Yearly Archives: 2022

SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTION:

Q1.How does the understanding of culture in social science differ from the everyday use of the word `culture’?

Answer:

The use of the word ‘culture’ in everyday life is limited, which refers to the artistic performances such as dance, music, painting, drama etc. But social science understands culture in a scientific and prescribed way that is not only limited to drawing and painting but more than it. Culture has shaped our life and the society as a whole. In sociological terms, culture implies the common understanding which is learnt and developed through social interaction and then passed on to the next generation.

Therefore, in everyday use, the term culture is used for individuals, whereas in sociology, it is used to denote the entire group or the society.

Edward Tylor was the first anthropologist to define culture that includes abstract and intangible dimensions. Later, Bronislaw Malinowski defined culture, which included the use of materials as well.

Q2.How can we demonstrate that the different dimensions of culture comprise a whole?

Answer:

There are three dimensions of culture cognitive, normative and material that comprise a whole.

(i) Cognitive: It refers to how we learn to process what we see and hear so as to give it a meaning. For example, looking at a flag and associating it with the country to which it belongs. Symbolising the waving of hand as a means of saying goodbye. Thus, every culture has given a different meaning to different actions.

(ii) Normative: It refers to the rules of conduct. Every society has some rules according to which its members have to behave. As a result, this behaviour and action of the individuals become the culture of that society.

(iii) Material: It includes any activity which is made possible by the means of materials. It also includes tools and machines, which is said to be a part of the culture.

In the present industrial societies, advanced technology and machines are used. Some societies use them in abundance such as, USA while some do not make much use of it, such as Afghanistan. Thus, use of various materials in different ways for various purposes shows the culture of that society.

Therefore, culture can be identified as material and non-material. For the proper and integrated functioning of the culture, both material and non-material dimensions work together as a whole. The use of materials having different notions and ways of understanding different signs and symbols with certain rules of conduct as a whole describes the culture of that society.

Q3.Compare two cultures with which you are familiar. Is it difficult not to be ethnocentric?

Answer:

Note: Any answer supported with argument or explanation would solve the purpose.

One sample answer has been provided to you:

The two cultures with which we are familiar are:

(i) Urban culture

(ii) Rural culture

The urban culture represents the life in a city, while the rural culture represents the life in a village. In a city, there are industries for people to work with machines, on the other hand, in a village people work in farms to produce crops. The life in villages is simpler and traditional as compared to that of the life in a city. In a city, there is an emphasis on individualism, while in villages more importance is given to groups.

Hence, the way of life, culture, occupation and thinking is different in urban and rural areas.

Ethnocentrism means giving value to one’s own culture and regarding the other culture as inferior. Yes, it is difficult not to be ethnocentric because people mostly give value and superiority to one’s own culture. If we compare the villages and cities, it would be obvious that the villagers carry the notion that their culture is better because it is embedded with societal norms, values and traditions. On the other hand, the city dwellers would consider their culture superior because it is modern and liberal.

Historically also, the colonialists considered their culture superior and better to that of the colonised countries. The notion of ethnocentrism generates differences and wars between many ethnic and racial groups. For example, the riots of Godhra and Babri Masjid were a result of ethnocentrism.

Therefore, it is correct to say that it is difficult for people not to be ethnocentric even in contemporary societies.

Q4.Discuss two different approaches to studying cultural change.

Answer:

Cultural change is a way in which society changes its patterns of culture. Cultural change takes place through the process of adaptation, contact with other cultures and changes in the natural environment. This change is associated with many sources that can be external factors or can be the internal adjustments of the culture.

There are two different approaches of cultural change:

(i) Evolutionary

(ii) Revolutionary

Evolutionary change is slow, for instance in the case of education. In ancient times, the individuals were often taught orally. Gradually with the discovery of paper, writing and publication of books started. Eventually, new subjects were introduced according to the need of the society. Further, with the introduction of industrialisation, focus on professional courses also increased and with the introduction of information technology and globalisation the new ways of teaching emerged. Finally, several instruments and gadgets like computer and use of internet was invented.

Contrary to this, revolutionary change is fast. For instance, revolutionary change takes place through political intervention, as in the case of France. After the French Revolution the estate system of ranking was destroyed and the values of liberty and equality in the society were established. This was a radical change in the society and its culture.

Q5.Is cosmopolitanism something you associate with modernity? Observe and give examples of ethnocentrism.

Answer:

Cosmopolitanism means valuing other cultures for their difference. A cosmopolitan perception is always ready to adapt other cultures and share its own culture with others.

