Psychology

Chapter 1 of Class 12 Psychology explores how individuals differ in psychological attributes such as intelligence, aptitude, interest, personality, and values, and examines the major theories and methods used to assess these differences.

• 1Individual differences refer to distinctiveness and variations in people's characteristics and behaviour patterns; situationism holds that external circumstances, not just personal traits, shape behaviour.
• 2Psychological attributes (intelligence, aptitude, interest, personality, values) are assessed formally via psychological tests, interviews, case studies, observation, and self-reports.
• 3Spearman (1927) proposed the two-factor theory of intelligence using factor analysis: a general g-factor common to all performances, plus specific s-factors for particular abilities.
• 4Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences describes eight independent types: Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Musical, Bodily-Kinaesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalistic.
• 5Sternberg's triarchic theory (1985) identifies three intelligences: Componential (analytical), Experiential (creative), and Contextual (practical/'street smartness').

Chapter 2 of Class 12 Psychology covers the concepts of self and personality — including self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-regulation — along with major approaches to studying personality (type, trait, psychodynamic, behavioural, cultural, and humanistic) and techniques for personality assessment such as self-report measures, projective techniques, and behavioural analysis.

• 1Self has two identities: personal identity (unique attributes such as name, qualities, beliefs) and social identity (links to a cultural or social group such as religion or region); the boundary between self and other is relatively fixed in Western culture but shifting in Indian culture, making many Western cultures individualistic and many Asian cultures collectivistic.
• 2Self-esteem is the value judgment a person makes about her or his own worth; studies indicate that by age 6 to 7 children form self-esteem in four areas — academic competence, social competence, physical/athletic competence, and physical appearance.
• 3Self-efficacy is based on Bandura's social learning theory and refers to a person's belief in her or his own ability to control life outcomes; self-regulation involves three psychological techniques: observation of one's own behaviour, self-instruction, and self-reinforcement.
• 4Personality is derived from the Latin word 'persona' (the mask used by actors in Roman theatre) and is defined as unique and relatively stable qualities that characterise an individual's behaviour across situations over time; it has both physical and psychological components.
• 5Type approaches classify people into broad categories: Hippocrates proposed four humour-based types (sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric); the Charak Samhita classifies people as vata, pitta, or kapha based on tridosha; Sheldon proposed endomorphic, mesomorphic, and ectomorphic types; Jung proposed introverts and extraverts; Friedman and Rosenman identified Type-A (prone to hypertension and coronary heart disease) and Type-B personalities.

Chapter 3 of Class 12 Psychology covers stress — its nature, types, and sources — along with its effects on health, coping strategies including GAS and appraisal theory, life skills, and factors that promote positive health and well-being.

• 1Stress is defined as the pattern of responses an organism makes to a stimulus that disturbs equilibrium and exceeds its ability to cope; the word derives from Latin 'strictus' (tight) and 'stringere' (to tighten).
• 2Hans Selye, father of modern stress research, defined stress as 'the non-specific response of the body to any demand' and identified the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): alarm reaction, resistance, and exhaustion stages.
• 3Lazarus distinguished primary appraisal (perceiving an event as positive, neutral, or negative) from secondary appraisal (assessing one's coping resources — mental, physical, personal, or social).
• 4Eustress is the term for beneficial stress that aids peak performance; it has the potential to turn into distress, which causes the body's wear and tear.
• 5Three types of stress are physical/environmental, psychological (frustration, conflicts, internal and social pressures), and social; sources include life events, daily hassles, and traumatic events.

Chapter 4 of NCERT Class 12 Psychology covers psychological disorders — their definition using the 'four Ds' (deviance, distress, dysfunction, danger), classification via DSM-5 and ICD-10, the models explaining abnormal behaviour, and the major disorder categories including anxiety, schizophrenia, depressive, neurodevelopmental, and substance-related disorders.

