Full model answers to all 12 Review Questions printed at the end of NCERT’s Psychology textbook, Chapter 1: “Variations in Psychological Attributes” (Reprint 2026-27). This book uses Review Questions instead of a formal “Exercises” section; the Hindi edition carries the same 12 questions in the same order. The three in-text activities (1.1, 1.2, 1.3) and the two Project Ideas are solved at the end.
Q. How do psychologists characterise and define intelligence?
Answer: Psychologists have defined intelligence in several ways. The Oxford Dictionary describes it as the power of perceiving, learning, understanding and knowing. Alfred Binet, one of the first psychologists to work on intelligence, defined it as the ability to judge well, understand well, and reason well. Wechsler, whose intelligence tests are the most widely used, defined intelligence functionally: as the global and aggregate capacity of an individual to think rationally, act purposefully, and deal effectively with their environment. Gardner and Sternberg went further, suggesting that an intelligent individual not only adapts to the environment but also actively modifies or shapes it. Overall, intelligence is characterised as the global capacity to understand the world, think rationally, and use available resources effectively when facing challenges.
Q. To what extent is our intelligence the result of heredity (nature) and environment (nurture)? Discuss.
Answer: There is general consensus among psychologists that intelligence is a product of the complex interaction of heredity and environment. Evidence for heredity comes from twin and adoption studies: identical twins reared together correlate almost 0.90 in intelligence; identical twins reared in different environments correlate 0.72; fraternal twins reared together correlate about 0.60; siblings reared together about 0.50; and siblings reared apart about 0.25: correlations rise with genetic closeness even across different environments. Adopted children’s intelligence resembles their biological parents more than their adoptive parents. Evidence for environment comes from the same adoption studies: as children grow, their IQ moves closer to their adoptive parents, and children from disadvantaged homes adopted into higher socio-economic families show large gains in IQ scores; environmental deprivation lowers intelligence while rich nutrition, good family background and quality schooling raise it. Heredity can best be viewed as setting a range within which environment then shapes actual development, through the support and opportunities available.
Q. Explain briefly the multiple intelligences identified by Gardner.
Answer: Howard Gardner proposed that intelligence is not a single entity but consists of eight distinct, independent intelligences that interact and work together to solve problems: (1) Linguistic: using language fluently, seen in poets and writers; (2) Logical-Mathematical: logical and critical thinking, seen in scientists and Nobel laureates; (3) Spatial: forming and using visual images, seen in pilots, sculptors and architects; (4) Musical: producing and manipulating musical patterns; (5) Bodily-Kinaesthetic: using the body flexibly, seen in athletes, dancers and surgeons; (6) Interpersonal: understanding others’ motives and feelings, seen in counsellors and social workers; (7) Intrapersonal: understanding one’s own feelings and desires, seen in philosophers and spiritual leaders; (8) Naturalistic: identifying features of the natural world, seen in farmers and botanists. Being high in one type does not mean being high or low in another.
Q. How does the triarchic theory help us to understand intelligence?
Answer: Robert Sternberg’s (1985) triarchic theory defines intelligence as the ability to adapt, to shape and select environment to accomplish one’s own goals and those of one’s society and culture. It helps us understand intelligence by breaking it into three distinct types working together: Componential (analytical) intelligence, used to analyse information and solve problems, with three sub-parts: knowledge-acquisition, a meta/planning component, and a performance component; Experiential (creative) intelligence, which uses past experience creatively to solve novel problems; and Contextual (practical) intelligence, or “street smartness,” which lets a person adapt to, select, or shape their environment to meet everyday demands.
Q. “Any intellectual activity involves the independent functioning of three neurological systems.” Explain with reference to PASS model.
