CHAPTER- 1

Variations in Psychological Attributes

• Introduction
• Individual Differences in Human Functioning
• Assessment of Psychological Attributes
• Intelligence
• Theories of Intelligence
⟶ Theory of Multiple Intelligences
⟶ Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
⟶ Planning, Attention-arousal, and Simultaneous-
⟶ Successive Model of Intelligence
• Individual Differences in Intelligence
⟶ Variations of Intelligence
⟶ Some Misuses of Intelligence Tests
• Culture and Intelligence
• Emotional Intelligence
⟶ Characteristics of Emotionally Intelligent Persons
• Special Abilities
⟶ Aptitude : Nature and Measurement
• Creativity
 Introduction

• Variation is a fact of nature.

• Individuals vary in their physical and psychological characteristics.

• People differ from each other in their ability to understand complex ideas, adapt
to environment, learn from experience, engage in various forms of reasoning, and
to overcome obstacles.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN HUMAN FUNCTIONING

• It refers to distinctiveness and variations in people's characteristics and behaviour

patterns.
• Situationism: A principle which states that situations and circumstances outside
oneself have the power to influence behaviour.
• The situationist perspective views human behaviour as resulting from interaction
of external and internal factors.

ASSESSMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES

• Assessment: It refers to the measurement of psychological attributes of

individuals and their evaluation often using multiple methods in terms of certain
standards of comparison.

• Formal assessment is objective, standardised and organised.

• Informal assessment is open to subjective interpretations.

• Psychological assessment uses systematic testing procedures to evaluate abilities,

behaviours and personal qualities of individuals.

SOME DOMAINS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTIBUTES

• Intelligence: It is the global capacity to understand the world, think rationally and
use available resources effectively when faced with challenges.

• Aptitude: It refers to an individual's underlying potential for acquiring skills.

• Aptitude test: They are used to predict what an individual will be able to do if
given proper environment and training.

• Interest: It is an individual's preference for engaging in one or more specific

activities relative to others.

• Personality: It refers to relatively enduring characteristics of a person that makes

her or him distinct from others.

• Personality tests try to assess an individual's unique characteristics, e.g. whether

one is dominant or submissive, outgoing or withdrawn, moody or emotionally
stable etc.

• Values: They are enduring beliefs about an ideal mode of behaviour.

 ASSESSMENT METHODS

• Psychological test: It is an objective and standardized measure of an individual's

mental and/or behavioural characteristics.

• Interview: It involves seeking information from a person on a one-to-one basis.

• Case Study: It is an in-depth study of the individual in terms of her/his

psychological attributes, psychological history in the context of her/his
psychological and physical environment.

• Observation: It involves employing systematic, organised and objective

procedures to record behavioural phenomena occurring naturally in real time.

• Self Report: It is a method in which a person provides factual information about

herself/ himself and/or opinions, beliefs, etc.

INTELLIGENCE

• The Oxford Dictionary explains intelligence as the power of perceiving, learning,

understanding, and knowing.
• Early intelligence theorists also used these attributes in defining intelligence:
1. Wechsler:
• Definition: The global and aggregate capacity of an individual to think rationally,
act purposefully, and to deal effectively with his/her environment.
• Understood intelligence in terms of its functionality, i.e., its value for adaption to
the environment.
• Intelligence test most widely used.
2. Gardner and Sternberg:
• An intelligent individual not only adapts to the environment but also actively
modifies or shapes it.
• Approaches to Study Intelligence

THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE

• The Psychometric Approach considers intelligence as an aggregate of abilities. It

expresses the individual's performance in terms of a single index of cognitive
abilities.

