Class 12 Psychology Chapter 2 Self and Personality NCERT Solutions

Q. What is self? How does the Indian notion of self differ from the Western notion?

Answer: Self refers to the totality of an individual’s conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts and feelings about themselves, at both the personal and social level; the book states that self lies at the core of personality. The Indian and Western notions differ mainly in where the boundary between self and other is drawn. In the Western view, this boundary is relatively fixed: self and group exist as two separate entities, and the individual maintains their individuality within the group. That is why many Western cultures are characterised as individualistic. In the Indian view, the boundary is shifting: at one moment the self expands and fuses with the cosmos or with others, and at the next it withdraws to focus fully on individual needs and goals. Self and group remain in a state of harmonious co-existence rather than sharp separation. That is why many Asian cultures, the Indian among them, are characterised as collectivistic.

Q. What is meant by delay of gratification? Why is it considered important for adult development?

Answer: Delay of gratification (self-control) is the learned ability to delay or defer the satisfaction of a need, rather than seeking it immediately. It is important because it plays a key role in the fulfilment of long-term goals (the book’s own reason). Indian cultural tradition offers ready mechanisms for developing this ability, such as fasting in vrata or roza, and practising non-attachment with worldly things. Psychological techniques that support self-control include observation of one’s own behaviour, self-instruction and self-reinforcement.

Q. How do you define personality? What are the main approaches to the study of personality?

Answer: Personality refers to relatively stable and unique qualities that characterise an individual’s behaviour across different situations, over a period of time. It has both physical and psychological components, is fairly unique to each individual, does not easily change with time, and is dynamic (adaptive to internal and external demands). The main approaches to studying personality are: the type approach (broad categories, e.g. Hippocrates, Sheldon, Jung), the trait approach (specific stable attributes, e.g. Allport, Cattell, Eysenck, the Big Five), the psychodynamic approach (Freud’s unconscious conflict among id, ego and superego), the behavioural approach (personality as learned response to the environment), the cultural approach (personality as adaptation to ecology and culture) and the humanistic approach (Rogers’s and Maslow’s focus on self-actualisation).

Q. What is trait approach to personality? How does it differ from type approach?

Answer: The trait approach focuses on specific psychological attributes, called traits, along which individuals differ in consistent and stable ways, e.g. shyness or friendliness. Traits are relatively stable over time, generally consistent across situations, and their strength and combination vary across individuals. The type approach, by contrast, examines broad patterns in observed behaviour and places each individual into one of a small number of categories (types) based on similarity to that pattern, e.g. Hippocrates’ four humours or Sheldon’s body types. In short: type approaches sort people into a few broad categories, while trait approaches describe people along several specific, continuous dimensions.

Q. How does Freud explain the structure of personality?

Answer: According to Freud, personality has three structural elements: id, ego and superego. These are concepts, not physical structures, and reside in the unconscious as forces inferred from behaviour. The id is the source of a person’s instinctual energy; it works on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification of primitive needs and caring nothing for morality, society or other individuals. The ego grows out of the id and works on the reality principle, directing the id towards more realistic and appropriate ways of achieving gratification. The superego is the moral branch of mental functioning; it internalises parental authority through socialisation and tells the id and ego whether a given gratification is ethical. The relative strength of these three forces determines a person’s psychological stability, and, according to Freud, much of human behaviour reflects an attempt to deal with or escape from anxiety; how the ego deals with anxiety largely determines how people behave.

Q. How would Horney’s explanation of depression be different from that of Alfred Adler?

Answer: Karen Horney held that psychological disorders are caused by disturbed interpersonal relationships during childhood: when parental behaviour is indifferent, discouraging or erratic, the child develops basic anxiety and deep resentment or basic hostility towards the parents. Alfred Adler, in contrast, held that every individual suffers from feelings of inadequacy and guilt arising from childhood (the inferiority complex), and that overcoming this complex is essential for optimal personality development. The chapter does not describe either theorist’s account of depression specifically, so the answer is the contrast in where each locates the source of disturbance. So Horney’s explanation centres on the QUALITY of the parent-child relationship, while Adler’s centres on the individual’s own unresolved feelings of inferiority.

Q. What is the main proposition of humanistic approach to personality? What did Maslow mean by self-actualisation?

Answer: The humanistic approach, developed mainly by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow in response to Freud’s theory, proposes that personality develops through the person’s own subjective experience and inborn drive towards fulfilment; people are innately good and, given the right conditions, will choose adaptive, self-actualising behaviour. Rogers held that congruence between a person’s real self and ideal self, supported by unconditional positive regard, allows healthy development. Maslow’s self-actualisation is the state in which a person has reached her/his own fullest potential, having moved beyond survival needs (biological, security, belongingness, which are shared with animals) to pursue self-esteem and self-actualisation needs, the “real journey” of human life.

Q. Discuss the main observational methods used in personality assessment. What problems do we face in using these methods?

Answer: The main observational methods (part of behavioural analysis) are: interview (structured, with fixed questions and procedure, or unstructured, building an open impression), behavioural ratings (people who know the assessee well place them into categories, useful in educational and industrial settings), observation (careful, trained watching of behaviour), nomination (a peer-assessment method where each person names who they would like to work, study or play with) and situational tests (e.g. the situational stress test, a role-play performed under non-cooperative conditions). The problems with these methods include: they require demanding, time-consuming professional training to collect useful data; they require a mature, well-trained psychologist to obtain valid data; and the mere presence of an observer, as a stranger, may contaminate the results by influencing the behaviour of the person being observed. Ratings specifically also suffer from the halo effect, middle-category bias and extreme-response bias.