Answer: The PASS model (Das, Naglieri and Kirby, 1994) holds that intellectual activity comes from the functioning of three neurological “functional units” of the brain, which are individually distinctive even though they work together interactively. The Arousal/Attention unit brings a person to an optimal level of alertness so they can attend to the relevant aspects of a problem: too much or too little arousal impairs attention. The Simultaneous-Successive Processing unit integrates information either as an interrelated whole (simultaneous processing, e.g. Raven’s Progressive Matrices) or serially, one item leading to the next (successive processing, e.g. remembering digits, the alphabet, multiplication tables). The Planning unit becomes active once information is attended to and processed: it lets a person think of possible courses of action, implement a plan, evaluate its effectiveness, and modify it if needed. These three units act on a knowledge base built formally or informally, and though they are interactive and dynamic, each retains its own distinctive function. Note on the wording: the question says “independent functioning”, but the chapter’s own text describes the “interdependent functioning” of the three systems. Explain it this way: each unit has its own distinctive function (in that sense it works independently), but the three units are interactive and depend on one another to produce intelligent behaviour.
Q. Are there cultural differences in the conceptualisation of intelligence?
Answer: Yes. Culture provides the context for intellectual development. Vygotsky argued that culture provides a social context in which people live, grow, and understand the world; elementary mental functions are universal, but higher mental functions like problem solving are largely culture-produced. Technologically advanced (Western) societies foster “technological intelligence”: skills of generalisation, abstraction, speed, attention, observation, analysis, performance and achievement orientation, which is exactly what Western-developed intelligence tests measure. Many Asian and African societies do not value technological intelligence the same way; alongside cognitive competence, they also weight social skills for relating to others, and some non-Western societies value self-reflection and collectivistic orientation over individualistic personal achievement. The Indian tradition holds a holistic view called “integral intelligence”, emphasising connectivity with the social and world environment and giving equal weight to cognitive and non-cognitive processes; the Sanskrit word “buddhi” includes mental effort, feelings and self-knowledge alongside cognitive competence: a scope the book says is far more pervasive than the Western concept of intelligence.
Q. What is IQ? How do psychologists classify people on the basis of their IQ scores?
Answer: IQ (Intelligence Quotient), devised by German psychologist William Stern in 1912, equals Mental Age divided by Chronological Age, multiplied by 100 (IQ = MA/CA × 100); the ×100 removes the decimal point. When MA equals CA, IQ = 100; when MA exceeds CA, IQ exceeds 100; when MA is less than CA, IQ is below 100. IQ scores in a population form a symmetrical, bell-shaped normal curve around a mean of 100. Table 1.1 classifies people into seven bands: Above 130 → Very superior (2.2%); 120-130 → Superior (6.7%); 110-119 → High average (16.1%); 90-109 → Average (50.0%); 80-89 → Low average (16.1%); 70-79 → Borderline (6.7%); Below 70 → Intellectually disabled (2.2%). People with IQ 90-110 are said to have normal intelligence; the two extreme groups (about 2% each) are termed intellectually gifted and intellectually disabled.
Q. How can you differentiate between verbal and performance tests of intelligence?
Answer: Verbal tests require the subject to give verbal responses, orally or in writing, so they can be given only to literate people: e.g. tests using word- or language-based items. Performance tests require the subject to manipulate objects or materials to complete a task; written language is not necessary for answering the items: for example, Kohs’ Block Design Test, where the subject arranges wooden blocks within a time limit to reproduce a given design. A major advantage of performance tests is that they can be easily administered to people from different cultures, since they do not depend on language ability the way verbal tests do. (Non-verbal tests, which use pictures or illustrations as items, are a third category: e.g. Raven’s Progressive Matrices, where the subject completes an incomplete visual pattern.)
Q. All persons do not have the same intellectual capacity. How do individuals vary in their intellectual ability? Explain.