• The Information Processing Approach describes the processes people use in

intellectual reasoning and problem solving. The major focus of this approach is on
how an intelligent person acts.
A. Psychometric Approach:

1. Uni/One-Factor Theory (Alfred Binet):

• Definition: The ability to judge well, understand well, and reason well.
• First psychologist who formalised the concept of intelligence in terms of mental
operations.
• Differentiating more intelligent from less intelligent individuals.
• Conceptualised intelligence as consisting of one similar set of abilities which can
be used for solving any or every problem in an individual’s environment.
2. Two-Factor Theory (Charles Spearman) [1927]:
• Employed a statistical method called factor analysis.
• Intelligence consists of a general factor (G-factor) and specific factors (S-factor).
(i) G-Factor: It includes mental operations which are primary and common to all
performances.
(ii) S-Factor: It includes specific abilities which allow individuals to excel in their
respective domains
3. Theory of Primary Mental Abilities (Louis Thurstone):
(i) Verbal Comprehension (grasping meaning of words, concepts, and ideas).
(ii) Numerical Abilities (speed and accuracy in numerical and computational
skills).
(iii) Spatial Relations (visualizing patterns and forms).
(iv) Perceptual Speed To speed in perceiving details).
(v) Word Fluency (using words fluently and flexibly).
(vi) Memory (accuracy in recalling information).
(vii) Inductive Reasoning (deriving general rules from presented facts).
4. Hierarchical Model of Intelligence (Arthur Jensen):
Abilities operates at two levels:
Level I – Associative learning. [output is equal to input, rote memory]
Level II – Cognitive competence. [output is more than input]
5. Structure of Intellect Model (J.P. Guilford) [1988]:
• Classifies intellectual traits among three dimensions—operations, contents and
products
(i) Operation: what the respondent does, e.g., cognition, memory retention.
(ii) Contents: the nature of materials or information on which intellectual
• operations are performed, e.g., visual, auditory.
(iii) Products: the form in which information is processed by the respondent, e.g.,
relations, systems, transformations.
• Classification includes 6x5x6 categories—the model has 180 cells.
• Each cell is expected to have at least one (can have more than one) factor or
ability and is described in terms of all three dimensions.

B. Information-Processing Approach:

1. Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner):

• Intelligence is not a single entity; distinct types of intelligences exist independent
of each other.
• Different types of intelligences interact and work together to find a solution to a
problem.
• Studied persons who had shown exceptional abilities in their respective areas and
described eight types of intelligence.
(i) Linguistic: The capacity to use language fluently and flexibly to express one’s
thinking and understand other. Persons high on this ‘word-smart’, eigi, poets and
writers.
(ii) Logical-Mathematical: Skills in problem solving, thinking logically and
critically and abstract reasoning , e.g., scientists.
(iii) Spatial: The abilities involved in forming, using and transforming mental
images (visual images and patterns), e.g. , sculptors, painters, architects, interior
decorators.
(iv) Musical: The capacity to produce, create and manipulate musical rhythms and
patterns.
(v) Bodily-Kinaesthetic: The use of the whole body or portions of it creatively and
flexibly for display, construction of products and problem solving, e.g., athletes,
dancers, actors. .
(vi) Interpersonal: Skill of an individual to understand the needs, motives feelings
and behaviours of other people for better understanding and relationship. High
among psychologists, counsellors, politicians.
(vii) Intrapersonal: Refers to the awareness of one’s own feelings, motives, desires,
knowledge of one’s internal strengths and limitations and using that knowledge to
effectively relate to others, e.g., philosophers.
(viii) Naturalistic: Complete awareness of our relationship with the natural world
and sensitivity to the features of the natural world, e.g., botanists, zoologists.
2. Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Robert Sternberg) [1985]:
• Definition: The ability to adapt, to shape and select environment to accomplish
one’s goals and those of one’s society and culture.
• Three Basic Types of Intelligence:
(i) Componential Intelligence/Analytical Intelligence: The analysis of information
to solve problems
Three components:
(a) Knowledge Acquisition—responsible for learning and acquisition of the ways
of doing things.
(b) Meta or Higher Order Component—planning concerning what to do and how
to do it.
(c) Performance Component—actually doing things .
(ii) Experiential/Creative Intelligence: Using past experiences creatively to solve
novel problems.
— Ability to integrate different experiences in an original way to make new
discoveries and inventions.
— Quickly find out what information is crucial in a given situation.
(iii) Contextual/Practical Intelligence: The ability to deal with environmental
demands encountered on a daily basis—
— may be called ‘street smartness’ or ‘business sense’
— easily adapt to their present environment/select a more favourable environment,
modify the environment to fit their needs.
3. Planning, Attention-arousal and Simultaneous-Successive (PASS) Model of
Intelligence (J.P. Das, Jack Nagliery, Kirby) [1994]
• Intellectual activity involves the interdependent functioning of three neurological
systems, called the functional units of brain
• These units are responsible for—
(i) Arousal/Attention:
— Arousal and attention enable a person to process information.
— An optimal level of arousal focuses our attention to the relevant aspects of a
problem.
— Too much or too little arousal would interfere with attention and attend to
stimuli.
(ii) Simultaneous and Successive Processing:
— Simultaneous: Perceive the relations among various concepts and integrate –
them into a meaningful pattern for comprehension, e.g., RSPM.
— Successive: Remember all the information serially so that the recall of one leads
to the recall of another, e.g., learning of digits, letters. .
(iii) Planning:
— Allows us to think of the possible courses of action, implement them to reach a
target, and evaluate their effectiveness.
— If a plan does not work, it is modified to suit the requirements of the task or
situation.
• These PASS processes operate on a knowledge base developed either formally
(by reading, writing, and experimenting) or informally from the environment.
• These processes are interactive and dynamic in nature, yet each has its own
distinctive function.

Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) (Das and Nagliery):

• Battery of tests meant for individuals between 5-18 years of age.
• Consists of verbal as well as non-verbal tasks that measure basic cognitive
functions presumed to be independent of schooling.
• Results of assessment can be used to remedy cognitive deficits of children with
learning problems.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE:

The evidence for hereditary influences on intelligence comes mainly from studies
on twins and adopted children.

CORRELATION OF INTELLIGENCE

• Separated early in childhood-—show considerable similarity in their intellectual,

personality and behavioural characteristics.
• Adopted Children—children’s intelligence is more similar to their biological
rather than adoptive parents.
• Role of Environment—as children grow in age, their intelligence level tends to
move closer to that of their adoptive parents.
• Disadvantaged Children—adopted into families with higher socio-economic
status exhibit a large increase in their intelligence scores.
1. Environmental deprivation lowers intelligence while rich nutrition, good family
background, and quality schooling increases intelligence.
2. There is a general consensus among psychologists that intelligence is a product
of complex interaction of heredity (nature) and environment (nurture).
3. Heredity sets a range within which an individual’s development is actually
shaped by the support and opportunities of the environment.

Assessment of Intelligence

• 1905: Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon made the first successful attempt to
formally measure intelligence.
• 1908: Gave the concepts of Mental Age (MA) is the measure of a person’s
intellectual development relative to people of her/his age-group.
• Chronological Age (CA) is the biological age from birth.
• Retardation was being two mental age years below the chronological age.
1912: William Stern, a German psychologist, devised the concept of Intelligence
Quotient (IQ). IQ refers to ratio between MA and CA.
Formula—mental age divided by chronological age, and multiplied by 100 (to
avoid the decimal point).
OR
• Intelligence Quotient (IQ): It refers to mental age divided by chronological age,
and multiplied by 100. IQ = MA/CA x 100
• Average IQ in the population is 100, irrespective of age.
• Frequency distribution for the IQ scores tends to approximate a bell-shaped
curve, called the normal curve—symmetrical around the central value, called the
mean.
 VARIATIONS IN INTELLIGENCE