Q. What is meant by structured personality tests? Which are the two most widely used structured personality tests?

Answer: Structured personality tests are self-report measures, fairly structured and often based on theory, that require the subject to give verbal responses using some kind of rating scale, with responses accepted at face value and scored quantitatively against norms developed for the test. The chapter describes three structured tests as widely used: the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), developed by Hathaway and McKinley (567 true/false statements across 10 subscales), the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), developed by Cattell, and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). Any two answer the question, for example the MMPI and the 16PF.

Q. Explain how projective techniques assess personality. Which projective tests of personality are widely used by psychologists?

Answer: Projective techniques are indirect methods of assessment, developed because direct (self-report) methods cannot uncover the unconscious part of behaviour that psychoanalytic theory says governs much of human conduct. They present the subject with a relatively or fully unstructured stimulus, without telling them the purpose of the assessment, and without right or wrong answers; the assumption is that the person will project her/his own feelings, desires and needs onto this unstructured situation, and every response is considered to reveal a significant aspect of personality. Scoring and interpretation are lengthy and require sophisticated, specialised training. The two most widely used projective techniques named in the chapter are the Rorschach Inkblot Test (10 inkblots, developed by Hermann Rorschach) and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT, 30 picture cards plus one blank card, developed by Morgan and Murray).

Q. Arihant wants to become a singer even though he belongs to a family of doctors. Though his family members claim to love him but strongly disapprove his choice of career. Using Carl Rogers’ terminology, describe the attitudes shown by Arihant’s family.

Answer: In Carl Rogers’s terminology, Arihant’s family is offering only conditional positive regard: their acceptance of him depends on his conforming to their expectation that he follow the family profession of medicine, rather than accepting him unconditionally as he is. This is the opposite of the unconditional positive regard Rogers considered necessary for healthy self-concept and self-esteem. Because Arihant’s family disapproves of the self he would like to be (a singer, his ideal self), he is pushed to live by their conditions instead, which keeps a discrepancy between his real self and his ideal self. In Rogers’ view such a discrepancy often results in unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

Q. Please complete the following sentences starting with “I am”. (Note the time when you start and the time when you finish.)

Answer: Your sentences are your own, so there is no single correct answer. What the activity is meant to show, in the chapter’s terms: (1) Some sentences describe your personal identity, attributes that make you different from others, such as your name, qualities, capabilities or beliefs (“I am honest”, “I am a good singer”). (2) Others describe your social identity, attributes that link you to a social or cultural group (“I am a Hindu”, “I am a North Indian”). (3) Some describe the self as a subject, one who does something (“I am a dancer”), and some as an object, one on whom something is done (“I am one who easily gets hurt”). Sort your sentences into these groups. If you exchange your list with friends, you will also notice that the structure of self is shaped by our own experiences and by our experiences of other people.

Q. If you were asked to change one aspect of your personality, what would you like to change and why? If not, why? Which aspect of your personality would you never want to change? Write a paragraph. Discuss with a friend.

Answer: This is a personal reflection, so write honestly about yourself. A good paragraph names one specific trait (for example shyness, impatience or quick anger), says why you would change it and how it affects you in different situations, and then names one quality you value and would never change (for example honesty or friendliness), with a reason. Link it to the chapter: personality is relatively stable, so its main features do not change easily, yet it is also dynamic, so some features do change in response to internal urges or the demands of a situation. Trait words such as shy or friendly come from the trait approach, and choosing to work on a trait uses the self-regulation techniques the chapter describes: observing your own behaviour, self-instruction and self-reinforcement. Discussing it with a friend also shows you how others see you, which may differ from how you see yourself.

Q. Observe and note your behaviour characteristics and those of your friends that have been imbibed from popular youth icons.

Answer: Make a short table with three columns: the person (yourself and two or three friends), the youth icon (a film star, sportsperson or singer), and the behaviour copied (hairstyle, way of dressing, way of speaking, a catchphrase, a fitness habit, an attitude). Then explain it with the behavioural approach of the chapter: personality is seen as responses learned from the environment, and Bandura’s social learning (observational learning) theory explains how people learn by observing and imitating others, especially models who are admired or rewarded. Note also which copied behaviours are useful (discipline, hard work) and which are only on the surface (style, slang).

Q. We all have some notions about our ideal selves, i.e. what we would like to be. Take time to imagine that you have achieved your ideal self. With this notion of your ideal self, express your attitudes towards these categories: (a) school, (b) friends, (c) family, and (d) money. Write a paragraph on each describing your ideal attitudes. Next write all these categories on four sheets of paper and ask your two friends and two family members to write about what they perceive to be your real attitudes towards these categories. These four persons will describe your real self as they see you. Compare your ideal descriptions with others’ real descriptions in detail. Are they very similar or dissimilar? Prepare a report on this.

Answer: Follow the steps in the question, then write the report in Rogers’ terms. Your four paragraphs describe your ideal self, the self you would like to be; the four other people’s descriptions show your real self as others see it. For each category, note where the two match and where they differ. Rogers held that when there is a correspondence between the real self and the ideal self a person is generally happy, while a discrepancy often results in unhappiness and dissatisfaction. End the report by naming one or two gaps you would like to close and how (for example by self-regulation), and note that people with high self-concept and self-esteem are flexible and open to new experiences, so they can continue to grow.

Q. Select five persons whom you most admire, either from real life or from history. Collect information about their contributions in their respective fields and identify the characteristics in their personality that have impressed you. Do you find any similarities? Prepare a comparative report.

Answer: Choose five people, write a short note on each person’s contribution, and list the personality characteristics you admire, using the trait words of the chapter (for example conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness from the Big Five, or a cardinal trait in Allport’s sense, such as Gandhi’s non-violence, which the book itself gives as an example). Put the five side by side in a table and note which traits recur (for example, traits from the Big Five in Box 2.2). In the humanistic view, such people come close to Maslow’s self-actualisation, having reached their own fullest potential.