Class – XII Psychology Self and Personality -Notes

INTRODUCTION
• Self refers to the totality of individuals’ conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts
and feelings with regard to herself or himself.
• The study of self and personality help us to understand ourselves as well as others.
• The structure of self can be understood in terms of identity of the intended and
the development of personal and social self.
• Personal identity refers to those attributes of a person that make him/her different
from others.

• Social identity refers to those aspects of a person that link him/her to a social or
cultural group or are derived from it.
Self refers to the totality of an individual’s conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts
and feelings with regard to himself or herself.
• Subject:
Who does something (actor).
Self actively engages in the process of knowing itself.
• Object:
Which gets affected (consequence).
Self gets observed and comes to be known.
• Kinds of Self:
➢ Formed as a result of the interaction of the biological self with the
physical and sociocultural environment.
➢ Biological self- developed is a result of our biological needs.

1. Personal Self:
Primarily concerned with oneself.
Emphasis comes to be laid on those aspects of life that relate only to the concern the
person, such as personal freedom, personal responsibility, personal achievement, or
personal comforts.
2. Social/Familial/Relational Self
Emerges in relation with others.
Emphasizes such aspects of life as co-operation, unity, affiliation, sacrifice,
Support or sharing. This self-values family and social relationship.

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 • Self-concept
The way perceives ourselves and the ideas we hold about our competencies and
attributes. A person’s self-concept can be found out by asking the person
about himself herself.
• Self-esteem

The value judgement of a person about himself/herself.

➢ Assessment presents a variety of statements to a person and asks him/her to indicate
the extent to which those statements are true for him or her.
➢ By 6 to 7 years, children have formed self-esteem in four areas—academic, social
and physical/athletic competence, and physical appearance become more refined
with age.

➢ Overall self-esteem: It is the capacity to view oneself in terms of stable disposition

and combine separate self-evaluations into a general psychological image ofoneself.
➢ Self-esteem has a strong relationship with our everyday behaviour. Children with low
self- esteem in all areas often display anxiety, depression, and increasing anti-social
behaviour.
➢ Warm and positive parenting helps in development of high self-esteem among
children- allows them to know they are accepted as competent and worthwhile.

• Self-efficacy
The extent to which a person believes they themselves control their life outcomes or
the outcomes are controlled by luck or fate or other situational factors.

➢ A person who believes that he/she has the ability or behaviour required by a
particular situation demonstrates high self-efficacy.
➢ The notion of self-efficacy is based on Bandura’s social learning theory. Heshowed
that children and adults learned behaviour by observing and imitating others.
➢ People’s expectations of achievement also determine the type of behaviour in
which they would engage, as also the amount of risk they would undertake.
➢ Strong sense of self-efficacy allows people to select, influence, and even
construct the circumstances of their own life; also feel less fearful.
➢ Society, parents and own positive experiences can help in the development of a
strong sense of self-efficacy by presenting positive models during the formative
years ofchildren.
• Self-regulation
Refers to the ability to organize and monitor one’s own behaviour.

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 People who are able to change their behaviour according the demands of the environment
are high on self-monitoring.

➢ Self-control is learning to delay or refer the gratification of needs.

➢ Will-power is the ability to respond to situational pressure with resistance and
control over ourselves.
➢ Self-control plays a key role in the fulfilment of a long-term goal.
➢ Indian culture tradition provides certain effective mechanisms (fasting in vrata or
roza and non-attachment with worldly things) for developing self-control.

• Techniques of self-control

1. Observation of own behaviour provides necessary information that may be used to

change, modify or strengthen certain aspects of self.
2. Self-instruction: instructs ourselves to do something and behave the way we want to.
3. Self-reinforcement: rewards behaviours that have pleasant outcomes.
CULTURE AND SELF:

• Indian

Shifting nature of boundary between self and other (individual self and
social self). Does not clear dichotomies.
Collectivistic culture: Self is generally not separated from one’s own group;
rather both remain in a state of harmonious co-existence.

• Western

Boundary is relatively fixed.

Holds clear dichotomies between self and other, man and nature, subjective and
objective.

Individualistic Culture: Self and the group exist as two different entities with clearly
defined boundaries; individual members of the group maintain their individuality.

CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY
Personality is derived from persona (Latin), the mask used by actors in Roman theatre for
changing their facial make-up.

Personality refers to unique and relatively stable qualities that characterized an individual’s
behaviour across different situation over a period of time.

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 Once we are able to characterize someone’s personality, we can predict how that person
will probably behave in a variety of circumstances.