1. Intelligence Deficiency (Mentally Retarded/Challenged):

The American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) views mental
retardation as significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning existing
concurrently with deficits in adaptive behaviour and manifested during the
developmental period.
In order to be judged as mentally retarded, a person must show:
(i) Significantly sub average intellectual functioning, e.g., IQ below 70.
(ii) Deficits in adaptive behaviour or the capacity to be independent and deal
effectively with one’s environment.
Deficits must be observed during the developmental period, i.e., between 0-18
years.
Mild retardation—development is typically slower than that of their peers but they
can function quite independently, hold jobs and families. Level of retardation
increases—lag behind their peers in language and motor skills, need to be trained
in self-care skills and simple social and communication skills.
2. Intellectual Giftedness:
Lewis Terman (1925): Study to show how intelligence was related to occupational
success and life adjustment. These individuals show higher performance because
of their outstanding potentialities.
Giftedness is exceptional general ability shown in superior performance in a wide
variety of areas.
• Teacher’s perspective: depends on a combination of high ability, high creativity
and high commitment.
• Early signs of intellectual superiority: during infancy show larger attention span,
good memory, sensitivity to environmental changes, early appearance of language
skills.
• Other characteristics are advanced logical thinking and problem solving, high
speed in processing information, high-level creative thinking, high self-esteem,
independence.
• Incorrect to equate with brilliant academic performance: each gifted student
possesses different strengths, personalities and characteristics, e.g., athletes.
• Talent refers to remarkable ability in a specific field, e.g., social, and are often
called prodigies.

TYPES OF INTELLIGENCE TESTS

1) Group or Individual Tests

2) Verbal, Non-Verbal, or Performance Tests

 3) Culture –Fair or Culture-Biased

• Performance tests: These tests require subjects to manipulate objects and other
materials to perform a task.

CULTURE AND INTELLIGENCE

A major characteristic of intelligence is that it helps individuals to adapt to their

environment. The cultural environment provides a context for intelligence to
develop. ‘Culture is a collective system of customs, beliefs, attitudes and
achievements in art and literature.’
Sternberg:
• Notion of contextual or practical intelligence implies that intelligence is a product
of culture. Vygotsky (Russian psychologist):
• Culture provides a social context in which people live, grow and understand the
world around them.
• Elementary mental functions (e.g., walking, crying) are Universal; the manner in
which higher mental functions such as problem-solving and thinking operate are
largely culture produced.
• Equal attention given to cognitive and non-cognitive processes and their
integration:
(i) Cognitive capacity (sensitivity to context, understanding, discrimination,
problem-solving and effective communication).
(ii) Social competence (respect for social order, commitment to elders, the young
and the needy, concern about others and recognising others perspectives).
(iii) Emotional competence (self-regulation and self-monitoring of emotions,
honesty, politeness, good conduct and self-evaluation).
(iv) Entrepreneurial competence (commitment, persistence, patience, hard work,
vigilance and goal-directed behaviour).

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

• Emotional Intelligence: It is a set of skills that underlie accurate appraisal,

expression and regulation of emotions.

(i) Emotional Quotient (EQ) It involves the ability to perceive and manage one's
and other's feelings and emotions to motivate oneself and restrain one's impulses
and to handle interpersonal relationship effectively. It is used to express emotional
intelligence in the same way as IQ is used to express intelligence.
(ii) Salovey and Mayer: The ability to monitor one’s own and other’s emotions, to
discriminate among them and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and
actions.

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Aptitude indicates an individual’s capacity to acquire some specific knowledge or

skill after training.
(i) People with similar intelligence differed widely in acquiring certain knowledge
or skills, called aptitudes.
(ii) With proper training, these abilities can be considerably enhanced.
Interest is a preference for a particular activity; aptitude is the potentiality to
perform that activity.
(iii) In order to be successful in a particular field, a person must have both aptitude
and interest.

There are several types of Aptitude tests largely available in two forms:

Independent (specialised) aptitude tests. – Mechanical, clerical, numerical, tests for

specialized fields.
Multiple (generalized) aptitude tests.- Exist in the form of test batteries.
Differential Aptitude test ( DAT), General aptitude test battery (GATB), Armed
services vocational aptitude battery (ASVAB) are well known.
DAT is commonly used in educational settings, consisting eight specialized
subtests- Verbal, Numerical, Abstract, Clerical speed and accuracy, Mechanical,
Space, Spellings and Language tests. ( common test )