In this process of sharing, neither foreign culture becomes the legitimate part of one’s own culture, nor does the indigenous culture lose its base. Hence, it respects every culture.

Cosmopolitanism is associated with modernity, in contemporary period, as it is emerging in most parts of the world. Since modernity has to deal with time, cosmopolitanism is phenomenon of the modern world.

Ethnocentrism, on the other hand, refers to the standard cultural values that are considered more superior to that of cultural values of others. For example, the British people were ethnocentric as they regarded the Indian culture as primitive and orthodox. Similarly, the people belonging to cities consider the people of villages inferior to them. The above examples show that unlike cosmopolitanism, ethnocentrism ranks the culture as superior or inferior.

Q6.What in your mind is the most effective agent of socialisation for your generation? How do you think it was different before?

Answer:

Note: Any answer supported with argument or explanation would solve the purpose.

One sample answer has been provided to you:

In contemporary time, the mass media has emerged as a strong agent of socialisation. Earlier, family and the peer group was the socialising agent in an individual’s life. However, now, due to penetration of information technology into the house, people spend more time in front of computers and television sets, than being with their families and friends.

Children have started adopting new ways from what they watch on televisions. For instance, they choose their own career and lead a self-chosen lifestyle. They stay connected with their friends through internet and they even depend on the internet for their studies. Hence, their dependence on visual media is much more than that of print media.

Not only children, but even women, men and old age people are getting affected by mass media. Magazines, newspapers, radio, advertisements, etc. provide information on various aspects such as health, decoration, eating habits etc. Mass media has therefore spread itself in every sphere of our lives.

It gives a shape to our personality and ideas at every stage of life. It had its influence on the society earlier as well but this influence was little.

Thus, it is a boon for our society, as mass media has connected the world with one touch. For instance, on internet, information is available with just one click and with a touch one can view everything on television. Mass media has affected the society and also promoted globalisation. It has decreased the distance between different parts of the world.

Life before introduction of mass media was very different as people had very little information of the rest of the world. There was no television, radio, newspaper or internet. People in earlier days had to make a lot of effort to gather information and also to spread it.

Long Answer Type Questions :

Q1.Discuss dimensions of culture.
Answer:
Cognitive-Ideas and beliefs
Normative-Norms (Value, norms, sanctions).
Customs or normative something is right or wrong-not an idea of something. Cognitive, myths, superstition, belief, customs, stories (mostly not true)

• Ideas etc. which refer to the thinking of the people, our understanding, how we absorb all information we get from the society. ‘
• Little tradition: It is transmitted orally from generation to generation in the form of songs/plays, stories (folklores) etc. It moves in illiterate and rural societies.
• Great tradition: It is transmitted from generation to generation through written work. Usually in literate societies ideas are recorded, written down and are available to us in the form of books etc.
• It is the cognitive dimension of culture which helps us to comprehend and relate to the societies.
• Little and great tradition can be converted into each other.
• Universalisation—converting great to little tradition.

Normative
It deals with controlling people’s behaviour by rules, norms, customs, values. It is basically different ways of controlling deviant behaviour.
To make society disciplined, to behave in a particular way etc.

Q2.How laws are different from norms?
Answer:
Laws may be formal and written exercised by institutions e.g.; Parliament, police.
Laws are explicit-very clear on paper and are the same for everybody in that society. They also provide severe, specific, unchangeable punishment. Rewards in forms of citations, medal, honor, cash prize, Bharat Ratna. Formal laws are the same everywhere and depend upon societal requirement.
Norms: Norms are informal and unwritten. They are exercised by the primary group which includes family and friends.
Laws are:

• Implicit: Ambiguity can be there, depends upon the people and situations.
• Punishment given in indifferent contexts.
• Informal reward like pat on back etc. hug etc.
• Differs from person to person, place to place, based on values/cultures of society.

Q3.What do you mean by cultural lag? Discuss its main features.
Answer: Cultural lag: When the material culture is moving ahead and fast with times, but the non-material culture is not able to keep up with the fast pace of material culture propounded the theory a cultural lag.

• Let us consider the basic need of hunger. We know that it has a biological basis, which is common among animals and human beings, but the way this need is gratified by human beings is extremely complex. For example, some people eat vegetarian food, while others eat non-vegetarian food.
• Sexual behaviour can be taken as another example. We know that this behaviour involves hormones and reflexive reactions in animals and human beings alike.
• While among animals sexual behaviour is fairly simple and reflexive (all animals indulge in sexual behaviour almost in the same manner).
• It is so complex among human beings that it can hardly be described as reflexive.
• Partner preferences are a key feature of human sexual behaviour. The bases of these preferences widely differ within and across societies.
• Human sexual behaviour is also governed by many rules, standards, values, and laws.
• These examples illustrate that biological factors alone cannot help us very much in understanding human behaviour.
• Human nature has evolved through an interplay of biological and cultural forces. These forces have made us similar in many ways and different in others.