Certain catchwords, e.g.: Shy, sensitive, quiet, concerned are used to describe one’s
personality

An understanding of personality allows us to deal with people in realistic and acceptable

ways.

Consistency in behaviour, thoughts, and emotions characterize personality of an individual.

For e.g.: An honest person is likely to remain honest irrespective of time and situation.

However situational variations in behaviour do occur as they help individuals in adapting to

their environmental demands.

Features of Personality:

1. Personality 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; adaptive to situations.

Major Approaches to the study of Personality

A.TYPE APPROACHES

1. Hippocrates (Greek Physician) (i) proposed a typology of personality based on fluid or

humour. (ii) Classified people into four types (i.e., sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic and
choleric); characterized by specific behavioural features.

2. Charak Samhita (Treatise on Ayurveda) (i) Classifies people into the categories of vata,
pitta and kapha on the basis of three humoral elements called tridosha. (ii) Each refers to a
type of temperament, called prakriti (basic nature) of a person.

3. Typology of personality based on the trigunas, i.e., sattva, rajas, and tamas

1. Sattva guna—cleanliness, truthfulness, dutifulness, detachment, discipline.

2. Rajas guna—intensive activity, desire for sense gratification, dissatisfaction, envy,
materialism.

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 3. Tamas guna—anger, arrogance, depression, laziness, helplessness All the three gunas
are present in every person in different degrees—the dominance of. Any guna leads to
a particular type of behaviour.
4. Sheldon Using body built and temperament as the main basis for classification:

• Endomorphic (fat, soft and round)—relaxed and sociable.

• Mesomorphic (strong musculature, rectangular, strong body build)—energetic and

courageous.

• Ectomorphic (thin, long, fragile)—brainy, artistic and introverted. — Limited use

in predicting behaviour—simple and similar to stereotypes.

5. Jung Grouped people into two types, widely recognized.

• Introverts: People who prefer to be alone, tend to avoid others, withdraw

themselves in the face of emotional conflicts, and are shy.
• Extraverts: 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.

6. Friedman and Roesenman Tried to identify psycho-social risk factors and discovered
types.
• Type-A (susceptible to hypertension and coronary heart disease): Highly motivated,
impatience, 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,
• Type-B The absence of Type-A traits.

Moris continued this research and identified

• Type-C (prone to cancer): Co-operative, unassertive patient, suppress negative
emotion, show compliance to authority.

• Type-D (prone to depression). Personality typologies are usually too simplistic as

human behaviour is highly complex and variable. Assigning people to a particular
personality type is difficult. People do not fit into such simple categorization schemes
so neatly.

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TRAIT APPROACHES

A trait is considered as a relatively enduring attribute or quality on which one individual

differ another. They are:
• Relatively Stable over Time
• Generally consistent across situations.
• Their strengths and combination vary across individuals leading to individual
differences in personality.
• Traits are considered to be the building blocks of personality.

1. Allport’s Trait Theory (Gordon Allport)

• Individuals possess a number of traits—dynamic in nature and determine behaviour
• Analysed words people use to describe themselves—provided a basic for
understanding human personality—and categorized them into—
1. Cardinal Traits: highly generalized disposition, indicates the goal around.
Which a person’s entire life revolves, e.g., Hitler’s Nazism.
2. Central Traits: less pervasive in effect, but still quite generalized disposition.
e.g., sincere. These are often used while writing a journal or a testimonial.
3. Secondary traits least generalized characteristics of a person, e.g., likes
mangoes.
• The way an individual reacts to a situation depends on his/her traits.
• People sharing the same traits might express them in different ways.

2. Personality Factors (Raymond Cattell)

• Identified primary traits from descriptive adjectives found in language.

• Applied factor analysis, a statistical technique to discover the common structure on
which people differ from each other. ( Source or Primary Traits ie.16)
• stable, building blocks of personality— described in terms of opposing tendencies.
(Surface Traits)
• result out of the interaction of source traits.
• Developed Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF) Questionnaires for the assessment of
personality.

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3. Eysenck’s Theory (H.J. Eysenck)

• Reduced personality into, two broad dimensions which are biologically and
genetically based and subsume a number of specific traits.
1. Neuroticism (anxious, moody, touchy, restless) us. Emotional stability (calm,
even tempered, reliable)—the degree to which people have control over their
feelings.
2. Extraversion (active, gregarious, impulsive, thrill seeking) vs. Introversion
(passive, quiet, caution, reserved)—the degree to which people are socially
outgoing or socially withdrawn.
• Later proposed a third dimension
3. Psychoticism (hostile, electric, and antisocial) vs. Sociability, considered
interacting with the other two dimensions.
• Developed Eysenck Personality Questionnaires to study dimensions of personality.