CREATIVITY

• Creativity refers to the ability to produce ideas, objects and problem solutions
that are novel and appropriate.
• It refers to the ability to think in novel and unusual ways and to came up with
unique solutions to problems.
• Creativity involves the production of same thing new and original it may be an
idea, object or solution to a problem.
• Creativity can get manifested in different levels and in different areas.
• Everyday creativity/Day to day creativity. It could be reflected in day to day
activities like writing, teaching, storytelling, flower arrangement, dance etc.
• Special talent creativity/Higher order creativity. It is related to outstanding
creative achievements e.g. inventions and discoveries.
• Creativity is always reality oriented, appropriate, constructive and socially
desirable.
• Everyday creativity could be seen in terms of the level and the areas in which
they exhibit creativity and that all may not be operating at the same level.
• Researches suggest that children mostly express their imagination through
physical activities and in non-verbal ways, although when language and
intellectual functions are fully developed and store of knowledge is adequately
available then creativity is expressed through verbal modes too.
• There is no disagreement that creativity in determined by both heredity and
environment.
• Limits of the creative potential are set by heredity.
• Environmental factors stimulate the development of creativity.
• No amount of training can transform an average person to develop special talent
creativity or higher order creativity like Tagore, Einstein or Shakespeare.

CREATIVITY AND INTELLIGENCE:

• Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is
formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a
musical composition or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a literary
work or a painting).
• Certain level of intelligence in necessary to be creative, but a high level of
intelligence, however does not ensure that a person would certainly be creative.
• Researchers have found that both high and low level of creativity can be formed
in highly intelligent children and also children of average intelligence.
• Relation between creativity and intelligence is positive.
• There are differences in the potential for creativity across individuals and the
manner in which Creativity is expressed.
• Creativity can be expressed in writing, dance, poetry, science and so on.
• Manifestation of creativity can be seen in a poem, painting, new chemical
process, an innovation of law, a breakthrough in science in preventing a disease.
• Names of some highly creative persons in the history: Tagore, Einstein,
C.V.Raman, Ramanujan etc. for their outstanding contribution.
• The definition of creativity has broadened and it includes ordinary people in
creative occupations like Pottery, carpentry, cooking etc.
 CHAPTER- 2
Self and personality

• Self refers to the totality of an individuals conscious experience, 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.

SELF AS SUBJECT:
•Who does something (actor).
•Self actively engages in the process of knowing itself.

SELF AS OBJECT:
•Which gets affected (consequence).
•Self gets observed and comes to be known.
 KINDS OF SELF:

(i) Formed as a result of the interaction of the biological self with the physical and
socio-cultural environment.
(ii) Biological self developed |is a result of our biological needs.

• 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.

• Social/Familial/Relational Self
 Emerges in relation with others.

 Emphasises such aspects of life as co-operation, unity, affiliation, sacrifice,

support or sharing. This self values family and social relationship.

COGNITIVE AND BEHAVIOURAL ASPECTS OF SELF:

• Self-concept is the way perceive 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 is the value judgement of a person about himself/herself.

1. Assessment present a variety of statements to a person and ask him/her to
indicate the extent to which those statements are true for him or her.
2. 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.
3. 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 of oneself.
4. 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.
5. 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 is 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.
1. A person who believes that he/she has the ability or behaviour required by a
particular situation demonstrates high self-efficacy.
2. The notion of self-efficacy is based on Bandura’s social learning theory. He
showed that children and adults learned behaviour by observing and imitating
others.
3. 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.
4. Strong sense of self-efficacy allows people to select, influence, and even
construct the circumstances of their own life; also feel less fearful.
5. 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 of children.

• Self-regulation refers to the ability to organize and monitor one’s own

behaviour.
1. People who are able to change their behaviour according to the demands of. the
environment are high on self-monitoring.
2. Self-control is learning to delay or refer the gratification of needs.
3. Will-power is the ability to respond to situational pressure with resistance and
control over ourselves.
4. Self-control plays a key role in the fulfilment of a long-term goal.
5. 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,

 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 refers to unique and relatively stable qualities that characterized an

individual’s behaviour across different situation over a period of time.
1. Derived from persona (Latin), the mask used by actors in Roman theatre for
changing their facial make-up.
2. Once we are able to characterize someone’s personality, we can predict how that
person will probably behave in a variety of circumstances.
3. An understanding of personality allows us to deal with people in realistic and
acceptable ways.
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:

• 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); characterised 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 humoural 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.

