CHAPTER-1 PSYCHOLOGICAL

ATTRIBUTES
• Individual differences refer to distinctiveness and variations among people’s characteristics and
behaviour patterns.
• Approaches explaining individual differences in psychological functioning.
1. Trait Approach: Personal traits cause change in behaviours. [INTERNAL FACTORS]
2. Situationism is a view which states that situations and circumstances in which one is
placed to influence one’s behaviour. [EXTERNAL FACTORS]
3. The situationist perspective views human behaviour relatively more as a result of influence of
external (situational) factors than personality traits.
• Assessment:
1. Predict future behaviour intervention to affect a change in behaviour.
2. First step in understanding a psychological attribute.
• Formal Assessment: Objective, standardised, organised’psychologists are trained in making formal
assessment.
• Inforinal Assessment: It varies from case to case/one assessor to another—open to subjective
interpretation.
• Attributes:
1. Attributes chosen for assessment depend upon the purpose, e.g, improvement of a weak student
intellectual strengths and weaknesses are measured.
2. An attribute will be said to exist in a person only if it can be measured by using scientific
procedures.
• Some Domains of Psychological Attributes
• Assessment Methods

1. Wechsler:
• Definition: The global and aggregate capacity of an individual to think rationally, act purposefully,
and to deal effectively with his/her environment.
• Understood intelligence in terms of its functionality, i.e., its value for adaption to the environment.
• Intelligence test most widely used.
2. Gardner and Sternberg:
• An intelligent individual not only adapts to the environment but also actively modifies or shapes it.
• Approaches to Study Intelligence