4. Five factor model of Personality

• Useful in understanding the personality profile of people across cultures

• Consistent with the analysis of personality traits found in different languages and
methods

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Psycho-dynamic Approach (Sigmund Freud)

• Most popular approach to the study of personality

• Used hypnosis to treat people with physical and emotional problems
• Used free association, dream analysis and analysis of errors to understand the internal
functioning of the mind

A Levels of Consciousness

1. Conscious—thoughts, feelings and action of which people are aware.

2. Preconscious-—mental activity which people may become aware only if they attend

to it closely.

3. Unconscious—mental activity that people are aware of.

(i) A reservoir of instinctive or animal drives—stores all ideas and .wishes that arise
from sexual desires.

(ii) Cannot be expressed openly and therefore are repressed or concealed from
conscious awareness.

(iii) Constant struggle to find a socially acceptable way to express unconscious

awareness.

(iv) Unsuccessful resolution of conflicts results in abnormal behaviour

Approaches to the Unconscious

1. Free Association—a method in which a person is asked to openly share all the
thoughts, feelings and ideas that come to his/her mind.
2. Dream Analysis.
3. Analysis of Errors—mispronunciations, forgetting.

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Psycho-analysis is a therapeutic procedure, the basic goal which is to bring repressed
unconscious material to consciousness, thereby helping people to live in a more self-aware
and integrated manner.

B. Structure of Personality
• Freud gave an imaginary division of mind it believed in internal dynamics which can
be inferred from the ways people behave.
• Three competing forces—i.e. id, ego and superego influence behaviour relative
strength of each structure determines a person’s stability.

(i) Id:
• Source of a person’s instinctual energy—deals with immediate gratification of
primitive needs, sexual desires and aggressive impulses.
• Works on the pleasure principle, which assumes that people seek pleasure and try to
avoid pain.
• Demanding, unrealistic and does not care for moral values, society, or other
individuals.
• Energized by instinctual forces, life (sexual) instinct (libido) and death instinct.
• Examples to be added from the text .

(ii) Ego:
• Seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual needs in accordance with reality.
• Works on the reality principle, and directs the id towards more appropriate ways of
behaving.
• Patient and reasonable.
• Examples to be added from the text.

(iii) Superego:
• Moral branch of mental functioning.
• Tells the id and ego whether gratification in a particular instance is ethical
• Controls the id by internalizing the parental authority the process of socialization.

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 ➢ According to Freud personality is Biological determined. It is instinctive. Life instinct
and death instinct determine behavior.
➢ Life instinct is dominant in human behavior.
➢ Examples to be added

C. Ego Defence Mechanisms

1. A defence mechanism is a way of reducing anxiety by distorting reality unconsciously.

2. It defends the ego against the awareness of the instinctual reality.

3. It is normal and adaptive; people who use mechanism are often unaware of doing so.

(i) Repression: Anxiety provoking behaviors or thoughts are totally dismissed by the
unconscious.
(ii) Projection: People attributes their own traits to others.
(iii) Denial: A person totally refuses to accept reality.
(iv) Reaction Formation: A person defends against anxiety by adopting behaviours
opposite to his/her true feelings.
(v) Rationalization: A person tries to make unreasonable feelings or behavior seem
reasonable and acceptable.
Note: Examples to be added for all

D. Stages of Personality/Psychosexual Development (Five Stage Theory of Personality)-

• The core aspects of personality are established early, remain stable throughout
life, and can be changed only with great difficulty.
• Problems encountered at any stage may arrest development, and have long-term
effect on a person’s life.

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3. Oedipus Complex (Male)
Love for mother, hostility towards the father, and fear of punishment or castration by
the father.
Accepts his father’s relationship with his mother and models his own behaviour after his
father.
4. Electra Complex (Female)
Attaches her love to the father and tries to symbolically marry him and raise a family.
Identifies with her mother and copies her behaviour as a means of getting (or sharing in)
her father’s affection.
Resolution of Complex

➢ Identification with same sex parent.

➢ Giving up sexual feeling for opposite sex parent.

• Failure of a child to pass successfully through a stage leads to fixation to that

stage. The child’s development gets arrested at an earlier stage.
• Regression occurs when a person’s resolution of problems at any stage of

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 development is less than adequate.
• People display behaviour typical of a less mature stage of development.

Post-Freudian Approach Neo-analytic or Post-Freudian View

• Less prominent role to sexual and aggressive tendencies of the Id.

• Expansion of the concept ego.
• Emphasis on human qualities of creativity, competence, and problem-solving.

