Self and Personality Class 12 NCERT Solutions

Concept used. The self is the totality of an individual's conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts and feelings with regard to herself or himself. In simple words, it is the answer each of us gives, openly or quietly, to the question ``Who am I?''. The self has a dual status: it can act as a subject (the ``I'' that does something, as in ``I am a dancer'') and as an object (the ``me'' on which something is done, as in ``I am one who easily gets hurt''). It forms through our interaction with the physical and the socio-cultural world, starting from the early biological self of a hungry, crying infant.

The self has several aspects that students should keep apart:

1. Personal self. An orientation in which a person is mainly concerned with herself or himself: personal freedom, personal achievement, personal comfort.
2. Social (familial or relational) self. The self that emerges in relation with others and values cooperation, unity, sharing, sacrifice, and family and social relationships.

Indian notion versus Western notion. The sharpest difference lies in where the boundary is drawn between the self and the other.

1. In the Western view, the boundary is relatively fixed. The self and the group exist as two separate entities with clearly defined limits, and members keep their individuality. The Western view holds clear dichotomies: self versus other, person versus nature, subjective versus objective.
2. In the Indian view, the boundary keeps shifting. At one moment the self can expand to fuse with the cosmos or include others; at the next it withdraws and focuses on the individual. The self is not separated from one's own group; both stay in harmonious co-existence, and clear dichotomies are avoided.

This is why many Western cultures are described as individualistic (the individual stands apart from the group) and many Asian, including Indian, cultures as collectivistic (the individual and the group remain together).

Self is the totality of a person's conscious experiences, ideas and feelings about themselves, acting both as knower (subject) and known (object). The Western notion draws a fixed boundary between self and others (individualistic), while the Indian notion treats that boundary as shifting, so the self stays in harmony with the group (collectivistic).

Concept used. Delay of gratification means learning to postpone or defer the satisfaction of a need or desire, rather than acting on it at once. NCERT calls this ability self-control, and it is one part of the wider skill of self-regulation, which is our capacity to organise and monitor our own behaviour. The strength behind it is what people commonly call will power.

In short, delay of gratification is the difference between ``I want it now'' and ``I can wait for something better later''. A student who switches off a game to finish revision is delaying the smaller, immediate pleasure for a larger, later reward.

Why it matters for adult development. Adult life constantly asks us to resist situational pressures and control ourselves. The ability to wait supports development in several ways:

1. It serves long-term goals. Self-control plays a key role in the fulfilment of long-term goals, which usually need steady effort now for a payoff much later (a degree, a career, savings).
2. It builds resistance to pressure. Many life situations require resisting tempting but harmful choices; the person who can defer gratification is less swept along by the moment.
3. It is open to training. NCERT notes Indian cultural practices such as fasting in vrata or roza and non-attachment to worldly things as effective ways of developing self-control, along with psychological techniques like observing one's own behaviour, self-instruction and self-reinforcement.

Delay of gratification is the learned ability to postpone the satisfaction of a need (a form of self-control within self-regulation). It is important for adult development because long-term goals, resistance to situational pressure, and disciplined effort all depend on being able to wait for a larger later reward instead of grabbing a small immediate one.

Concept used. In psychology, personality refers to our characteristic and relatively stable ways of responding to individuals and situations. The word itself comes from the Latin persona, the mask worn by actors in Roman theatre, which already hints that personality is the consistent ``character'' a person shows. NCERT lists its defining features:

1. It has both physical and psychological components.
2. Its expression in behaviour is fairly unique in a given individual.
3. Its main features do not change easily with time.
4. It is dynamic: some features may change due to internal or external situational demands, so it is adaptive.

Once we can characterise someone's personality, we can predict, within limits, how they will behave across many situations.

Main approaches to the study of personality. Psychologists have built several broad approaches, each lighting up some aspects of personality:

1. Type approach. Groups people into a few broad types based on patterns of behaviour (for example Hippocrates' four humours, the Indian trigunas, Sheldon's body types, Jung's introvert and extravert, and Type A and Type B).
2. Trait approach. Describes personality through a smaller set of stable, consistent traits along which people differ (Allport, Cattell, Eysenck, and the Five-Factor or Big Five model).
3. Psychodynamic approach. Freud's view that personality is driven by unconscious forces, structured as id, ego and superego.
4. Behavioural approach. Treats personality as learned responses to the environment, built through conditioning and reinforcement.
5. Cultural approach. Sees personality as an adaptation of individuals and groups to the demands of their ecology and culture.
6. Humanistic approach. Focuses on subjective experience, free choice and self-actualisation (Rogers and Maslow).

