Psychology Important 6 marks Questions and Answers Class 12

List of Questions and Answers

Q 1. Explain the term dissociation. Discuss the various forms of dissociation. (Chapter 4 : Psychological Disorders)

Ans:
Dissociation can be viewed as a severe connections between ideas and emotions.
Dissociation involves feelings of unreality, estrangement, depersonalisation, and sometimes a loss or shift of identity.
Four conditions are included in this group:
Dissociative amnesia

  • This disorder is characterised by extensive but selective memory loss that has no known organic cause (e.g., head injury).
  • Some people cannot remember anything about their past. Others can no longer recall specific events, people, places, or objects, while their memory for other events remains intact.
  • This disorder is often associated with an overwhelming stress.
Dissociative fugue
  • This disorder has, as its essential feature, an unexpected travel away from home and workplace, the assumption of a new identity, and the inability to recall the previous identity.
  • The fugue usually ends when the person suddenly ‘wakes up’ with no memory of the events that occurred during the fugue.
Dissociative identity disorder
  • This disorder often referred to as multiple personality, is the most dramatic of the dissociative disorders. It is often associated with traumatic experiences in childhood.
  • In this disorder, the person assumes alternate personalities that may or may not be aware of each other.
Depersonalisation
  • This disorder involves a dreamlike state in which the person has a sense of being separated both from self and from reality.
  • In depersonalisation, there is a change of self-perception, and the person’s sense of reality is temporarily lost or changed.

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Q 2. Explain how intelligence is the result of heredity and environment. (Chapter 1 : Variations in Psychological Attributes)

Ans:
To know about the hereditary and environment influences on intelligence, the analysis is conducted mainly on twins and adopted children.
The observation are as follows:

  • The intelligence of identical twins brought up together mostly shows 90% similarity.
  • Twins separated in their childhood also shows similarity in terms of behaviour, personality and intellectual characteristics.
  • The intelligence of identical twins brought up in different environments is almost 72%.
  • Fraternal twins brought up together shows intelligence similarity of about 60%.
  • Brothers and sisters brought up together shows intelligence similarity of about 50%.
  • Siblings which are brought up separately shows intelligence similarity of about 25%.
  • In case of adopted children intelligence is more close towards their biological parents rather than adoptive parents.As they grow , they slowly start picking up and get closer with intelligence of their adoptive parents.
  • Children which are comes from deprived homes and later adopted in families having ,good food , good family background and quality schooling makes their intelligence improved.
So mostly all Psychologists come to a conclusion that intelligence is a product of complex interaction of heredity (nature) and environment (nurture).

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Q 3. Discuss briefly the techniques used in behaviour therapy. (Chapter 5 : Therapeutic Approaches)

Ans:
The principles of behaviour techniques are to reduce the arousal level of the client, alter behaviour through classical conditioning or operant conditioning with different contingencies of reinforcements, as well as to use vicarious learning procedures, if necessary.
Here are the list of behavioural techniques discussed:
Negative reinforcement

  • Negative reinforcement refers to the undesired response with an outcome that is painful or not liked. An example of negative reinforcement is the teacher scolds a child who shouts in class.
Aversive Conditioning
  • Aversive conditioning refers to repeated association of undesired response with an aversive consequence. An example of aversive conditioning is a alcoholic is given a mild electric shock and asked to smell the alcohol.
  • With repeated pairings the smell of alcohol is aversive as the pain of the shock is associated with it and the person will give up alcohol.
Positive reinforcement
  • Let us understand positive reinforcement with a help of an example. A child does not do her homework, her mother uses positive reinforcement and prepares the child's favourite dish whenever the home work is done on time.
  • The positive reinforcement of food will increase the behaviour of doing homework at the appointed time.
  • Persons with behavioural problems can be given a token as a reward every time a wanted behaviour occurs.
  • The tokens are collected and exchanged for a reward such as an outing for the patient or a treat for the child. This is known as token economy.