A. Carl Jung: Aims and Aspirations are the source of energy

• Saw human being as guided by aims and aspirations.

• Analytical Psychology; personality consists of competing forces and structures
within the individual (that must be balanced) rather than between the individual and
the demand of society, or between the individual and reality.
• Collective unconscious consisting of archetypes or primordial images; not
individually acquired, but are inherited—found in myths, dreams and arts of all
mankind.
• The self-strive for unity and oneness; for achieving which, a person must become
increasingly aware of the wisdom available in one’s personal and collective
unconscious, and must learn to live harmony with it.

B. Karen Horney: Optimism

• Optimistic view of human life with emphasis on human growth and self-
actualization
• Challenge to Freud’s treatment of women as inferior—each sex has attributes to
be admire by the other, and neither sex can be viewed as superior or inferior
• countered that women were more likely to be affected by social and cultural
factors than by biological factors.
• Psychological disorders were caused by disturbed interpersonal relationship during
childhood.

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 • When parent’s behavior toward a child is indifferent, discouraging and erratic, the
child feels insecure and a feeling called basic anxiety results—deep resentment
toward parents or basic hostility occur due to this anxiety.

C. Alfred Adler: Lifestyle and Social Interest source of energy-attainment of personal

goals.

• Individual Psychology: human behavior is purposeful and goal directed.

• Each one of us has the capacity to choose and create.
• Personal goals, goals that provide us with security and help us in overcoming the
feelings of inadequacy, are the sources of our motivation.
• Every individual suffers from the feeling of inadequacy and guilt, i.e., inferiority
complex, which arise from childhood.

D. Erich Fromm: The Human Concerns

• Social orientation viewed human beings as social beings who could be understood in
terms of their relationship with others.
• Character traits (personality) develop from our experiences with their individuals.
• Psychological qualities such as growth from our experiences of potentials resulted
from A desire for freedom. And striving for justice and truth.
• People’s dominant character traits in a given work as forces in shaping the social
processes and the culture itself

E. Erik Erikson: Search for Identity

• Rational, conscious ego processes in personality development.

• Development is viewed as a lifelong process, and ego identity is granted a central
place in this process.
• Identity crisis at the adolescent age—young people must generate for themselves a
central perspective and a direction that can give them a meaningful sense of unity and
purpose.

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Criticism to Psychodynamic Theories ( IMP)

1. The theories are largely based on case studies; they lack a rigorous scientificbasis.
2. They use small and a typical individual as samples for advancing generalizations.
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 and
overlooked female experiences and perspectives.

Behavioral Approach

• Does not give importance to the internal dynamics of behavior

• Behavioristic believes in data which is observable and verifiable.
• According to them, personality can be understood as a response to individual and the
environment
• The structural unit of personality is response.
• Each response is emitted to satisfy a need. For example: Children who do not eat
vegetables learn to eat them gradually in anticipation of appreciation (reinforcement)
• Later on they develop the taste of vegetables. This is an example of learning by
conditioning.
• Similarly, children imitate the habits of their parents and teachers merely just by
observing them. This form of learning is called observational learning.
• Also the core tendency that organizes the behavior is reduction of biological or social
needs that energizes the behavior. This is accomplished by responses that are
reinforced.
• The learning of responses is based on the theories of classical ( Pavlov), operant (
skinner and bandura ( observational learning)
• Observational learning theory emphasis on social learning based on imitation (
observation of others)

Cultural Approach

• Considers personality as an adaptation of individuals or group to the demand of their

ecology and culture.

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 • A group’s economic maintenance system plays a vital role in the origin of cultural
and behavioural variations.
• The climatic conditions, the nature of terrain of the habitat and the availability of
food determine people’s settlement patterns, social structures, division of labour, and
other features such as child-rearing practices. Economic maintenance system plays a
vital role in shaping of an individual’s behaviour
• These elements constitute a child’s overall learning environment—skills, abilities,
behavioural styles, and value priorities are viewed as strongly linked to these features.
• Rituals, ceremonies, religious practices, arts gets projected in people’s culture and
they are the means through which the personality gets projected through one’s culture
• Give the example of Bihor tribe and agricultural societies as given in the book

Humanistic Approach

The humanistic theories were pioneered by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.
1. Fully functioning individual—fulfilment is the motivating force for personality
development (people try to express their capabilities, potentials and talents to the
fullest extent possible).
2. Assumptions about human behaviour
• It is goal-oriented and worthwhile.
• People (who are innately good) will almost always choose adaptive, self-
actualizing behaviour.
• People are constantly engaged in the process of actualizing their true self.
• Ideal self is the self that a person would like to be—correspondence between
ideal and real self = happiness, discrepancy = dissatisfaction.
• People have tendency to maximize self-concept through self-actualization.
• Personality development is a continuous process.
• Role of social influences in the development of self-concept—positive social
conditions lead to a high self-concept and self-esteem, generally flexible and
open to new experiences.
• An atmosphere of unconditional positive regard must be created in order to
ensure enhancement of people’s self-concept.