— Sattva guna—cleaniness, truthfulness, dutifulness, detachment, discipline.

— Rajas guna—intensive activity, desire for sense gratification,
dissatisfaction,envy, materialism.
— 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:
(i) Endomorphic (fat, soft and round)—relaxed and sociable.
(ii) Mesomorphic (strong musculature, rectangular, strong body build)—energetic
and courageous.
(iii) 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.

(i) Introverts: People who prefer to be alone, tend to avoid others, withdraw
themselves in the face of emotional conflicts, and are shy.
(ii) 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.

(i) 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,
(ii) Type-B The absence of Type-A traits.
Moris continued this research and identified:
(iii) Type-C (prone to cancer): Co-operative, unassertive patient, suppress negative
emotion, show compliance to authority.
(iv) 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.

•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.

1. Allport’s Trait Theory (Gordon Allport)

(i) Individuals possess a number of traits—dynamic in nature and determine

behaviour.
(ii) Analysed words people use to describe themselves—provided a basic for
understanding human personality—and categorized them into—
— Cardinal Traits: highly generalized disposition, indicates the goal around which
a person’s entire life revolves, e.g., Hitler’s Nazism.
— Central Traits: less pervasive in effect, but still quite generalized disposition.
e.g. , sincere.
— Secondary trait least generalized characteristics of a person, e.g., likes mangoes.
(iii) The way an individual reacts to a situation depends on his/her traits.
(iv) People sharing the same traits might express them in different ways.
2. Personality Factors (Raymond Cattell)

(i) Identified primary traits from descriptive adjectives found in language.

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

3. Eysenck’s Theory (H.J. Eysenck)

(i) Reduced personality into, two broad dimensions which are biologically and
genetically based and subsume a number of specific traits.
— Neuroticism (anxious, moody, touchy, restless) us. Emotional stability (calm,
even tempered, reliable)—the degree to which people have control over their
feelings.
— Extraversion (active, gregarious, impulsive, thrill seeking) vs. Introversion
(passive, quiet, caution, reserved)—the degree to which people are socially
outgoing or socially withdrawn.
(ii) Later proposed a third dimension, Psychoticism (hostile, electric, and
antisocial) vs. Sociability, considered to interact with the other two dimensions.
(iii) Developed Eysenck Personality Questionnaires to study dimensions of
personality.
(iv) Useful in understanding the personality profile of people across cultures
(v) Consistent with the analysis of personality traits found in different languages
and methods
• Psychodynamic Approach (Sigmund Freud)

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.
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

1. Freud gave an imaginary division of mind it believed in internal dynamics which

can be inferred from the ways people behave.
2. Three competing forces—i.e. id, ego and superego influence behaviour relative
strength of each structure determines a person’s stability.

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

• Ego:
1. Seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual needs in accordance with reality.
2. Works on the reality principle, and directs the id towards more appropriate ways
of behaving.
3. Patient and reasonable.

• Superego:
1. Moral branch of mental functioning.
2. Tells the id and ego whether gratification in a particular instance is ethical
3. Controls the id by internalising the parental authority the process of
socialisation. According to Freud personality is Biological determined. It is
instinctive. Life instinct and death instinct determine behaviour.
• Life instinct is dominant in human behaviour.

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 behaviours 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) Rationalisation: A person tries to make unreasonable feelings or behaviour
seem reasonable and acceptable.
D) Stages of Personality/Psychosexual Development (Five Stage Theory of
Personality)
1. The core aspects of personality are established early, remain stable throughout
life, and can be changed only with great difficulty.
2. Problems encountered at any stage may arrest development, and have long-term
effect on a person’s life.

• 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.
• 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
1. Identification with same sex parent.
2. Giving up sexual feeling for 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
development is less than adequate. People display behaviours typing of a less
mature stage of development.
• Post-Freudian Approach or Post-Freudian View

(i) Less prominent role to sexual and aggressive tendencies of the Id.
(ii) Expansion of the concept ego.
(iii) Emphasis on human qualities of creativity, competence, and problem-solving.