Answer: Individuals vary across the full range of intellectual ability, from intellectual deficiency to intellectual giftedness. At one extreme, the American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) defines intellectual disability as significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning existing with deficits in adaptive behaviour, manifested during the developmental period (0-18 years), with four levels: mild (IQ 55 to ~70, can function quite independently, hold jobs and families), moderate (IQ 35-40 to ~50-55, trainable in self-care), severe (IQ 20-25 to ~35-40) and profound (below IQ 20-25); persons with severe and profound disability are incapable of managing life and need constant care for their entire lives. At the other extreme are the intellectually gifted: the study of gifted individuals began in 1925, when Lewis Terman followed the lives of about 1,500 children with IQ 130 and above to see how intelligence related to occupational success and life adjustment. Psychologists have suggested that, from the teachers’ point of view, giftedness depends on a combination of high ability, high creativity and high commitment; gifted children show it early through a larger attention span, good recognition memory, and early language skills. Between these extremes, most of the population (about 82%, IQ 80-119) falls in the low average-to-high average range on the normal curve of IQ scores (Table 1.1).
Q. Which of the two, IQ or EQ, do you think would be more related to success in life and why?
Answer: The chapter does not rank IQ against EQ, so a good answer explains the reasoning rather than just choosing a side. The book says that “a good IQ and scholastic record is not enough to be successful in life”: many academically talented people struggle in family, workplace and interpersonal relationships, and some psychologists believe the source of their difficulty may be a lack of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EQ), defined by Salovey and Mayer as the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions, discriminate among them, and use that information to guide thought and action, directly addresses these areas of life: managing relationships, motivation and interpersonal harmony. Programmes that improve students’ emotional intelligence raise academic achievement, encourage cooperative behaviour and reduce antisocial activity, which supports EQ as an addition to IQ, not a replacement for it. (A student may instead argue IQ still matters a great deal for entry into many careers: either position is acceptable if it is properly reasoned from the chapter.)
Q. How is ‘aptitude’ different from ‘interest’ and ‘intelligence’? How is aptitude measured?
Answer: Aptitude is an individual’s underlying potential for acquiring specific knowledge or skills after training, in a particular field. It differs from interest, which is merely a preference for engaging in an activity: a person can have interest without aptitude, or aptitude without interest, and in either case performance is not satisfactory; success needs both together (e.g. a student with high mechanical aptitude and strong interest in engineering is more likely to become a successful mechanical engineer). Aptitude differs from intelligence in that intelligence is a global capacity that applies broadly across tasks, while aptitude is a special ability confined to a particular field of activity: two people of similar general intelligence can differ widely in a specific aptitude. Aptitude is measured through Independent (specialised) aptitude tests, such as Clerical, Mechanical, Numerical, or Typing Aptitude tests, and Multiple (generalised) aptitude test batteries such as the Differential Aptitude Tests (DAT, the most common in schools, with 8 subtests: Verbal Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning, Clerical Speed and Accuracy, Mechanical Reasoning, Space Relations, Spelling, and Language Usage), the General Aptitude Tests Battery (GATB), and the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB).
Q. How is creativity related to intelligence?
Answer: The relationship is positive but limited. All creative acts require some minimum ability to acquire knowledge and to comprehend, retain and retrieve information: a creative writer needs facility with language, a scientist needs the ability to reason. But Terman, in the 1920s, found that people with high IQ were not necessarily creative and that creative ideas could come from people without a very high IQ; other researches have shown that not even one of those identified as gifted, followed up throughout their adult life, became well known for creativity in any field; and both high and low creativity are found among highly intelligent and average-intelligence children alike. Creativity tests use divergent thinking (many original ideas, no fixed answer), while intelligence tests mostly use convergent thinking (one correct answer, testing memory, logical reasoning and accuracy), which is why the two abilities are measured so differently. The book’s own conclusion is that a certain level of intelligence is required for creativity, but beyond that minimum, intelligence does not correlate well with creativity.
Q. 1. Who is the most intelligent of your classmates? Think of her/him in your mind’s eye, and write down a few words/phrases describing that person. 2. Think of 3 other persons in your immediate environment, whom you consider intelligent, and write down a few words/phrases describing the attributes of each. 3. Judge the newer additions with reference to what you wrote in item no. 1. 4. Make a list of all the attributes you consider as manifestations of intelligent behaviours. Using these attributes, try to frame a definition. 5. Discuss your report with your classmates and the teacher. 6. Compare it with what the researchers have to say about ‘intelligence’.