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 • Client-centred therapy that Rogers developed basically attempts to create this
condition.

3. Abraham Maslow
• Attainment of self-actualization, a state in which people have reached their
own fullest potential.
• Optimistic and positive view of man who has the potentialities for love, joy
and to do creative work.
• Human beings are considered free to shape their lives and to self-
actualization.
• Self-actualization becomes possible by analysing the motivations that govern
our life.
• Characteristics of Healthy Person
(i) Healthy become aware of themselves, their feelings, and their limits; accept
themselves, and what they make of their own responsibility; have ‘the
courage to be’.
(ii) They experience the ‘here-and-now’; are not trapped.
(iii) They do not live in the past or dwell in the future through anxious
expectation and distorted defenses.

Note : Maslow hierarchy of needs to be added from class xi in case of a 6 marker.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to be explained.
Fig 2.3 to be drawn-Pattern of adjustment and self concept

Assessment of personality

• A formal effort aimed at understanding personality of an individual is termed as

personality assessment.
• Assessment refers to the procedures used to evaluate or differentiate people on the
basis of certain characteristics.
• The goal of assessment is to understand and predict behaviour with minimum
error and maximum accuracy.
• Besides promoting our understanding, assessment is also useful for diagnosis,
training, placement, counselling, and other purposes

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 A. Self-Report Measures:

➢ It was Allport who suggested that the best method to assess a person is by
asking her/him about herself himself.
➢ Fairly structured measures, based on theory that require subjects to give verbal
responses using some kind of rating scale.

➢ The method requires the subject to objectively report her/his own feeling
with respect to various items. Responses are accepted at face value,
scored in quantative terms and interpreted on basis of norms for the test.
➢ eg. MMPI, EPQ, 16PF

a) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

• Developed by HATHAWAY and McKINLEY

• Effective in identifying varieties of psychopathology

• Revised version is MMPI-2

• Consists of 567 statements. The subject has to judge each statement as ‘true’ or
‘false’.

• The test is divided into 10 sub scales which seek to diagnose hypochondriasis,
depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviant, masculinity-feminity, paranoia,
psychasthenia, schizophrenia, mania and social introversion.
• In India, Mallick and Joshi have developed Jodhpur Muitiphasic Personality
Inventory. (JMPI)

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 b) Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

• Developed by Eysenck

• Initially assessed 2 dimensions of personality: hitroversion-Extraversion and

emotionally stable-emotionally unstable. Emotional stability instability.
• These dimensions are characterised by 32 personality traits.

• Later on, Eysenck added a third dimension, called psychoticism. It is

linked to psychopathology-sociability.
• It represents a lack of feeling for others, a tough manner of interacting with people,
and a tendency to defy social conventions. A person scoring high on this
dimension tends to be hostile, egocentric and antisocial.
c) 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.
• The test can be used with high school level students as well as with adults. It has
been found extremely useful in career guidance, vocational exploration, and
occupational testing. Apart from the few popular tests which use self-report
technique which have been described above, there are several others that try to
assess specific dimensions of personality (e.g., authoritarianism, locus of control,
optimism, etc.).
Drawbacks
• Social desirability is one of them. It is a tendency on the part of the respondent to
endorse items in a socially desirable manner.
• Acquiescence is another one. 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. These tendencies render the assessment of personality less reliable.
• Remember that psychological testing and understanding personality requires great
skill and training.
• Unless you have acquired these to an optimum level under careful supervision of
an expert, you should not venture into testing and interpreting the personality of
your friends who do not study psychology.

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B. Projective Techniques:

• 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. These
projections are interpreted by experts.
• Projective techniques are different from the psychometric tests in
many ways. They cannot be scored in any objective manner. They
generally require qualitative analyses for which a rigorous training is
needed. Some of the well known projective techniques are:
a) The Rorschach Inkblot Test
• Herman Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist, was the first to
suggest (1911) the use of inkblot responses as a diagnostic
instrument
• In 1921 he published his book on the test, Psychodiagnostik
(and soon thereafter died, age 38)
• The stimuli were generated by dropping ink onto a card and
folding it
• They are not, however, random: the ten cards in the current test
were hand-selected out of thousands that Rorschach generated
• Ten blots – 5 black/white, 2 red/gray (II & III) and 3 color
(VIII – X)
• Thought to tap into the deep layers of personality and bring out
what is not conscious to the test taker
• Example of the inkblot