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

(i) Saw human being as guided by aims and aspirations.
(ii) 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.
(iii) Collective unconscious consisting of archetypes or primordial images; not
individually acquired, but are inherited—found in myths, dreams and arts of all
mankind.
(iv) 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.

2. Karen Horney: Optimism

(i) Optimistic view of human life with emphasis on human growth and self
actualisation
(ii) 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.
(iii) Psychological disorders were caused by disturbed interpersonal relationship
during childhood.
(iv) When parent’s behaviour 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.

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

personal goals.
(i) Individual Psychology: human behaviour is purposeful and goal directed.
(ii) Each one of us has the capacity to choose and create.
(iii) Personal goals, goals that provide us with security and help us in overcoming
the feelings of inadequacy, are the sources of our motivation.
(iv) Every individual suffers from the feeling of inadequacy and guilt, i.e.,
inferiority complex, which arise from childhood.

4. Erich Fromm: The Human Concerns

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

5. Erik Erikson: Search for Identity

(i) Rational, conscious ego processes in personality development.
(ii) Development is viewed as a lifelong process, and ego identity is granted a
central place in this process.
(iii) 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.

• Criticism to Psychodynamic Theories

1. The theories are largely based on case studies; they lack a rigorous scientific
basis.
2. They use small and a typical individual 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 and
overlooked female experiences and perspectives.

BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH:
1. Focus on learning of stimulus—response connection and their reinforcement.
2. Personality is the response of an individual as sample for advancing
generalization.
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 females experiences and perspective.

CULTURAL APPROACH:
1. Considers personality as an adaptation of individuals or group to the demand of
their ecology and culture.
2. A group’s economic maintenance system plays a vital role in the origin of
cultural and behavioural variations.
3. 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.
4. These elements constitute a child’s overall learning environment—skills,
abilities, behavioural styles, and value priorities are viewed as strongly linked to
these features.
 HUMANISTIC APPROACH:
• 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:
(i) It is goal-oriented and worthwhile.
(ii) People (who are innately good) will almost always choose adaptive, self-
actualising behaviour.
3. People are constantly engaged in the process of actualising their true self.
4. Ideal self is the self that a person would like to be—correspondence between
ideal and real self = happiness, discrepancy = dissatisfaction.
5. People have tendency to maximize self-concept through self-actualisation.
6. Personality development is a continuous process.
7. 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.
8. An atmosphere of unconditional positive regard must be created in order to
ensure enhancement of people’s self-concept.
9. Client-centered therapy that Rogers developed basically attempts to create this
condition.

• Abraham Maslow
1. Attainment of self-actualisation, a state in which people have reached their own
fullest potential.
2. Optimistic and positive view of man who has the potentialities for love, joy and
to do creative work.
3. Human beings are considered free to shape their lives and to self-actualisation.
4. Self-actualisation becomes possible by analysing the motivations that govern our
life.
• Characteristics of Healthy Person
1. 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’.
2. They experience the ‘here-and-now’; are not trapped.
3. They do not live in the past or dwell in the future through anxious expectation
and distorted defences.

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.

 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.
• e.g. MMPI, EPQ, 16 PF —> Direct technique

 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)

 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.
 SIXTEEN PERSONALITY FACTOR QUESTIONNAIRE:

The tests provides with declarative statements and the subjects respond to the
specific situation by choosing from a set of given alternatives.

 Projective Techniques:

• Direct methods of personality assessment cannot uncover the unconscious part of

our behaviour.
• Techniques based on 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.
• e.g. RORSCHACH Inkblot test, Thematic Apperception Test, sentence
completion test, Draw-a-person test. —> Indirect technique
Besides promoting our understanding assessment is also useful for diagnosis,
training, placement, counselling and other purposes.

 RORSCHACH INKBLOT TEST:

This test was developed by Harmann Rorschach. The tests consists of 10 inkblots (
5 black and white, 2 red and remaining of pastel colours) printed in the centre of a
cardboard of 7” to 10”.

1st Phase- Performance proper: Subjects are shown the cards and are asked to tell
what they see in each.
2nd Phase- Inquiry: A detailed report of responses is prepared by asking the
subject to tell on where, how and on what basis was a particular response made.