Answer: Your own lists will differ, but a good report usually arrives at attributes the chapter itself names for the common-sense view of intelligence: mental alertness, ready wit, quickness in learning and the ability to understand relationships. A definition framed from such a list might read: “Intelligence is the ability to learn quickly, understand relationships and use what one knows to solve problems.” For step 6, compare it with the researchers: Binet (the ability to judge well, understand well and reason well), Wechsler (the global and aggregate capacity to think rationally, act purposefully and deal effectively with the environment) and Gardner and Sternberg (an intelligent person not only adapts to the environment but also actively modifies or shapes it). You will usually find that your list is close to the early definitions, while the later theorists add adapting to and shaping the environment.
Q. You have just been admitted into a school/college. You will take three examinations during the entire year. You sincerely want to receive high marks in the course. How likely are you to engage in each of the following actions? Rank the following courses of action. Match your answer with that of your classmates: attend classes regularly; create study groups with your friends for weekly discussions; take detailed notes in the class; join a tutorial/coaching centre; prepare written notes for each chapter; read the textbook chapters thoroughly; solve the questions of the last three years. Talk to your teacher after the class.
Answer: There is no single correct ranking; the activity is about your own practical sense. Put first the actions most directly in your control and most useful for the goal, for example attending classes regularly, reading the textbook chapters thoroughly and taking detailed notes, then preparing chapter-wise written notes and solving the last three years’ questions, with study groups and coaching as supports. When you compare with classmates, you will see different rankings for the same goal. That difference is the point: this is contextual or practical intelligence in Sternberg’s triarchic theory, the ability to deal with everyday demands (‘street smartness’) by adapting to the situation, selecting a better one, or changing it to fit one’s needs. Compare your ranking with your classmates, as the activity asks. (‘Talk to your teacher after the class’ is itself one of the actions to be ranked.)
Q. 1. Find out the IQ of a 14-year-old child with a mental age of 16. 2. Find out the mental age of a 12-year-old child with an IQ of 90.
Answer: 1. IQ = MA/CA × 100 = 16/14 × 100 = 114.29, that is, an IQ of about 114. By Table 1.1 this falls in the 110-119 band, ‘High average’. 2. MA = IQ × CA / 100 = 90 × 12 / 100 = 10.8 years, that is, a mental age of about 10 years 10 months. An IQ of 90 falls in the 90-109 band, ‘Average’.
Q. Observe and interview 5 persons in your neighbourhood in order to see how they differ from each other in terms of certain psychological attributes. Cover all the five domains. Prepare a psychological profile of each person and compare.
Answer: The five domains are the ones the chapter lists: intelligence, aptitude, interest, personality and values. For each person, use the chapter’s own methods: an interview (one-to-one questions), observation of how the person behaves, and a short self-report (what the person says about herself/himself). Record, under each domain, a few lines: how the person deals with problems (intelligence), what she/he has a special ability for (aptitude), what she/he prefers to do (interest), whether she/he is outgoing or withdrawn, dominant or submissive, and so on (personality), and what she/he believes is the right way to behave (values). Put the five profiles side by side in a table and write what differences you found. Remember that this is informal assessment: it is open to your own subjective interpretation, unlike formal assessment by a trained psychologist using standardised tests.
Q. Select 5 vocations and gather information about the nature of work done by people in these vocations. Also analyse these vocations in terms of the types of psychological attributes required for successful performance. Write a report.
Answer: Pick five vocations, describe the daily work of each, and then link each to the attributes in the chapter. Examples: a surgeon (spatial and bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence, high aptitude, emotional control); a teacher or counsellor (interpersonal intelligence and emotional intelligence); an engineer (mechanical aptitude together with interest in engineering, since the chapter says both aptitude and interest are needed); a writer or journalist (linguistic intelligence and language aptitude); a farmer (naturalistic intelligence and practical intelligence). End the report by noting which attributes appear in most vocations, and that aptitude tests such as the DAT are used in educational settings to predict what a person can do with proper training.