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b) The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• Construct a story about what you see on the following picture
• Describe:
(i) what led up to the scene
(ii) what is happening
(iii) what the characters in the story might think or feel
(iv)how the story will end
30 grayscale pictures + one blank for elicitation of stories – each
contain a dramatic event or critical situation

• Most subjects see 10-12 cards, over two sessions

• Based on Murray's (1938) theory of 28 social needs (sex,
affiliation, dominance, achievement, attitudes etc.)
• People would project into their story their needs
• Attention is paid to the protagonist in each story and his/her
environmental stressors
• Many variations on this 'story-telling' test exist
c) Rosenzweig’s Picture-Frustration Study (P-F Study)
• Shown a picture of a frustrating scene
• 3 forms: child, adolescent, adult (24 cartoons each)
• Checks:
(i) direction of aggression
(ii) type of aggression
(iii)need-persistance
d) Sentence Completion Test
• Makes use of number of incomplete sentences
• Starting part of the sentence is presented and the subject has to
provide has to provide an ending
• The ending reflects their attitudes, motivation and conflicts
• Example. My father .
e) Draw-a-Person Test
• Analyzes the subject’s drawings for signs of mental imbalance.
• Drawing assessed for self-esteem, body image and
interpersonal relationships.

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C. Behavioural Analysis:
• A person’s behaviour in a variety of situations can provide us with
meaningful information about her/his personality.
• Observation of behaviour serves as the basis of behavioural analysis.
• An observer’s report may contain data obtained from interview,
observation, ratings, nomination, and situational tests.
a) Interview: is a commonly used method for assessing personality. This
involves talking to the person being assessed and asking specific
questions. Diagnostic interviewing generally involves in-depth
interviewing which seeks to go beyond the replies given by the person.
Interviews may be structured or unstructured depending on the
purpose or goals of assessment.
(i) In unstructured interviews, the interviewer seeks to develop an
impression about a person by asking a number of questions.
(ii) The structured interviews address very specific questions and follow
a set procedure.
b) Observation: use of observation for personality assessment is a
sophisticated procedure that cannot be carried out by untrained people.
It requires careful training of the observer, and a fairly detailed
guideline about analysis of behaviours in order to assess the
personality of a given person.
i) In spite of their frequent and widespread use, observation and
interview methods are characterised by the following limitations:
• Professional training required for collection of useful data
through these methods is quite demanding and time
consuming.
• Maturity of the psychologist is a precondition for obtaining
valid data through these techniques.
• Mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results. As
a stranger, the observer may influence the behaviour of the
person being observed and thus not obtain good data.
c) Behavioural ratings are generally taken from people who know the
assessee intimately and have interacted with her/him over a period of
time or have had a chance to observe her/him. They attempt to put

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 individuals into certain categories in terms of their behavioural
qualities.
• The method of rating suffers from the following major limitations:
i. Raters often display certain biases that colour their judgments
of different traits. For example, most of us are greatly
influenced by a single favourable or unfavourable trait. This
often forms the basis of a rater’s overall judgment of a person.
This tendency is known as the halo effect.
ii. Raters have a tendency to place individuals either in the middle
of the scale (called middle category bias) by avoiding extreme
positions, or in the extreme positions (called extreme response
bias) by avoiding middle categories on the scale.
iii. These tendencies can be overcome by providing raters with
appropriate training or by developing such scales in which the
response bias is likely to be small.
d) 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. Nominations thus received may be
analysed to understand the personality and behavioural
qualities of the person.
• This technique has been found to be highly dependable,
although it may also be affected by personal biases.
e) 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 us with information about how a person

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 behaves under stressful situations.
• The test requires a person to perform a given task with
other persons who are instructed to be non-cooperative and
interfering.
• The test involves a kind of role playing. The person is
instructed to play a role for which s/he is observed.
• A verbal report is also obtained on what s/he was asked to
do.
• The situation may be realistic one, or it may be created
through a video play.

IMPORTANT: The notes are basic guidelines of the chapter and the
guidelines for framing the answers. Please note the answers are to be detailed
as given in the NCERT. Kindly do not only depend on the notes for the
course and the subject content. You need to be well versed with the NCERT
as well.

