NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 19 Personality Assessment

NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 19 Personality Assessment Solutions to each chapter is provided in the list so that you can easily browse throughout different chapters NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 19 Personality Assessment and select need one. NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 19 Personality Assessment Question Answers Download PDF. NIOS Study Material of Class 12 Psychology Notes Paper 328.

NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 19 Personality Assessment

Join Telegram channel

Follow us:

Also, you can read the NIOS book online in these sections Solutions by Expert Teachers as per National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) Book guidelines. NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 19 Personality Assessment These solutions are part of NIOS All Subject Solutions. Here we have given NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 19 Personality Assessment, NIOS Senior Secondary Course Psychology Solutions for All Chapter, You can practice these here.

Personality Assessment

Chapter: 19

PSYCHOLOGY

Intext Questions & Answers

Q.1. Briefly write how personality assessment is done in each of the following approaches: 

(i) Trait approach.

Ans. There are two ways of assessing personality traits. One method consists of asking a set of questions which a person has to answer about his/her opinions, feelings and actions. For this purpose, a personality inventory is used. In the second approach, some other person makes assessments about a person’s traits, based on prior knowledge about that person, or by direct observation of the person. This is called the rating scale approach.

Personality inventories are questionnaires where a person has to answer many questions about the way she/he reacts to different situations. A personality inventory may be designed to assess a single trait like extroversion-introversion, or it may assess a number of traits. For example, if a person answers “Yes” to the question”Do you stay in the background in social situations?” this is an indication of introversion. Of course, the assessment will be based on a number of questions relating to different types of situations, not just one question. The Sixteen Factor Personality Questionnaire (16 PF) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality.

Inventory (MMPI) are two very well known inventories which are useful for obtaining information about a person’s traits. Inventories are very useful, but when a person has to report about his/her reactions, sometimes we can be biassed about our own characteristics. To overcome this problem, another way of assessing personality traits has been developed based on rating scales. For example a person may be asked to describe the self-confidence level of another person, using of 7 point scale ranging from very low “(1) to very high “(7).

There are certain conditions which the raters must fulfil, for the rating to be useful and valid. The raters must (a) be able to understand the scale, (b) know the person well about whom the rating has to be made, and, (c) not get biassed in his/ her judgment about the person, and rate in a favourable or unfavourable way.

(ii) Psychoanalytic approach.

Ans. The psychoanalytic approach focuses on a person’s unconscious conflicts and motives. But the unconscious part of a person’s personality, (the major part in this view), is hidden from one’s self awareness. Psychoanalysts, therefore, have to use indirect symbolic information and interpret this to uncover the unconscious conflicts and motives. This approach is called projective technique.

In this approach, if the psychoanalyst wants to obtain knowledge of unconscious processes in a person’s psyche, she/ he presents certain ambiguous material and asks the person to describe what she/he sees. This ambiguous material may be on ink-blot, or a picture which leads to the person “reading” or projecting some meaning into it from personal experience or fantasy. In this way, the person’s unconscious mind is tapped and something is revealed about it. The ‘Rorschach Test’ and the ‘Thematic Apperception Test’ (TAT) are two well known projective tests. The former is based on ink-blots and the latter consists of pictures containing human characters. For example, a TAT picture may have an outline of boy from the back, looking at the sun. On being asked what she/he sees, a person may respond that “The boy is thinking that she/he will achieve great things in life”. In this way the person may have projected his/ her own dream of achieving great things in life. 

(iii) Humanistic approach.

Ans. The humanistic approach to personality focuses on how a person experiences her/his world. Therefore, assessment here is concerned with understanding the perception of a person about his/her life situation and experience. A number of methods have been developed to measure a person’s self-concept. One approach is based on the person selecting, from a number of descriptive sentences, those which describe him/her in an accurate way. (e.g., “I am a confident person”, “I am often nervous”, “I am a sincere and hard working student, etc.). Another approach focuses on a person’s willingness to express his/her inner nature or self to others. This approach is based on the understanding that the tendency for very high or very low level of self-disclosure are both an indication of emotional immaturity.

(iv) Guna approach.

Ans. In the last lesson you also studied about the Indian approach to personality which emphasizes the three Gunas: Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. In order to assess a person’s nature based on this conception, we need to have an understanding of which Guna is predominant in a person’s life, in thought, speech and action, and then which is less dominant, and finally which is the least. For example, a person who is extremely truthful, detached, and helpful is likely to be high on Sattva. In order to assess which Guna is predominant in an individual’s personality, we have to obtain combined information using questionnaires, observation etc. Some inventories have been developed which gives us some information about the way the Gunas are active in an individual’s personality.