A. Psychometric Approach:
1. Uni/One-Factor Theory (Alfred Binet):
• Definition: The ability to judge well, understand well, and reason well.
• First psychologist who formalised the concept of intelligence in terms of mental operations.
• Differentiating more intelligent from less intelligent individuals.
• Conceptualised intelligence as consisting of one similar set of abilities which can be used for solving
any or every problem in an individual’s environment.
2. Two-Factor Theory (Charles Spearman) [1927]:
• Employed a statistical method called factor analysis.
• Intelligence consists of a general factor (G-factor) and specific factors (S-factor).
(i) G-Factor: It includes mental operations which are primary and common to all performances.
(ii) S-Factor: It includes specific abilities which allow individuals to excel in their respective domains
3. Theory of Primary Mental Abilities (Louis Thurstone):
(i) Verbal Comprehension (grasping meaning of words, concepts, and ideas).
(ii) Numerical Abilities (speed and accuracy in numerical and computational skills).
(iii) Spatial Relations (visualizing patterns and forms).
(iv) Perceptual Speed To speed in perceiving details).
(v) Word Fluency (using words fluently and flexibly).
(vi) Memory (accuracy in recalling information).
(vii) Inductive Reasoning (deriving general rules from presented facts).
4. Hierarchical Model of Intelligence (Arthur Jensen):
Abilities operates at two levels:
Level I – Associative learning. [output is equal to input, rote memory]
Level II – Cognitive competence. [output is more than input]
5. Structure of Intellect Model (J.P. Guilford) [1988]:
• Classifies intellectual traits among three dimensions—operations, contents and products
(i) Operation: what the respondent does, e.g., cognition, memory retention.
(ii) Contents: the nature of materials or information on which intellectual
• operations are performed, e.g., visual, auditory.
(iii) Products: the form in which information is processed by the respondent, e.g., relations, systems,
transformations.
• Classification includes 6x5x6 categories—the model has 180 cells.
• Each cell is expected to have at least one (can have more than one) factor or ability and is described
in terms of all three dimensions.
B. Information-Processing Approach:
1. Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner):
• Intelligence is not a single entity; distinct types of intelligences exist independent of each other.
• Different types of intelligences interact and work together to find a solution to a problem.
• Studied persons who had shown exceptional abilities in their respective areas and described eight
types of intelligence.
(i) Linguistic: The capacity to use language fluently and flexibly to express one’s thinking and
understand other. Persons high on this ‘word-smart’, eigi, poets and writers.
(ii) Logical-Mathematical: Skills in problem solving, thinking logically and critically and abstract
reasoning , eigi, scientists.
(iii) Spatial: The abilities involved in forming, using and transforming mental images (visual images
and patterns), eigi, sculptors, painters, architects, interior decorators.
(iv) Musical: The capacity to produce, create and manipulate musical rhythms and patterns.
(v) Bodily-Kinaesthetic: The use of the whole body or portions of it creatively and
flexibly for display, construction of products and problem solving, eigi, athletes, dancers, actors. .
(vi) Interpersonal: Skill of an individual to understand the needs, motives feelings and behaviours of
other people for better understanding and relationship. High among psychologists counsellors
politicians.
(vii) INTRA PERSONAL: Refers to the awareness of one’s own feelings, motives, desires,
knowledge of one’s internal strengths and limitations and using that knowledge to effectively relate to
others, eigi, philosophers.
(viii) Naturalistic: Complete awareness of our relationship with the natural world and sensitivity to the
features of the natural world, eigi, botanists, zoologists.
2. Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Robert Sternberg) [1985]:
• Definition: The ability to adapt, to shape and select environment to accomplish one’s goals and those
of one’s society and culture.
• Three Basic Types of Intelligence:
(i) Componential Intelligence/Analytical Intelligence: The analysis of informa¬tion to solve problems
Three components:
(a) Knowledge Acquisition—responsible for learning and acquisition of the ways of doing things.
(b) Meta or Higher Order Component—planning concerning what to do and how to do it.
(c) Performance Component—actually doing things .
(ii) Experiential/Creative Intelligence: Using past experiences creatively to solve novel problems.
— Ability to integrate different experiences in an original way to make new discoveries and
inventions.
— Quickly find out what information is crucial in a given situation.
(iii) Contextual/Practical Intelligence: The ability to deal with environmental demands encountered on
a daily basis—
— may be called ‘street smartness’ or ‘business sense’
— easily adapt to their present environment/select a more favourable environment, modify the
environment to fit their needs.
3. Planning, Attention-arousal and Simultaneous-Successive (PASS) Model of Intelligence (J.P. Das,
Jack Nagliery, Kirby) [1994]
• Intellectual activity involves the interdependent functioning of three neurological systems, called the
functional units of brain
• These units are responsible for—
(i) Arousal/Attention:
— Arousal and attention enable a person to process information.
— An optimal level of arousal focuses our attention to the relevant aspects of a problem.
— Too much or too little arousal would interfere with attention and attend to stimuli.
(ii) Simultaneous and Successive Processing:
— Simultaneous: Perceive the relations among various concepts and integrate – them into a
meaningful pattern for comprehension, e.g., RSPM.
— Successive: Remember all the information serially so that the recall of one leads to the recall of
another, e.g., learning of digits, letters. .
(iii) Planning:
— Allows us to think of the possible courses of action, implement them to reach a target, and evaluate
their effectiveness.
— If a plan does not work, it is modified to suit the requirements of the task or situation.
• These PASS processes operate on a knowledge base developed either formally (by reading, writing,
and experimenting) or informally from the environment.
• These processes are interactive and dynamic in nature, yet each has its own distinctive function.
Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) (Das and Nagliery):
• Battery of tests meant for individuals between 5-18 years of age.
• Consists of verbal as well as non-verbal tasks that measure basic cognitive functions presumed to be
independent of schooling.
• Results of assessment can be used to remedy cognitive deficits of children with learning problems.
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE:
The evidence for hereditary influences on intelligence comes mainly from studies on twins and
adopted children.
CORRELATION OF INTELLIGENCE
• Separated early in childhood-—show considerable similarity in their intellectual, personality and
behavioural characteristics.
• Adopted Children—children’s intelligence is more similar to their biological rather than adoptive
parents.
• Role of Environment—as children grow in age, their intelligence level tends to move closer to that
of their adoptive parents.
• Disadvantaged Children—adopted into families with higher socio-economic status exhibit a large
increase in their intelligence scores.
1. Environmental deprivation lowers intelligence while rich nutrition, good family background, and
quality schooling increases intelligence.
2. There is a general consensus among psychologists that intelligence is a product of complex
interaction of heredity (nature) and environment (nurture).
3. Heredity sets a range within which an individual’s development is actually shaped by the support
and opportunities of the environment.
• Assessment of Intelligence
1905: Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon made the first successful attempt to formally measure
intelligence.
1908: Gave the concepts of Mental Age (MA) is the measure of a person’s intellectual development
relative to people of her/his age-group.
Chronological Age (CA) is the biological age from birth.
Retardation was being two mental age years below the chronological age.
1912: William Stern, a German psychologist, devised the concept of Intelligence Quotient (IQ). IQ
refers to ratio between MA and CA. Formula—mental age divided by chronological age, and
multiplied by 100 (to avoid the decimal point).
• Average IQ in the population is 100, irrespective of age.
• Frequency distribution for the IQ scores tends to approximate a bell-shaped curve, called the normal
curve—symmetrical around the central value, called the mean.

VARIATIONS IN INTELLIGENCE
1. Intelligence Deficiency (Mentally Retarded/Challenged):
The American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) views mental retardation as significantly
sub-average general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behaviour
and manifested during the developmental period.
In order to be judged as mentally retarded, a person must show:
(i) Significantly sub average intellectual functioning, e.g., IQ below 70.
(ii) Deficits in adaptive behaviour or the capacity to be independent and deal effectively with one’s
environment.
Deficits must be observed during the developmental period, i.e., between 0-18 years.