➢ Click on the following links for further explanations of the topics

discussed above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxYZ-xwcPec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHyu8GxpO_g

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LET’S REVISE SOME IMPORTANT POINTS:

1. Alienation: The feeling of not being part of society or a group.

2. Anal stage: The second of Freud’s psycho-sexual stages, which occurs during the
child’s second year. Pleasure is focused on the anus and on retention and expulsion of
faces.
3. Antisocial Personality: A behavioral disorder characteristics by truancy,
delinquency, promiscuity, theft, vandalism, fighting, violation of common social
rules, poor work record, impulsiveness, irrationality, aggressiveness, reckless
behaviour, and inability to plan ahead. The particular pattern of behaviour varies from
individual to individual.
4. Archetypes: Jung’s term for the contents of the collective unconscious; images or
symbols expressing the inherited patterns for the organization of experience. ”
5. Cardinal Trait: According to All port, a single trait that dominates an individual’s
entire personality.
6. Central Traits: The major trait considered in forming an impression of others.
7. Client centred therapy: The theraphentic approach developed by Carl Rogers in
which therapist helps clients to clarify their true feelings and come to value who they
are.
8. Collective Unconscious: Inherited portion of the unconscious, as postulated by Carl
Jung. The unconscious shared by all human beings.
9. Defence Mechanisms: According to Freud, ways in which the ego unconsciously
tries to cope with unacceptable id impulses, as in repression, projection, reaction
formation, sublimation, rationalisation, etc.
10. Ego: The part of the personality that provides a buffer between the id and the outside.
11. Extraversion: One of the dimensions of personality in which interests are directed
outward to nature and other people rather than inwards to the thoughts and feelings of
self (introvert).
12. Humanistic Approach: The theory that people are basically good and tend to grow to
higher levels of functioning.
13. Id: According to Freud, the impulsive and unconscious part of the psyche that
operates through the pleasure principle toward the gratification of instinctual drives.
The Id is conceived as the true unconscious, or the deepest part of the psyche.
14. Ideal Self: The kind of person we would like to be. Also called ego-ideal/idealized

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 self-image.
15. Identity: The distinguishing character of the individual—who each of us is, what our
roles are, and what we are capable of.
16. Inferiority Complex: According to Adler, a complex developed by adults who have
not been able to overcome the feelings of inferiority they developed as children, when
they were small and limited in their knowledge about the world.
17. Interview: Verbal interaction between a respondent and a researcher to gather
information about the respondent.
18. Introversion: One of the dimensions of personality in which interests are directed
inwards rather than outwards (extrovert).
19. Latency Period: In Freud’s theory of psycho-sexual stages, the period between the
phallic stage and the mature genital stage (period from age 4 to 5 to about 12) during
which interest in sex is sublimated.
20. Libido: Freud introduced this term. In Freud’s treatment, libido was quite simply a
direct or indirect sexual expression.
21. Meta needs: In the hierarchy of needs, those at the top, such as self-actualisation, self-
esteem, aesthetic needs, and the like, which can only be satisfied when lower order
needs are satisfied.
22. Observational Method: A method in which researcher observes phenomenon that
occurs naturally without being able to manipulate.
23. Oedipus Complex: The Freudian concept in which the young child develops an
intense desire to replace the parent of the same sex and enjoy that affection of the
opposite sex parent.
24. Personal Identity: Awareness of oneself as a separate, distinct being.
25. Phallic Stage: Third of Freud’s psycho-sexual stages (at about age five) when
pleasure is focused on the genitals and both males and females experience the
‘Oedipus complex’.
26. Projection: A defence mechanism; the process of unwittingly attributing one’s own
traits, attitudes, or subjective processes to others.
27. Projective Techniques: The utilization of vague, ambiguous, unstructured stimulus
objects or situation in order to elicit the individual’s characteristic modes of
perceiving his/ her world or of behaving in it.
28. Psycho-dynamic Approach: Approach that strives for explanation in terms of
motives, or drives.