Personality is a person's characteristic and relatively stable way of responding to people and situations, with physical and psychological components that are mostly enduring yet adaptive. The main approaches to studying it are the type, trait, psychodynamic, behavioural, cultural and humanistic approaches.

Concept used. The trait approach describes personality through traits, where a trait is a relatively enduring attribute or quality on which one individual differs from another in a consistent, stable way. Instead of sorting people into a few boxes, this approach looks for the ``building blocks'' of personality and rates each person on the degree to which a quality is present. NCERT summarises traits as (a) relatively stable over time, (b) generally consistent across situations, and (c) varying in strength and combination across individuals, which is what produces individual differences. Allport, Cattell and Eysenck are the leading trait theorists.

How it differs from the type approach. The two approaches answer the same question, ``how is this person organised?'', in opposite ways:

1. Unit of description. The type approach uses broad categories or types (for example sanguine, choleric, or Type A and Type B); the trait approach uses dimensions along which everyone can be placed.
2. All-or-none versus matter of degree. A type puts a person wholly into one box; a trait rates a person by how much of a quality they have, so shyness or friendliness is a sliding scale, not a label.
3. Simplicity versus precision. Typologies are appealing but too simplistic, since human behaviour is complex and people rarely fit one box neatly; traits allow finer, more realistic description.

The trait approach describes personality through stable, consistent traits, enduring qualities on which people differ by degree (Allport, Cattell, Eysenck). It differs from the type approach because types sort people into a few broad, all-or-none categories, whereas traits place every person on continuous dimensions and treat each quality as a matter of degree, giving a more precise and less simplistic picture.

Concept used. In Freud's psychodynamic approach, the structure of personality is built from three forces that reside mostly in the unconscious and can only be inferred from how people behave: the id, the ego and the superego. They are concepts, not real physical organs. Freud also pictured the mind on three levels of consciousness, conscious, preconscious and unconscious, and the three forces operate largely beneath awareness, as the figure below shows.

The three forces work on three different principles:

1. Id, the pleasure principle. The id is the source of a person's instinctual energy. It seeks immediate gratification of primitive needs, sexual desires and aggressive impulses, and works on the pleasure principle: seek pleasure, avoid pain. It is demanding and unrealistic, and cares nothing for morals, society or other people. The life force energising the id is called the libido.
2. Ego, the reality principle. The ego grows out of the id and tries to satisfy its needs in line with reality. It works on the reality principle, steering the id towards acceptable behaviour. NCERT's example: the id of a boy who wants an ice-cream tells him to grab it; the ego, knowing he may be punished, tells him the realistic way is to ask first. The ego is patient and reasonable.
3. Superego, the moral principle. The superego is the moral branch of the mind. It tells the id and ego whether an act is ethical, and it controls the id by internalising parental authority through socialisation. It is the source of guilt, ideals and conscience.

How they combine. In some people the id is stronger, in others the superego, and the relative strength of id, ego and superego determines each person's stability. Freud also held that the id is energised by two instinctual forces, a life instinct and a death instinct, and he focused more on the life (sexual) instinct. Personality, then, is the outcome of a constant inner conflict between these three competing forces, managed by the ego.

Freud explains personality as three interacting forces lying mostly in the unconscious: the id (instinctual energy on the pleasure principle), the ego (which satisfies the id realistically on the reality principle), and the superego (the moral branch that judges right from wrong). Behaviour and a person's stability arise from the ongoing conflict among these three, managed by the ego.

Concept used. Both Karen Horney and Alfred Adler were post-Freudian (neo-analytic) theorists who moved away from Freud's heavy stress on sexual and aggressive instincts and gave a larger role to social forces and the conscious, goal-directed side of the person. But they locate the root of psychological disturbance, including a low, depressed state, in different places.

Horney's explanation. Horney traces psychological disorders to disturbed interpersonal relationships during childhood.

1. When parents behave towards a child in an indifferent, discouraging or erratic way, the child feels insecure, and a feeling she called basic anxiety results.
2. Out of this anxiety grows deep resentment toward the parents, or basic hostility.
3. Excessive dominance or indifference, and giving too much or too little approval, leave the child feeling isolated and helpless, which interferes with healthy development.

So for Horney, a depressed, helpless state grows from a damaged early parent-child relationship. She also took a more optimistic view of human growth and challenged Freud's treatment of women as inferior.

Adler's explanation. Adler's individual psychology assumes that human behaviour is purposeful and goal-directed, and that we each have the capacity to choose and create.

1. Adler held that every individual suffers from feelings of inadequacy and guilt, which he called the inferiority complex, arising from childhood.
2. Our personal goals, especially those that give us security and help us overcome these feelings, drive personality development.
3. Healthy development depends on overcoming the inferiority complex; failure to do so leaves the person stuck in inadequacy.

So for Adler, a depressed or defeated state reflects an unconquered inferiority complex and a failure to move towards meaningful, security-giving goals.

For Horney, a depressed, helpless condition stems from disturbed interpersonal relationships in childhood: indifferent or erratic parenting produces basic anxiety and basic hostility. For Adler, it stems from an unresolved inferiority complex, the childhood feelings of inadequacy and guilt that the person has failed to overcome through goal-directed striving. Thus Horney emphasises early social relationships, while Adler emphasises the inner struggle against inferiority.

Concept used. The humanistic approach, developed mainly by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow largely in response to Freud, focuses on the subjective experiences of individuals and on their freedom to choose. Its main proposition is that human beings are basically good and are driven by an inborn tendency towards growth and fulfilment.

1. Rogers' central idea is the fully functioning person. Fulfilment is the motivating force of personality development: people naturally try to express their capabilities, potentials and talents to the fullest.
2. Rogers contrasts the real self (who a person actually is) with the ideal self (who they would like to be). When the two match, the person is happy; a wide gap between them brings unhappiness.
3. Healthy growth needs an atmosphere of unconditional positive regard, which Rogers' client-centred therapy tries to create.

In short, the humanistic approach says people are innately good, free to shape their lives, and naturally inclined to actualise their true self.

What Maslow meant by self-actualisation. Self-actualisation is the state in which people have reached their own fullest potential. Maslow held an optimistic, positive view of human nature, with people having the potential for love, joy and creative work.

1. Survival needs, biological, security and belongingness needs, are shared with animals; being concerned only with these reduces a person to the animal level.
2. The real journey of human life begins with the pursuit of the higher needs: self-esteem and self-actualisation.
3. A self-actualising person uses their abilities freely and creatively, having moved beyond mere survival to growth.

The main proposition of the humanistic approach (Rogers and Maslow) is that people are basically good, free to shape their lives, and driven by an inborn tendency towards growth and fulfilment, with a fully functioning person showing congruence between the real self and the ideal self. By self-actualisation Maslow meant the state in which a person has reached their own fullest potential, the highest goal that emerges once survival needs are met.

Concept used. Within behavioural analysis, an observer's report of a person's behaviour across situations is used to assess personality. The two main observation-based methods NCERT discusses are observation and the interview; both gather first-hand information about how a person actually behaves.

The main observational methods.

1. Observation. Watching a person's behaviour to assess personality. It is not casual people-watching: it is a sophisticated procedure that needs a trained observer and detailed guidelines on how to analyse the behaviour. NCERT's example is a clinical psychologist observing a client's interaction with family members and home visitors to gain insight into the client's personality.
2. Interview. Talking to the person being assessed and asking specific questions. Diagnostic interviewing goes in depth, beyond the person's surface replies. Interviews may be unstructured (the interviewer forms an impression through open questioning) or structured (specific questions in a set order, often with rating scales, to allow objective comparison between people).

Problems we face in using these methods. NCERT lists three main limitations of observation and interview:

1. Demanding training. The professional training needed to collect useful data through these methods is quite demanding and time-consuming.
2. Maturity of the psychologist. The maturity of the psychologist is a precondition for obtaining valid data; a less experienced assessor may misread behaviour.
3. Observer effect. The mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results. As a stranger, the observer can influence the behaviour of the person being observed, so the data may not be genuine.

The main observational methods in personality assessment are observation (trained, guideline-based watching of behaviour) and the interview (structured or unstructured questioning of the person). The chief problems are that they need demanding, time-consuming professional training, they require a mature psychologist for valid data, and the observer's mere presence can change the behaviour being observed, reducing the accuracy of the data.

Concept used. Structured personality tests are the self-report measures of personality. They are fairly structured measures, often based on a theory, that ask the person to report on themselves by giving verbal responses on some kind of rating scale.

1. The person objectively reports their own feelings about each item.
2. Responses are accepted at their face value.
3. They are scored in quantitative terms and interpreted against norms developed for the test.

Because the items and the response format are fixed in advance, they are ``structured'', and because the information comes straight from the person, they are called direct techniques.

The two most widely used structured personality tests.

1. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Developed by Hathaway and McKinley, originally to help with psychiatric diagnosis, it is very effective at identifying various kinds of psychopathology. Its revised version is the MMPI-2. It consists of 567 statements, each judged ``true'' or ``false'', and is divided into 10 subscales (for example hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, paranoia, schizophrenia, mania, social introversion). In India, Mallick and Joshi developed the Jodhpur Multiphasic Personality Inventory (JMPI) along similar lines.
2. Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF). Developed by Cattell, it grew from his factor-analysis work that identified the basic personality structure. The person responds to a situation by choosing from given alternatives. It can be used with high-school students and adults, and is extremely useful in career guidance, vocational exploration and occupational testing.

Structured personality tests are self-report measures: fixed-format, often theory-based tests in which a person reports on themselves using a rating scale, scored quantitatively against norms. The two most widely used ones are the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), developed by Hathaway and McKinley, and the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF), developed by Cattell.

Concept used. Projective techniques are indirect methods of personality assessment, developed to reach the unconscious motives and feelings that direct, self-report tests cannot uncover. Psychoanalytic theory holds that much of behaviour is governed by unconscious motives; since people become self-conscious and answer in socially desirable ways on direct tests, we need an indirect route.

How they assess personality. They rest on a simple assumption: a less structured or unstructured stimulus lets a person project their own feelings, desires and needs onto it. Experts then interpret these projections. All projective techniques share these features:

1. The stimuli are relatively or fully unstructured and poorly defined.
2. The person is usually not told the purpose of the assessment or how responses are scored and interpreted.
3. The person is told there are no correct or incorrect responses.
4. Each response is taken to reveal a significant aspect of personality.
5. Scoring and interpretation are lengthy and sometimes subjective, and need rigorous training and qualitative analysis.

A widely used stimulus is the symmetrical inkblot, onto which the person projects what they ``see''.

Projective tests widely used by psychologists.

1. Rorschach Inkblot Test (Hermann Rorschach): 10 inkblots (five black and white, two with red, three in pastel colours), shown in two phases, performance proper and inquiry.
2. Thematic Apperception Test, TAT (Morgan and Murray): 30 black-and-white picture cards plus one blank card; the person tells a story for each. Uma Chaudhury's Indian adaptation exists.
3. Rosenzweig's Picture-Frustration Study (P-F Study): assesses how a person expresses aggression in frustrating situations; Pareek adapted it for India.
4. Sentence Completion Test: incomplete sentences the person must finish, revealing attitudes, motives and conflicts.
5. Draw-a-Person Test: the person draws a person, then an opposite-sex person, and tells a story; features of the drawing are interpreted.

Projective techniques assess personality indirectly: a vague, unstructured stimulus lets the person project unconscious feelings, desires and needs, which experts then interpret (responses are open-ended, with no right or wrong answers, and scoring is subjective). The widely used projective tests are the Rorschach Inkblot Test, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Rosenzweig's Picture-Frustration Study, the Sentence Completion Test and the Draw-a-Person Test.

Concept used. In Carl Rogers' humanistic theory, healthy growth of the self needs an atmosphere of unconditional positive regard, that is, being accepted and valued by others whatever choices one makes. The opposite of this is conditional positive regard, where acceptance and love are given only when the person meets certain expectations set by others. These expectations act as conditions of worth, telling the person they are worthy only if they behave in approved ways.

Applying it to Arihant's family. Read the situation through Rogers' lens:

1. Arihant's true self pushes him towards self-actualisation as a singer; this is the inborn growth tendency Rogers describes.
2. His family claims to love him but strongly disapproves of his career choice. Their love therefore comes with a string attached: ``we accept you if you follow our approved path (medicine)''.
3. This is exactly conditional positive regard. The family is placing a condition of worth on Arihant, making their warmth depend on his choosing a career they value rather than the one that expresses his real self.
4. By withholding full acceptance of his real choice, the family widens the gap between Arihant's real self (a singer) and the ideal self they want for him (a doctor), which in Rogers' terms breeds unhappiness and blocks the development of a healthy self-concept.

In Rogers' terminology, the family is offering conditional positive regard instead of the unconditional positive regard that would let Arihant grow and self-actualise.

In Carl Rogers' terms, Arihant's family is showing conditional positive regard, not unconditional positive regard. By loving him yet strongly disapproving of his wish to be a singer, they make their acceptance depend on his following the approved career (medicine). This sets up conditions of worth that widen the gap between his real self and the ideal self they expect, hindering his self-actualisation.