Mild retardation—development is typically slower than that of their peers but they can function quite
independently, hold jobs and families. Level of retardation increases—lag behind their peers in
language and motor skills, need to be trained in self-care skills and simple social and communication
skills.
2. Intellectual Giftedness:
Lewis Term an (1925): Study to show how intelligence was related to occupational success and life
adjustment. These individual show higher performance because of their outstanding potentialities.
Giftedness is exceptional general ability shown in superior performance in a wide variety of areas.
• Teacher’s perspective: depends on a combination of high ability, high creativity and high
commitment.
• Early signs of intellectual superiority: during infancy show larger attention span, good memory,
sensitivity to environmental changes, early appearance of language skills.
• Other characteristics are advanced logical thinking and problem solving, high speed in processing
information, high-level creative thinking, high self-esteem, independence.
• Incorrect to equate with brilliant academic performance: each gifted student possesses different
strengths, personalities and characteristics, e.g., athletes.
Talent refers to remarkable ability in a specific field, e.g., social, and are often called prodigies.
Types of Intelligence Tests,
Individual or Group Test

Culture-Fair or Culture-Biased Tests

Verbal, Non-verbal or performance Tests

CULTURE AND INTELLIGENCE

A major characteristic of intelligence is that it helps individuals to adapt to their environment. The
cultural environment provides a context for intelligence to develop. ‘
Culture is a collective system of customs, beliefs, attitudes and achievements in art and literature.
Sternberg:
• Notion of contextual or practical intelligence implies that intelligence is a product of culture.
Vygotsky (Russian psychologist):
• Culture provides a social context in which people live, grow and understand the world around them.
• Elementary mental functions (e.g., walking, crying) are Universal; the manner in which higher
mental functions such as problem-solving and thinking operate are largely culture produced.

• Equal attention given to cognitive and non-cognitive processes and their integration:
(i) Cognitive capacity (sensitivity to context, understanding, discrimination, problem-solving and
effective communication).
(ii) Social competence (respect for social order, commitment to elders, the young and the needy,
concern about others and recognising others perspectives).
(iii) Emotional competence (self-regulation and self-monitoring of emotions, honesty, politeness,
good conduct and self-evaluation).
(iv) Entrepreneurial competence (commitment, persistence, patience, hard work, vigilance and goal-
directed behaviour).
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that underlie accurate appraisal, expression and regulation of
emotions. It is the feeling side of intelligence.
(i) Emotional Quotient (EQ) is used to express emotional intelligence in the same way as IQ is used to
express intelligence.
(ii) Salovey and Mayer: The ability to monitor one’s own and other’s emotions, to discriminate among
them and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions.
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Aptitude indicates an individual’s capacity to acquire some specific knowledge or skill after training.
(i) People with similar intelligence differed widely in acquiring certain knowledge or skills, called
aptitudes.
(ii) With proper training, these abilities can be considerably enhanced.
Interest is a preference for a particular activity; aptitude is the potentiality to perform that activity.
(i) In order to be successful in a particular field, a person must have both aptitude and interest.
Aptitude Tests

• Creativity refers to the ability to produce ideas, objects and problem solutions that are novel and
appropriate.
• It refers to the ability to think in novel and unusual ways and to came up with unique solutions to
problems.
• Creativity involves the production of same thing new and original it may be an idea, object or
solution to a problem.
• Creativity can get manifested in different levels and in different areas.
• Everyday creativity/Day to day creativity. It could be reflected in day to day activities like writing,
teaching, storytelling, flower arrangement, dance etc.
• Special talent creativity/Higher order creativity. It is related to outstanding creative achievements
e.g. inventions and discoveries.
• Creativity is always reality oriented, appropriate, constructive and socially desirable.
• Everyday creativity could be seen in terms of the level and the areas in which they exhibit creativity
and that all may not be operating at the same level.
• Researches suggest that children mostly express their imagination through physical activities and in
non-verbal ways, although when language and intellectual functions are fully developed and store of
knowledge is adequately available then creativity is expressed through verbal modes too.
• There is no disagreement that creativity in determined by both heredity and environment.
• Limits of the creative potential are set by heredity.
• Environmental factors stimulate the development of creativity.
• No amount of training can transform an average person to develop special talent creativity or higher
order creativity like Tagore, Einstein or Shakespear.
CREATIVITY AND INTELLIGENCE:
• Certain level of intelligence in necessary to be creative, but a high level of intelligence, however
does not ensure that a person would certainly be creative.
• Researchers have found that both high and law level of creativity can be formed in highly intelligent
children and also children of average intelligence.
• Relation between creativity and intelligence is positive.