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29. Psycho-dynamic Therapy: First suggested by Freud; therapy based on the premise
that the primary sources of abnormal behaviour are resolved past conflicts and the
possibility that unacceptable unconscious impulses will enter consciousness.
30. Rationalisation: A defence mechanism that occurs when one attempts to explain
failure or shortcoming by attributing them to more acceptable causes.
31. Reaction Formation: A defence mechanism in which a person denies a disapproved
motive through giving strong expression to its opposite.
32. Regression: A defence mechanism that involves a return to behaviours characterized
of an earlier stage in life. The term is also used in statistics, in which with the help of
correlation prediction is made.
33. Repression: A defence mechanism by which people push unacceptable, anxiety
provoking thoughts and impulses into the unconscious to avoid confronting them
directly. In short it is unconscious forgetting.
34. Self-actualization: A state of self-fulfillment in which people realise their highest
potential in their own unique way.
35. Self-efficacy: Bandura’s term for the individual’s beliefs about his or her own
effectiveness; the exception that one can master a situation and produce positive
outcomes.
36. Self-esteem: The individual’s personal judgment of his or her own worth; one’s
attitude toward oneself along a positive-negative dimension.
37. Self-regulation: It refers to our ability to organise and monitor our own behaviour.
38. Social Identity: A person’s definition of who he or she is; includes personal attributes
(self-concept) along with membership in various groups.
39. Super Ego: According to Freud, superego is the final personality structure to develop;
it represents society’s standards of right and wrong as handed down by person’s
parents, teachers, and other important figures.
40. Surface Traits: R.B. Cattell’s term for clusters of observable trait elements
(response) that seems to go together. Factor analysis of the correlations reveals source
traits.
41. Trait: A relatively persistent and consistent behaviour pattern manifested in a wide
range of circumstances.
42. Trait Approach: An approach to personality that seeks to identify the basic traits
necessary to describe personality.
43. Type Approach: Explanation of personality based on broad categories which are

26
 mostly determined by body constitution and temperament.
44. Typology: Ways of categorizing individuals into discrete categories or types e.g.,
45. Unconscious: In psychoanalytic theory, characterizing any activity or mental
structure which a person is not aware of.
46. Values: Enduring beliefs about ideal modes of behavior or end-state of existence;
attitudes that have a strong evaluative and ‘ought’ aspect.
47. Difference between Trait and Type Approach:

Trait Approaches Type Approaches

(a) Specific psychological attributes along (a) Tries to comprehend human personality
which individual kind to differ in a examining certain broad patterns in the
consistent and stable ways. observed behaviour.

(b) The theories were formed based on (b) Efforts to categorise people into
factor analysis. personality type have been made since
ancient times.

(c) It focuses on dominant traits. (c) Was based on work done with clients.

(d) This is very similar to our common (d) Focused on broad set of characteristics.
experience in everyday life.

(e) Theories: Allport, Cattell, Eysenck (e) Theories: Jung, Friedman

48. Name and Concept

S. No Concept Name

1. Type theory William Sheldon

2. Analytical theory Carl Jung
3. ABCD Personality type theory Friedman and Roseman
4. Trait theory Gordan Allport
5. 16 Personality factors Raymond Cattell
6. 3 factor theory Eysenck
7. 5 factor model of Personality Mcgae and Costa; Zukerman
8. Feminine Psychology Karen Horney
9. Individual Psychology Alfred Adler
10. Social Psychology Eric Fromm
11. Psychological stages of Eric Fromm
development
12. MMPI Hatchway and McKinley
13. EPQ Eysenck
14. Thematic apperception test Murray
15. Rorchach inkblot test Rorschach
16. Picture frustration test Rosenzweig
17. Draw a man test Goodman

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 18. Sentence completion test Rotter
19. Point scales Linkert
20. Self-esteem Rose Berg
21. Self-efficacy Bandura
22. Psychoanalytical theory Sigma Freud
23. Humanistic theory/person centred Carl Rogers
theory
24. Hierarchy of needs theory Abrahim Maslow
25. Self-report measures Gordan Allport
26. 16 PF Raymond Cattell

Diagrams to Remember

Western Perspective Indian Perspective

Individual
Individual Group
Group

a. Self and group boundaries

Congruence Incongruence

Self-concept Experience Self-concept Experience

b. Pattern of adjustment and self-concept

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 Type Approach

Hippocrates
(Sanguine,
phlegmatic
choleric and
melancholic)

Trigunas (Sattva,
Friedman and rajas, tamas) and
Rosenman tridosha (vatta,
(Type A, B, C, D) pita and kapha)

Sheldon’s body type

(endomorph, ectomorph Jung’s introversion and
and mesomorph) extraversion

Assessment of Personality

• Cattel 16 PF
SELF • MMPI
REPORTS • EPQ

• Thematic Apperception Test

(TAT)
PROJECTIVE • Rorschach inkblot test
TECHNIQUES • Rosenzweig picture Frustration
Test
• Draw a person test
• Sentence completion test

• Interview
• Observation
BEHAVIOUR • Nomination
ANALYSIS • Situation tests
• Behavioural ratings

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 Trait approach

• Cardinal traits • Source traits

• Central traits • Surface traits
• Secondary traits

Allport’s trait Cattell’s

theory Personality
factors

Eysenck’s theory Costa and

McCrae’s five
• Neurotism vs factor model of
emotional stability Personality
• Extraversion vs • Openness to experience
introversion • Extraversion
• Psychotism vs • Agreeableness
sociability • Neurotism
• Conscientiousness

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