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Q 4. Explain the importance of therapeutic relationship in psychotherapy. State the ethical standards in psychotherapy.
(Chapter 5 : Therapeutic Approaches)

Ans:
The special relationship between the client and the therapist is known as the therapeutic relationship or alliance..

  • The first is the contractual nature of the relationship in which two willing individuals, the client and the therapist, enter into a partnership which aims at helping the client overcome her/his problems.
  • The second is to have therapeutic relationship is the limited duration of the therapy. This alliance lasts until the client becomes able to deal with her/his problems and take control of her/ his life.
  • The relationship between the client and the therapist is based on trust and because of that client is able to unburden herself/himself to the therapist and confide her/his psychological and personal problems to the latter.
Some of the ethical standards that need to be practiced by professional psychotherapists are :
  • Informed consent needs to be taken.
  • Confidentiality of the client should be maintained.
  • Alleviating personal distress and suffering should be the goal of all attempts of the therapist.
  • Integrity of the practitioner-client relationship is important.
  • Respect for human rights and dignity.
  • Professional competence and skills are essential.

Q 5. Describe any THREE behavioural disorders prevalent among children.
(Chapter 4 : Psychological Disorders)

Ans:
The most important three behavioural disorders among children are Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder.
Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder The two main features of ADHD are Inattention and Hyperactivity.
Inattention
Children who are inattentive find it difficult to sustain mental effort during work or play.

  • They have a hard time keeping their minds on any one thing or in following instructions.
  • Common complaints are that the child does not listen,cannot concentrate, does not follow instructions, is disorganised, easily distracted, forgetful, does not finish assignments, and is quick to lose interest in boring activities.
Hyperactivity
Children showing hyperactivity are unable to control their reactions or think before they act.
  • they are impulsive and find it impossible to sit still through a class.
  • minor mishaps like knocking things over or major mishaps like serious injury due to accident may occur.
  • they may fidget, squirm, climb, or run around aimlessly and talk incessantly.
  • they are described as "driven by motor" and "always on the go" by their parents and teachers.
  • boys are four times more likely to be given this diagnosis than girls.
Oppositional Defiant Disorder
  • With Oppositional defiant disorder they show age-inappropriate amounts of stubbornness, are irritable, defiant, disobedient, and behave in a hostile manner.
Conduct Disorder
  • Refers to age inappropriate actions and attitudes that violate family expectations, societal norms, and the personal or property rights of others.
  • The behaviours typical of conduct disorder include aggressive actions that cause or threaten harm to people or animals, non-aggressive conduct that causes property damage, major deceitfulness or theft, and serious rule violations.

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Q 6. Explain the nature of stress giving examples. Discuss avoidance-oriented strategy of coping.
(Chapter 3 : Meeting Life Challenges)

Ans:
Nature of stress

  • The word stress has its origin in the Latin words ‘strictus’, meaning tight or narrow and ‘stringere’, the verb meaning to tighten.
  • Stressors are events that cause our body to give the stress response. Such events include noise, crowding, a bad relationship, or the daily commuting to school or office. The reaction to external stressors is called ‘strain’.
  • Hans Selye the father of modern stress research defined stress as “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand” that is, regardless of the cause of the threat, the individual will respond with the same physiological pattern of reactions.
  • Stress is not a factor that resides in the individual or the environment, instead it is embedded in an ongoing process that involves individuals transacting with their social and cultural environments, making appraisals of those encounters and attempting to cope with the issues that arise.

Few examples that can cause stress are :
  • Death of dear one.
  • Personal illness or injury
  • Failure in examination
  • appearing for examination or interview

Avoidance-oriented Strategy
  • This involves denying or minimising the seriousness of the situation;
  • it also involves conscious suppression of stressful thoughts and their replacement by self protective thoughts.
  • Examples of this are watching TV, phone up a friend, or try to be with other people.