Use of the test requires extensive training to make fine judgement and
interpretation.

 THE THEMATIC APPRECIATION TEST (TAT):

It was developed by Morgan and Murray. Little more structured that the Inkblot
test. It consists of 30 black and white picture cards and 1 blank card. Each card
depicts one or more people in a variety of situations. 20 cards to 5 cards are used
for performing assessment.
Method: One card is presented at a time, asking the subject 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
future, what are the characters thinking and feeling?,etc.

A standard procedure is followed for scoring the TAT responses.

Indian adaptation done by: Uma Chaudhary.

 ROZENSWEIG’S PICTURE-FRUSTRATION STUDY ( P-F Study):

It was developed by Rozenweig to assess how people express aggression in a

frustrating situation.

The test consists cartoon like pictures depicting situations where one person is
frustrating other.
The subject is asked to describe: What the frustrated person will say or do?
Analysis is based on:
The Type and Direction of aggression (towards oneself or environment or evading
the situation).
It is examined whether the focus is on frustrating object or protecting the frustrated
person, or on constructive solution.

 SENTENCE COMPLETION TEST:

This test makes use of number of incomplete sentences. The starting of the
sentence is presented and the subject has to provide an ending of the sentence. The
type of ending helps assess the unconscious attitude, motivation and conflicts.
e.g.
My father………………….
My greatest fear is……………..
The best thing about my mother is……………..
I am proud of………………

 DRAW-A-PERSON TEST:

In this test subject is provided with a pencil, eraser and sheet and asked to draw a
picture of a person.
After the completion of the drawing, subject is asked to draw a picture of a person
of opposite gender. Subject is asked to make a story about the person as if he/she
was a character of a movie/novel. Some examples of the interpretation as follows:
Omission of facial features suggests that the person tries to evade a highly conflict-
ridden interpersonal relationship.
Graphic emphasis on the neck suggests lack of control over impulses.
Disproportionately large size of the head suggests organic brain disease or
preoccupation with headaches.

BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS:

This analysis can provide us with meaningful information about his/her

personality.
An observer’s report contains data obtained from:

Interview:
Structured interview follows a set of very specific questions and set procedure.
This is often done to make objective comparison of persons being interviewed.
Use of rating scales adds to the objectivity.
Unstructured Interview involves asking a number of questions (not specific) to
develop an impression about a person. The way a subject answers and presents
himself and answers the questions carries enough potential to reveal about his/her
personality.

Observation:
Use of Observation for a personality assessment is a sophisticated procedure that
cannot be carried out by untrained people. It requires careful training of the
observer and fairly detailed guideline to carry out analysis to use observations to
assess personality. In spite of the widespread use of this method, it has following
limitations:
1. Professional training required for collection of useful data and is quite
demanding and time consuming.
 2. Maturity of the observer is a precondition. Else personal biases can alter the
assessment.

3. Mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results.

Behavioural Ratings:
Behavioural ratings are frequently used for personality assessment of individuals in
an educational or industrial setting.

Behavioural ratings are generally taken from the people who know the assesse
intimately and have interacted over a period of time. In order to use ratings the
traits should be clearly defined in terms of carefully stated behavioural anchors.
Limitations of Behavioural Rating method:
1. Raters generally display biases that colour their judgements of different
traits. For example most of are greatly influenced by a single
favourable/unfavourable trait which colours the overall judgment on all the
traits. This is called ‘Halo effect.’

2. Raters have a tendency to place individuals in the middle of the scale

(middle category bias) or in the extreme positions (called extreme response
bias).

Nomination:
In this method people in a group who know each other for a long period are asked
to nominate another person from the group with whom they would like to
work/play/do some activity. Then they are asked to state the reason why they
would have nominated that person.
Situational tests:
A variety of situational tests have been devised for the assessment of personality.
Most commonly used test is –Situational Stress test. It provides us information on
how a person behaves under stressful conditions. In performing this test the person
is given a task under stressful environment, where others are instructed not to
provide any support and act non-cooperative. This is kind of role playing. The
subject is observed and a report is prepared. Situations can be videotaped and
observed for assessment later.