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Self and Personality – Class 12 Psychology notes, important questions and MCQs

NCERT Class 12 Psychology, chapter 2. Notes, key terms, important questions with answers and MCQs.

Chapter overview

The self refers to the totality of a person's conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts and feelings about oneself. Personality refers to the characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that make a person unique and are relatively stable across situations. Personality has been explained by type, trait, psychodynamic, behavioural, cultural and humanistic approaches, and is assessed by self-report, projective and behavioural methods.

Self

The self has personal and social aspects; self-concept is the way we perceive ourselves, self-esteem is the evaluative judgement of our worth, and self-efficacy (Bandura) is belief in our ability to succeed.
Self-regulation means managing one's own behaviour; techniques include self-observation, self-instruction and self-reinforcement; Indian culture tends to have a more flexible, relational self than the individualistic Western self.
Culture shapes the self: collectivist cultures emphasise the family and group, while individualistic cultures emphasise personal goals.

Approaches to personality

Type approaches: Charaka's tridosha (vata, pitta, kapha) and the three gunas (sattva, rajas, tamas) in Indian tradition; Hippocrates's four humours; Sheldon's body types; Jung's introverts and extraverts; Friedman and Rosenman's Type A and Type B.
Trait approaches: Allport (cardinal, central, secondary traits), Cattell (16 source traits, 16PF), Eysenck (extraversion-introversion, neuroticism, psychoticism), and the Big Five (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism).
Freud's psychodynamic theory describes id, ego and superego, defence mechanisms (repression, projection, denial, reaction formation, rationalisation) and psychosexual stages; humanistic theorists (Rogers, Maslow) stress the self and self-actualisation. Assessment uses self-reports (MMPI, EPQ, 16PF), projective tests (Rorschach inkblots, TAT, sentence completion) and behavioural ratings and observation.

Key terms

Self-concept: the way a person perceives and describes oneself
Self-esteem: a person's evaluation of their own worth
Self-efficacy: belief in one's ability to succeed in a task
Trait: a relatively stable and consistent personality characteristic
Defence mechanism: an unconscious way of reducing anxiety by distorting reality

Important questions with answers

What is self-esteem?2 marks

Self-esteem is the value judgement a person makes about their own worth or competence. High self-esteem is related to confidence and well-being, while low self-esteem may be linked to anxiety and poor performance.

Explain the id, ego and superego.3 marks

According to Freud, the id is the source of instinctive energy and works on the pleasure principle, seeking immediate satisfaction; the ego works on the reality principle and finds realistic ways to satisfy the id; the superego is the moral part of personality, representing internalised values and conscience.

Describe the methods of personality assessment.5 marks

Personality can be assessed by several methods. Self-report measures ask people to answer questions about themselves. Examples include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), widely used to identify psychological disorders; the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), which measures extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism; and Cattell's 16PF. They are easy to administer and score, but are affected by social desirability, where people give socially acceptable answers, and acquiescence, a tendency to agree. Projective techniques are based on the psychoanalytic idea that unconscious motives can be revealed when people respond to ambiguous stimuli. In the Rorschach inkblot test, people describe what they see in inkblots; in the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), they write stories about pictures; other methods include sentence completion and draw-a-person tests. They provide rich information but require trained experts and are hard to score objectively. Behavioural analysis uses interviews, observation, ratings, nomination by peers and situational tests to study behaviour in actual or created situations. Each method has strengths and limitations, so psychologists often combine several methods for a fuller picture.

Quick revision

Self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-regulation.
Type approaches including Indian typologies.
Trait approaches and the Big Five.
Freud, humanistic theories, assessment methods.

Exam tips

Learn the Big Five with the acronym OCEAN.
Match id (pleasure principle), ego (reality principle), superego (morality).

Practice MCQs

Belief in one's ability to succeed in a task is
1. self-esteem
2. self-control
3. self-concept
4. self-efficacy
Show answer
Answer: (d) self-efficacy. Bandura proposed it.
The Rorschach inkblot test is a
1. self-report test
2. aptitude test
3. projective test
4. intelligence test
Show answer
Answer: (c) projective test. Ambiguous stimuli reveal unconscious content.
The part of personality that works on the pleasure principle is the
1. ego
2. id
3. superego
4. self
Show answer
Answer: (b) id. It seeks immediate gratification.
The 'Big Five' factor that refers to being organised and responsible is
1. openness
2. neuroticism
3. agreeableness
4. conscientiousness
Show answer
Answer: (d) conscientiousness. It predicts job performance.
The 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire was developed by
1. Allport
2. Raymond Cattell
3. Eysenck
4. Jung
Show answer
Answer: (b) Raymond Cattell. It measures source traits.
People who are competitive, impatient and time-pressured are described as
1. Type A
2. Type B
3. introverts
4. Type C only
Show answer
Answer: (a) Type A. Friedman and Rosenman linked Type A to heart disease risk.
A student who failed an exam saying 'the paper was unfair anyway' is using
1. rationalisation
2. projection
3. denial
4. sublimation
Show answer
Answer: (a) rationalisation. A plausible excuse protects self-esteem.
The Indian concept of the three gunas describes
1. blood groups
2. sattva, rajas and tamas as qualities shaping personality
3. types of intelligence
4. stages of memory
Show answer
Answer: (b) sattva, rajas and tamas as qualities shaping personality. It is an Indian typology.

All chapters of Class 12 Psychology

Written by Kundali IQ from standard, well-established facts to help with revision. This is not an official NCERT publication; always read your textbook too.