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Q 7. Why do conflicts arise between groups and how can they be resolved?
(Chapter 7: Social Influence and Group Processes)

Ans:
Mentioned below are some of the major reasons for group conflicts:

  • One major reason is lack of communication and faulty communication among parties which leads to suspicion, lack of trust.
  • Comparison of one group members with other group members, and having a feeling that they are not doing well in comparison to other groups.These leads to feelings of deprivation and discontentment, which may trigger off conflict.
  • Another cause of conflict is one group feels superior to another group and feels that what they say should be done.
  • A feeling that the other group does not respect the norms of my group, and actually violates those norms.
  • Desire for retaliation for some harm done in the past could be another reason for conflict.
  • Biased perceptions are at the root of most conflicts. As already mentioned earlier, feelings of ‘they’ and ‘we’ lead to biased perceptions.
Strategies to Resolve Group Conflicts are as follows:
Many strategies have been suggested by psychologists. Some of these are :
  • Introduction of superordinate goals: by introducing superordinate goals, intergroup conflict can be reduced.A superordinate goal is mutually beneficial to both parties, hence both groups work cooperatively.
  • Altering perceptions: Conflicts can also be reduced by altering perceptions and reactions through persuasion, educational and media appeals, and portrayal of groups differently in society.
  • Increasing intergroup contacts: Conflict can also be reduced by increasing contacts between the groups.
  • Redrawing group boundaries: creating conditions where groups boundaries are redefined and groups come to perceive themselves as belonging to a common group.
  • Negotiations: Conflict can also be resolved through negotiations and third party interventions,resolve conflict by trying to find mutually acceptable solutions. Negotiation refers to reciprocal communications so as to reach an agreement in situations in which there is a conflict.

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Q 8. Explain the strategies to cope with stress.Give examples from daily life.
(Chapter 3: Meeting Life Challenges)

Ans:
The three coping strategies given by Endler and Parker are:
Task-oriented Strategy

  • This involves obtaining information about the stressful situation and about alternative courses of action and their probable outcome.
  • it also involves deciding priorities and acting so as to deal directly with the stressful situation.
  • For example, schedule my time better, or think about how I have solved similar problems.
Emotion-oriented Strategy
  • This can involve efforts to maintain hope and to control one’s emotions;
  • It can also involve venting feelings of anger and frustration, or deciding that nothing can be done to change things.
  • For example, tell myself that it is not really happening to me, or worry about what I am going to do.
Avoidance-oriented Strategy
  • This involves denying or minimising the seriousness of the situation;
  • it also involves conscious suppression of stressful thoughts and their replacement by self-protective thoughts.
  • Examples of this are watching TV, phone up a friend, or try to be with other people.

Q 9. Explain mental disorders from the perspective of any three psychological models.
(Chapter 4 : Psychological Disorders)

Ans:
Here are three psychological models explaining mental disorders.
Psychodynamic Model

  • Psychodynamic theorists believe that behaviour, whether normal or abnormal, is determined by psychological forces within the person of which s/he is not consciously aware.
  • These internal forces are considered dynamic, i.e. they interact with one another and their interaction gives shape to behaviour, thoughts and emotions.
  • This model was first formulated by Freud who believed that three central forces shape personality-instinctual needs, drives and impulses (id), rational thinking (ego), and moral standards (superego).
  • Freud stated that abnormal behaviour is a symbolic expression of unconscious mental conflicts that can be generally traced to early childhood or infancy.
Behavioural Model
  • This model states that both normal and abnormal behaviours are learned and psychological disorders are the result of learning maladaptive ways of behaving.
  • The model concentrates on behaviours that are learned through conditioning and proposes that what has been learned can be unlearned.
  • Learning can take place by classical conditioning (temporal association in which two events repeatedly occur close together in time), operant conditioning (behaviour is followed by a reward), and social learning (learning by imitating others’ behaviour).
  • These three types of conditioning account for behaviour, whether adaptive or maladaptive.
Cognitive Model
  • This model states that abnormal functioning can result from cognitive problems.
  • People may hold assumptions and attitudes about themselves that are irrational and inaccurate.
  • People may also repeatedly think in illogical ways and make over generalisations, that is, they may draw broad, negative conclusions on the basis of a single insignificant event.