• 1Psychological disorders are defined by four Ds: deviance (unusual behaviour), distress (unpleasant to the person and others), dysfunction (interfering with daily activities), and danger (possibly harmful).
• 2Two major classification systems are used: DSM-5 published by the American Psychiatric Association, and ICD-10 prepared by the World Health Organisation — ICD-10 is the scheme officially used in India.
• 3The diathesis-stress model explains disorders as arising when a biological predisposition (diathesis) is triggered by pathogenic stressors; it has been applied to anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia.
• 4Anxiety disorders are the most common category of psychological disorders; types include generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, specific phobias, social phobia, agoraphobia, and separation anxiety disorder.
• 5Schizophrenia symptoms fall into three categories: positive symptoms (excesses such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganised thinking), negative symptoms (deficits such as flat affect, poverty of speech, avolition), and psychomotor symptoms including catatonia.

Chapter 5 of Class 12 Psychology covers the major therapeutic approaches — psychodynamic, behaviour, cognitive, and humanistic-existential therapies — used to treat psychological disorders, along with alternative therapies like yoga and meditation, and the rehabilitation of the mentally ill.

• 1Psychotherapy is classified into three broad groups: psychodynamic, behaviour, and existential therapies — with psychodynamic emerging first chronologically, followed by behaviour therapy, then existential (also called the third force).
• 2Behaviour therapy applies learning theory principles; key techniques include systematic desensitisation (introduced by Wolpe), token economy, aversive conditioning, and the principle of reciprocal inhibition.
• 3Albert Ellis formulated Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) centred on the ABC (antecedent-belief-consequence) analysis; Aaron Beck's model identifies core schemas and negative automatic thoughts as sources of distress.
• 4Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is the most popular current therapy — a bio-psychosocial approach combining cognitive and behavioural techniques, with proven efficacy for anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and borderline personality.
• 5Humanistic-existential therapies include logotherapy by Victor Frankl (meaning making; Logos = Greek for soul), client-centred therapy by Carl Rogers (empathy; unconditional positive regard), and Gestalt therapy by Fritz and Laura Perls (self-awareness; gestalt = 'whole' in German).

This chapter explains what attitudes are, how they form through learning and social experience, and how they can be changed — covering the A-B-C components of attitudes, Fritz Heider's balance (P-O-X triangle), Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance, S.M. Mohsin's two-step concept, and how prejudice and discrimination arise from negative group attitudes.

• 1An attitude has three A-B-C components: Affective (emotional), Behavioural (conative, i.e. tendency to act), and Cognitive (thought); attitudes represent tendencies to behave, not behaviour itself.
• 2Attitudes have four properties: valence (positive or negative), extremeness (how positive or negative), simplicity or complexity/multiplexity (number of member-attitudes in the system), and centrality (how much one attitude influences others in the system).
• 3Attitudes are learned through association, reward and punishment, modelling (observing others), group or cultural norms, and exposure to information; key influencing factors are family and school environment, reference groups, personal experiences, and media.
• 4Fritz Heider's balance concept uses a P-O-X triangle (P = person, O = another person, X = attitude object) — attitude change occurs when the three-way relationship is imbalanced (all three negative, or two positive and one negative).
• 5Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance holds that when two cognitions within an attitude are dissonant, one changes toward consonance; the Festinger and Carlsmith experiment showed students paid $1 (vs $20) to lie about a boring experiment later recalled it as more interesting.

Chapter 7 explains what groups are, why people join them, how they form through stages identified by Tuckman, and how groups influence individual behaviour through social loafing and group polarisation.

• 1A group is defined as an organised system of two or more individuals who are interacting, interdependent, share common motives, have role relationships, and are regulated by norms — distinguishing them from crowds, audiences, and mobs.
• 2People join groups for six reasons: security, status, self-esteem, satisfaction of psychological and social needs, goal achievement, and access to knowledge and information.
• 3Group formation is facilitated by proximity, similarity, and common motives and goals; Tuckman identified five stages — forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.
• 4Group structure has four elements: roles (socially defined expectations), norms (agreed standards of behaviour), status (ascribed or achieved relative position), and cohesiveness (togetherness and mutual attraction among members).
• 5Irving Janis identified groupthink: in highly cohesive groups, the desire for unanimity overrides realistic appraisal of decisions, as illustrated by the Vietnam War escalation under President Lyndon Johnson from 1964 to 1967.