• Aptitude: A combination of characteristics indicative of individual’s potential to acquire some

specific skills with training.
• Aptitude Tests: Tests meant to measure individual’s potential to predict future performance.
• Beliefs: The cognitive component of the thoughts or ideas regarding a topic.
• Case Study: An intensive study of an individual or a situation to develop general principles about
behaviour.
• Cognition: The process of knowing. The mental activities association with thought, decision
making, language, and other higher mental processes.
• Cognitive Assessment System: A battery of tests designed to measure the four PASS (Planning-
Attention-Simultaneous-Successive) process.
• Componential Intelligence: In Sternberg’s triarchic theory, it refers to ability to think critically and
analytically.
• Contextual Intelligence: In Sternberg’s triarchic theory, it is the practical intelligence
used in solving everyday problems.
• Creativity: The ability to produce ideas, objects, and problem solutions that are novel and
appropriate.
• Culture-fair Test: A test that does not discriminate examinees on the basis of their culture
experiences.
• Emotional Intelligence: A cluster of traits or abilities relating to the emotional side of life abilities
such as recognising and managing one’s own emotions, being able to motivate oneself and restrain
one’s impulses, recognising and managing others’ emotions, and handling interpersonal relationship in
an effective manner. It is expressed in the form of an emotional quotient (EQ) score.
• Experiential Intelligence: In Sternberg’s triarchic theory, it is the ability to use past experiences
creatively to solve novel problems.
• Factor Analysis: Mathematical procedure, involving correlations, for sorting trait terms or test
responses into clusters or factors; used in the development of test designed to discover basic
personality traits. It identifies items that are homogeneous or internally consistent and independent of
others.
• Fluid Intelligence: Ability to perceive complex relationship, reason abstractly, and solve
problems.
• Genetics: The study of how the qualities of living things are passed on in their genes.
• Group Test: A test designed to be administered to more than one individual at the same time, in
contrast to individual test.
• Individual Differences: Distinctiveness and unique variations among people’s characteristics and
behaviour patterns.
• Individual Test: A test that must be given to a single individual at a time, typically by a specially
trained person. The Binet and Wechsler intelligence tests are examples of individual test.
• Intellectual Giftedness: Exceptional general intellectual efficiency shown in superior performance
in a wide range of tasks.
• Intelligence: The capacity to understand the world, to think rationally, and to use resources
efficiency when faced with challenges.
• Intelligence Quotient (IQ): An index derived from standardised intelligence tests
indicating a ratio of mental age to chronological age.
• Intelligence Test: Test designed to. measure person’s level of intelligence.
• Interest: An individual’s preference for one or more specific activities.
• Interview: Purposeful conversation through face to face interaction.
• Mental Age (MA): A measure of intellectual functioning combined with varying degrees of deficits
in adaptive behaviour.
• Mental Retardation: Sub-average intellectual functioning combined with varying degrees
of deficits in adaptive behaviour.
• Normal Probability Curve: A symmetrical, bell-shaped frequency distribution. Most scores are
found near the middle and fewer and fewer 6ccur towards the extremes. Many psychological
characteristics are distributed in this manner.
• Norms: Standards of test performance that permit the comparison of one person’s score on the test
to the scores of others who have taken the same test.
• Observational Method: Employing systematic, organised and objective procedures to record
behavioural phenomena occurring naturally in real time.
• Observation method: Employing systematic organised and objective procedures to record
behavioural phenomena occurring naturally.
• Performance Test: A test in which the role of language is minimised, the task requiring overt motor
responses other than verbal.
• Planning: In Das PASS model of intelligence, it involves goal setting, strategy selection, and
monitoring of goal-oriented.
• Problem-solving Behaviour: The activity and mental processes involved in overcoming the
obstacles, physical or conceptual, which lie between an animal and its goal.
• Psychological Test: An objective and standardised in instrument for measuring an individual’s
mental and behavioural traits; used by psychologists to help people make decisions about their lives
and understand more about themselves.
• Self-awareness: Insight into one’s own motives, potential and limitation.
• Sensitivity: Tendency to respond to very low levels of physical stimulation. –
• Simultaneous Processing: Cognitive processing in the PASS model that involves integrating
elements of the stimulus situation into composite and meaningful patterns.
• Situationism: A principle which states that situations and circumstances outside oneself have the
power to influence behaviour.
• Successive Processing: Cognitive processing in the PASS model where elements of the stimulus
situation are responded to sequentially.
• Values: Refers to the enduring beliefs about an ideal made of behaviour.
• Verbal Test: Test in which a subject’s ability understand in making and use words and concepts is
important in paking the required responses.