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Q 10. Explain group polarisation. Give reasons for occurrence of group polarisation.
(Chapter 7: Social Influence and Group Processes)

Ans:
A group gets stronger as a result of discussions in the group. This strengthening of the group's initial position as a result of group interaction and discussion is referred to as group polarisation.

  • For example, a decision is to be taken whether a school has to be established in a village.Such a decision has to be a group decision.
  • Another example an employee who has been caught taking bribe or engaging in some other unethical act.Her/his colleagues are asked to decide on what punishment s/he should be given.They may let her/him go scot-free or decide to terminate her/his services instead of imposing a punishment.
  • Group gets strengths as the discussion in the group takes place.
Reasons for group polarisation:
Let us take an example based on which will analyze the reasons for group polarisation.
An example is whether capital punishment should be there or not.Suppose your view is in favour of capital punishment , when this same issue is discussed with other like minded people it will get more stronger.
  • In the company of like-minded people, you are likely to hear newer arguments favouring your viewpoints. This will make you more favourable towards capital punishment.
  • When you find others also favouring capital punishment, you feel that this view is validated by the public. This is a sort of bandwagon effect.
  • When you find people having similar views, you are likely to perceive them as ingroup. You start identifying with the group, begin showing conformity, and as a consequence your views become strengthened.

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Q 11. Explain the causes of group conflict. Discuss any three strategies for resolving conflicts.
(Chapter 6: Attitude and Social Cognition)

Ans:

  • "Social cognition" refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information related to social objects.
  • These include all the processes that help in understanding, explaining and interpreting social behaviour.
  • The processing of information related to social objects (particularly individuals, groups, people, relationships, social issues, and the like) differs from the processing of information related to physical objects.
  • People as social objects may themselves change as the cognitive process takes place.
  • For example a teacher who observes a student in school may draw conclusions differently than that of her mother at home.The student may show a difference in her/his behaviour, depending on who is watching her/him the teacher or the mother.
Schemas in Social Cognition
Social cognition is guided by mental units called schemas.
  • A schema is defined as a mental structure that provides a framework, set of rules or guidelines for processing information about any object.
  • Schemas (or ‘schemata’) are the basic units stored in our memory, and function as shorthand ways of processing information, thus reducing the time and mental effort required in cognition.
  • Most of the schemas are in the form of categories or classes. Schemas that function in the form of categories are called prototypes which are the entire set of features or qualities that help us to define an object completely.
  • In social cognition, category-based schemas that are related to groups of people are called stereotypes.
  • An example is, suppose you have to define a group G. If you have never directly known or interacted with a member of this group, you will most likely use your ‘general knowledge’ about the typical member of group G. To that information you will add your likes and dislikes.If you have heard more positive things about group G, then your social schema about the whole group will be more positive and negative if you have heard negative information about that group i.e negative stereotype.

Q 12.Distinguish between eustress and distress giving suitable examples. Discuss the different sources of psychological stress.
(Chapter 3 : Meeting Life Challenges)

Ans:

Eustress Distress
Eustress is the term used to describe the level of stress that is good for you and is one of a person’s best assets for achieving peak performance and managing minor crisis. Distress is the pattern of responses an organism makes to stimulus event that disturbs the equilibrium and exceeds a person’s ability to cope.
Eustress is a positive stress. Distress is a negative stress.
An Example of Eustress can be exercising to reduce weight. An example of Distress is an injury that caused during exercise.
Sources of Psychological Stress
Psychological stress are the ones we generate in our minds and they are like worrying about problems, anxiety, or getting depressed. These problems are unique to the person experiencing it.Some of the important sources of psychological stress are frustration, conflicts,internal and social pressures.
Frustration: is resulted when we block our needs and motives from something or someone that comes in between achieving our desired goal.There could be a number of causes of frustration such as social discrimination, interpersonal hurt, low grades in school, etc.
Conflicts:can occur between two or more incompatible needs or motives for example whether to study dance or pshychology.You may want to take up a job or study further. There may be conflict when you are pressurized to take any action which is against your values.
Internal Pressures:they come up from beliefs based upon expectations from inside us to ourselves such as, "I must do everything perfectly". Such expectations can only lead to disappointment.Many of us drive ourselves ruthlessly towards achieving unrealistically high standards in achieving our goals.
Social Pressures:can come up from people who make excessive demands on us. This can cause even greater pressure when we have to work with them. Also, there are people with whom we face interpersonal difficulties, "a personality clash".

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Q 13. Why do people conform? How is conformity different from compliance?Explain.
(Chapter 7 : Social Influence and Group Processes)

Ans:

  • People conform because when they are in a group and are dependent on the decision of the group, which means behaving according to the group norm and as per the expectations of other group members.
  • People who do not conform get noticed more than those who do conform.
  • An example of this case is consider some of your friends come to you with a letter of protest against a rule that has been recently announced, i.e. banning use of mobile phones in the school.Personally you feel the idea is very good.But if you don;t sign you know that you will lose many friends and get a bad name for not keeping "student unity".
  • If you sign the letter as yes is means you expressed a form of social influence called ‘conformity’ which means behaving according to the group norm.
Conformity Compliance
Conformity is a social influence that makes you behave according to the group norm. Compliance refers to behaving in a particular way in response to a request made by someone.
In the example described above , you will sign the letter so that you don’t go against your friends. In the example described above, you may sign the letter with the thought that you were accepting the request, not because you agree with other students, but because you have been requested to do so by a significant member.

Q 14. Explain abnormal behaviour from the perspective of socio-cultural model.
(Chapter 4: Psychological Disorders)

Ans:

  • According to the socio-cultural model, abnormal behaviour is best understood in light of the social and cultural forces that influence an individual.
  • As behaviour is shaped by societal forces, factors such as family structure and communication, social networks, societal conditions, and societal labels and roles become more important.
  • It has been found that certain family systems are likely to produce abnormal functioning in individual members and some families have trapped structure where the members are over involved with other’s activities, thoughts and feelings.
  • Children from this kind of family may have difficulty in becoming independent in life.
  • Studies have shown that people who are isolated and lack social support, i.e. strong and fulfilling interpersonal relationships in their lives are likely to become more depressed and remain depressed longer than those who have good friendships.
  • Socio-cultural theorists also believe that abnormal functioning is influenced by the societal labels and roles assigned to troubled people.
  • When people break the norms of their society, they are called deviant and "mentally ill".
  • Such labels tend to stick so that the person may be viewed as ‘crazy’ and encouraged to act sick.
  • The person gradually learns to accept and play the sick role, and functions in a disturbed manner.

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Q 15. Explain diathesis-stress model of abnormal behaviour taking examples from daily life.
(Chapter 4: Psychological Disorders)

Ans:

  • This model states that psychological disorders develop when a diathesis (biological predisposition to the disorder) is set off by a stressful situation.
  • This model has three components. The first is the diathesis or the presence of some biological aberration which may be inherited.
  • The second component is that the diathesis may carry a vulnerability to develop a psychological disorder. This means that the person is "at risk" or "predisposed" to develop the disorder.
  • The third component is the presence of pathogenic stressors, i.e. factors/stressors that may lead to psychopathology.
  • If such "at risk" persons are exposed to these stressors, their predisposition may actually evolve into a disorder.
  • This model has been applied to several disorders including anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia.