggle to
find either some socially acceptable ways to express unconscious
impulses, or to keep those impulses away from being expressed.
Unsuccessful resolution of conflicts results in abnormal behaviour.
Analysis of forgetting, mispronunciations, jokes and dreams provide us
with a means to approach the unconscious. Freud developed a therapeutic
procedure, called psychoanalysis. The basic goal of psychoanalytic therapy
is to bring the repressed unconscious materials to consciousness, thereby
helping people to live in a more self-aware and integrated manner.
Describe the structure of personality.
Ans: According to Freud there are three primary structural elements of
personality. They are id, ego, and superego.
Id : Id deals with immediate gratification of primitive needs, sexual
desires and aggressive impulses. It works on the pleasure principle, which
assumes that people seek pleasure and try to avoid pain. Id does not care
for moral values, society, or other individuals.
Ego : It grows out of id, and seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual
needs in accordance with reality. It works by the reality principle, and
often directs the id towards more appropriate ways of behaving.
Superego : Superego is the moral branch of mental functioning. The
superego tells the id and the ego whether gratification in a particular
instance is ethical. It helps control the id by internalising the parental
authority through the process of socialisation.
Freud thought the unconscious as being composed of three competing
forces. In some people, the id is stronger than the superego; in others, it is
the superego. The relative strength of the id, ego and superego deter mines
each person’s stability.

Describe the different kinds of defence mechanisms that a person

resort to in his daily life.
Ans: Freud has described many different kinds of defence mechanisms.
Repression: Repression is a defence mechanism in which anxiety-
provoking behaviours or thoughts are totally dismissed by the
unconscious. When people repress a feeling or desire, they become totally
unaware of that wish or desire.
Projection: In projection, people attribute their own traits to others. Thus,
a person who has strong aggressive tendencies may see other people as
acting in an excessively aggressive way towards her/him.
Denial: In denial, a person totally refuses to accept reality. For e.g:
someone suffering from HIV/AIDS may altogether deny her/ his illness.
Reaction formation: In reaction formation, a person defends against
anxiety by adopting behaviours opposite to her/his true feelings. A person
with strong sexual urges, who channels her/his energy into religious
fervour, presents a classical example of reaction formation.
Rationalisation: In rationalisation, a person tries to make unreasonable
feelings or behaviour seem reasonable and acceptable.
Describe different Stages of Personality Development proposed by
Freud.
Ans: The different Stages of Personality Development are:
Oral Stage : A new born’s instincts are focused on the mouth. This is the
infant’s primary pleasure seeking centre. It is through the mouth that the
baby obtains food that reduces hunger. The infant achieves oral
gratification through feeding, thumb sucking, biting and babbling.
Anal Stage : It is found that around ages two and three the child learns to
respond to some of the demands of the society. One of the principal
demands made by parents is that the child learns to control the bodily
functions of urination and defecation. children at this age experience
pleasure in moving their bowels. The anal area of the body becomes the
focus of certain pleasurable feelings.
Phallic Stage : This stage focuses on the genitals. At around ages four and
five children begin to realise the differences between males and females.
They become aware of sexuality and the sexual relationship between their
parents.
During this stage, the male child experiences the Oedipus Complex, which
involves love for the mother, hostility towards the father. A major
developmental achievement of this stage is the resolution of the Oedipus
complex. This takes place by accepting his father’s relationship with his
mother, and modelling his own behaviour after his father.
For girls, it is called Electra Complex. By attaching her love to the father
a girl tries to symbolically marry him and raise a family. When she realises
that this is unlikely, she begins to identify with her mother and copy her
behaviour as a means of getting her father’s affection.
The critical component in resolving the Oedipus complex & Electra
Complex is the development of identification with the same sex parents. In
other words, boys give up sexual feelings for their mothers and begin to
see their fathers as role models rather than as rivals; girls give up their
sexual desires for their father and identify with their mother.
Latency Stage : This stage lasts from about seven years until puberty.
During this period, the child continues to grow physically, but sexual urges
are relatively inactive. Much of a child’s energy is channelled into social or
achievement- related activities.
Genital Stage : During this stage, the person attains maturity in
psychosexual development. The sexuality, fears and repressed feelings of
earlier stages are once again exhibited. People learn to deal with
members of the opposite sex in a socially and sexually mature way.
What are the major criticisms against psychodynamic theories?
Ans: Psychodynamic theories face strong criticisms from many quarters.
The major criticisms are as follows:
(1) The theories are largely based on case studies; they lack a rigorous
scientific basis.
(2) They use small and atypical individuals as samples for advancing
generalisations.
(3) The concepts are not properly defined, and it is difficult to submit them
to scientific testing.
4) Freud has used males as the prototype of all human personality
development. He overlooked female experiences and perspectives.

What are self-report methods? Explain three self-report methods.

Ans: Self-report methods are fairly structured measures, that require
subjects to give verbal responses using some kind of rating scale. The
method requires the subject to objectively report her/his own feelings with
respect to various items. The responses are accepted at their face value.
They are scored in quantitative terms and interpreted on the basis of norms
developed for the test.
Some of the well- known self-report measures are briefly described
below:
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI):
This inventory is widely used as a test in personality assessment.
Hathaway and McKinley developed this test as a helping tool for
psychiatric diagnosis, but the test has been found very effective in
identifying varieties of psychopathology. Its revised version is available as
MMPI-2. It consists of 567 statements. The subject has to judge each
statement as ‘true’ or ‘false’ for her/ him. The test is divided into 10
subscales, which seek to diagnose hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria,
psychopathic deviate, masculinity-femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia,
schizophrenia, mania and social introversion.
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ):
Developed by Eysenck this test initially assessed two dimensions of
personality, called introverted-extraverted and emotionally stable
emotionally unstable. These dimensions are characterised by 32
personality traits. Later on, Eysenck added a third dimension, called
psychoticism.
Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire(16 PF):
This test was developed by Cattell. On the basis of his studies, he
identified a large set of personality descriptors, which were subjected to
factor analysis to identify the basic personality structure. The test provides
with declarative statements, and the subject responds to a specific situation
by choosing from a set of given alternatives.

Describe the limitations of self-report measures.

Ans: The self-report measures suffer from a number of problems.
Social desirability: It is a tendency on the part of the respondent to
endorse items in a socially desirable manner.
Acquiescence: It is a tendency of the subject to agree with items/questions
irrespective of their contents. It often appears in the form of saying ‘yes’ to
items.

Explain briefly the projective techniques with examples.

Ans: Projective techniques were developed to assess unconscious motives
and feelings. These techniques are based on the assumption that a less
structured or unstructured stimulus or situation will allow the individual to
project her/his feelings, desires and needs on to that situation.
Some of the well- known projective techniques are briefly discussed
below:
The Rorschach Inkblot Test: This test was developed by Hermann
Rorschach. The test consists of 10 inkblots. Five of them are in black and
white, two with some red ink, and the remaining three in some pastel
colours. The blots were originally made by dropping ink on a piece of
paper and then folding the paper in half & hence called inkblot test.
The subjects are shown the cards and are asked to tell where, how, and on
what basis was a particular response made.
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): This test was developed by
Morgan and Murray. It is a little more structured than the Inkblot test. The
test consists of 30 black and white picture cards and one blank card. Each
picture card depicts one or more people in a variety of situations. The
subject is asked to tell a story describing the situation presented in the
picture: What led up to the situation, what is happening at the moment,
what will happen in the future, and what the characters are feeling and
thinking.
Rosenzweig’s Picture-Frustration Study (P-F Study): This test was
developed by Rosenzweig to assess how people express aggression in the
face of a frustrating situation. The test presents with the help of cartoon
like pictures a series of situations in which one person frustrates another,
or calls attention to a frustrating condition. The subject is asked to tell
what the other (frustrated) person will say or do.
Sentence Completion Test: This test makes use of a number of
incomplete sentences. The starting part of the sentence is first presented
and the subject has to provide an ending to the sentence. It is held that the
type of endings used by the subjects reflect their attitudes, motivation and
conflicts. The test provides subjects with several opportunities to reveal
their underlying unconscious motivations.
Draw-a-Person Test: It is a simple test in which the subject is asked to
draw a person on a sheet of paper. A pencil and eraser is provided to
facilitate drawing. After the completion of the drawing, the subject is
generally asked to draw the figure of an opposite sex person. Finally, the
subject is asked to make a story about the person as if s/he was a character
in a novel or play.

Explain different behaviour analysis used in assessment of personality.

Ans: Interview: The interview is probably the most widely used method
of assessing personality. Interview is a conversation between an
investigator and a subject for obtaining information for evaluating one’s
personality. Mainly there are two types of interviews: 1. Structured
interview. 2. Unstructured interview.
In the structured or standardized interview, interviewee responds to a
fixed list of questions prepared by the interviewer. In the unstructured or
non-standardized interview, the interviewer may ask some general
questions, and is answered by the interviewee and the content of the
interview is likely to vary widely from person to person.

Observation: Behavioural observation is another method which is very

commonly used for the assessment of personality. Observation is a
research technique based on simply observing the behavior in the natural
settings. It is used to assess the overt behavior of an individual.

RATING SCALES:
Rating scales is a paper-pencil measuring device by which a person rates the traits,
performances and other characteristics of another person. It is the most efficient way
to assess interactions in which people are observed constantly or extensively. A
schoolteacher who is trained to be an observer, see her students in many situations
over a long period and rate her student’s entire behavior. Rating is made by locating
each child on a scale for a specific trait. The scale is divided into units of 3,5,7 and
each unit represent an increasing amount of trait.
E.g. an aggressive behavior is rated in a five point scale like:

1. 2. 3. 4 5.
Little or no Some Aggressive Average amount of 4Frequent Great deal of
Aggressive behaviour Aggressive behaviour Aggressive Aggressive
behaviour behaviour behaviour

Nomination: This method is often used in obtaining peer assessment. It

can be used with persons who have been in long-term interaction and who
know each other very well. In using nomination, each person is asked to
choose one or more persons of the group with whom s/he would like to
work, study, play or participate in any other activity. The person may also
be asked to specify the reason for her/his choices.
Situational Tests: A variety of situational tests have been devised for the
assessment of personality. The most commonly used test of this kind is the
situational stress test. It provides information about how a person behaves
under stressful situations.

Explain different methods for the assessment of personality.

Ans: Write: 1.self-report methods. 2. Projective techniques. 3. Behaviour
analysis methods.