Q4.Explain the concept of culture.
Answer:
Concept of culture
Human behaviour is fundamentally social. It involves relationships with other people, reactions to their behaviour, and engagement with innumerable products made available to us by our predecessors. Although many other species are also social like us, human beings are cultural as well.

In the simplest terms, culture refers to “the man-made part of the environment”. It comprises diverse products of the behaviour of many people, including ourselves. These products can be material objects (e.g., tools, sculptures), ideas (e.g., family, school). We find them almost everywhere. They influence behaviour, although we may not always be aware of it.

Let us look at some examples. The room you might be in now is a cultural product. It is the result of someone’s architectural ideas and building skills. Your room may be rectangular, but there are many places where rooms are not rectangular (e.g., those of Eskimos).

You might be sitting on a chair that some people designed and built some time ago. Since sitting in a chair requires a particular posture, this invention is shaping your behaviour. There are societies without chairs. Just try to think how people in those societies would be sitting in order to do some reading.
Much of our life as human beings involves interacting with various cultural products and behaving in accordance with them. This means that culture shapes our behaviour in a significant manner.

Q5.How culture and society are related to each other?
Answer:
The terms ‘culture’ and ‘society’ are often considered to carry similar meaning. Let us note at this point that they are not the same thing. A society is a group of people who occupy a particular territory and speak a common language not generally understood by neighbouring people. A society may or may not be single nation, but every society has its own culture. It is culture that shapes human behaviour from society to society. Culture is the label for all the different features that vary from society to society. It is these different features of society whose influences psychologists want to examine in their studies of human behaviour. Thus, a group of people, who manage their livelihood through hunting and gathering in forests, would present a life characterised by certain features that will not be found in a society that lives mainly on agricultural produce or wage earnings.

Q6.Discuss various socialisation agents of society.
Answer:
Socialisation agents of society:

• A number of people who relate to us possess power to socialise us. Such people . are called “socialisation agents”.
• Parents and family members are the most significant socialisation agents.
• Legal responsibility of child care, too, lies with parents. Their task is to nurture children in such a manner that their natural potentials are maximized and negative behaviour tendencies are minimized or controlled.

Parents

• Parents have most direct and significant impact on children’s development. Children respond in different ways to parents in different situations.
• Parents encourage certain behaviours by rewarding them verbally (e.g., praising) or in other tangible ways (e.g., buying chocolates or objects of child’s desire). They also discourage certain behaviours through non-approving behaviours.
• They also arrange to put children in a variety of positive experiences, learning opportunities, and challenges. While interacting with children parents adopt different strategies, which are generally known as parenting styles.
• A distinction is made between authoritative, authoritarian and democratic or permissive parenting styles.
• Studies indicate that parents vary enormously in the treatment of children in terms of their degree of acceptance and degree of control.
•  The conditions of life in which parents live (poverty, illness, job stress, nature of family) also influence the styles they adopt in socialising children.

School

• School is another important socialising agent. Since children spend a long time in schools, which provide them with a fairly organised set up for interaction with teachers and peers.
• Nowadays school is being viewed as a more important agent of child socialisation than parents and family. Children learn not only cognitive skills (e.g., reading, writing, doing mathematics) but also many social skills (e.g., ways of behaving with elders and age mates, accepting roles, fulfilling responsibilities).
• They also learn and internalise the norms and rules of society.
• Several other positive qualities, such as self-initiative, self-control, responsibility and creativity are encouraged in schools.

Peer Groups

• Friendship acquires great significance in this respect.
• It provides children not only with a good opportunity to be in company of others, but also for organising various activities (e.g., play) collectively with the members of their own age.
• Question ualities like sharing, trust, mutual understanding, role acceptance and fulfilment develop in interaction with peers.
• Children also learn to assert their own point of view and accept and adapt to those of others.
• Development of self-identity is greatly facilitated by the peer group. Since communication of children with peer groups is direct, process of socialisation is generally smooth.

Media influences

• In recent years media has also become the medium of socialisation.
• Through television, newspapers, books and cinema the external world has made/ is making its way into our home and our lives.
• While children learn about many things from these sources, adolescents and young adults often derive their models from them, particularly from television and cinema.
• There is a need to use this agent of socialisation in a better way in order to prevent children from developing undesirable behaviours.

Q7.What is acculturation?
Answer:
Culture is determined by dynamic and evolving process. It is not static. Cultural changes occur due to acculturation and defusion.

• Acculturation refers to cultural and psychological changes resulting from contact with other cultures.
• Contact may be direct (e.g., when one moves and settles in a new culture) or indirect (e.g., through media or other means).
• It may be voluntary (e.g., when one goes abroad for higher studies, training, job, or trade) or involuntary (e.g., through colonial experience, invasion, political refuge).
• In both cases, people often need to learn (and also they do learn) something new to negotiate life with people of other cultural groups. For example, during the British rule in India many individuals and groups adopted several aspects of British lifestyle.
• Acculturation can take place any time in one’s life. Whenever it occurs, it requires re-leaming of norms, values, dispositions, and patterns of behaviour.
• For any acculturation to take place contact with another cultural group is essential. This often generates some sort of conflict. Since people cannot live in a state of conflict for a long time, they often resort to certain strategies to resolve their conflicts.
• Studies carried out with immigrants to western countries and native or tribal people in different parts of the world have revealed that people have various options to deal with the problem of acculturative changes. Thus, the course of acculturative change is multidirectional.
• Changes due to acculturation may be examined at subjective and objective levels. At the subjective level, changes are often reflected in people’s attitudes towards change. They are referred to as acculturation attitudes. At the objective level, changes are reflected in people’s day-to-day behaviours and activities. These are referred to as acculturation strategies.

Q8.Discuss differences between social change and cultural change.
Answer:
Malinowike, Gillin and Gillin and others gave their same opinions regarding social and cultural changes.
However Prof. Dawis has pointed out some difference between the two. According to him, change in social structure only represents social change.

Some important differences between social and cultural changes are:
Social Change:

• Change in social relations
• Change in social structure and relationship is a must.
• Scope of social change is limited.
• Social change effects culture.
• Society has its roots in the present, hence change in it has relative implications.

Cultural Change

• Changes in religion and art, language or literature which in turn effect social relationships.
• Cultural change is primarily responsible for new discoveries, inventions and change in cultural activities.
• Scope of cultural change is large.
• Cultural change effects social change.
• As culture has got its roots in their past, hence change in it has relatively less implications.

If society is a tributary while culture is the main river, cultural changes are more relevant. Still both the changes cannot be taken independently from each other as they effect mutually.

Q9.How material culture is different from non-material culture?
Answer:
Material Culture: Anything paid for stuff or money related is example of material culture. Material culture is tangible, concrete, physical, quantified and can be replaced. Non-material Culture: Values, respect, honesty, consideration, gratitude etc. are non-material culture.

Values are basically morals.
Values are those which are concerned with the morals of human beings. They are either right or wrong. They guide us as to how we are supposed to behave in society.
They define, what is proper and improper for an individual in order to reach his/her goal as per societal norms.
Non-material culture is standard of social life. Certain values which everyone has to follow in social life are: honesty, respect, integrity, responsibility.

SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTION:

Q1.Note what are the marriage rules that are followed in your society? Compare your observations with these made by other students in the class. Discuss.

Answer:

Note: Any answer supported with argument or explanation would solve the purpose.

One sample answer has been provided to you:

Every society comprises several types and rules of marriage. Our society particularly follows monogamy. Monogamy is a system of marriage wherein one man can marry only one woman, and one woman can only marry one man. People are only allowed to re-marry after the death of their spouse or after a divorce. Thus, they cannot have more than one spouse at the same time.

Generally, the marriages are fixed by the parents and this is known as arrange marriage. Parents choose the relevant partners for their sons and daughters. However, some people also prefer love marriages and their partners are self chosen.

Some societies also practice the rules of polygamy and polygyny, wherein the men and women can have multiple partners as their wives and husbands respectively. However, this practice is not allowed in laws of marriage of some religions.

Q2.Find out how membership, residence pattern and even the mode of interaction changes in the family with broader economic, political and cultural changes, for instance migration.

Answer:

Family is an institution where its members live together under one roof and have cordial relationships. It is affected by broader political, economic and cultural activities of the society. Some examples of the way these activities of the society affect the family are:

Cultural Change

With the change in culture, the membership, residence pattern and mode of interaction within a family also changes. For example, in a matrilineal society the women play a major role in decision-making in the family. However, in a patriarchal society, men exercise authority and dominance over the family.

Another example of cultural change is the preference or resistance towards individualism. If the members of a family are individualistic, then there are chances of having a nuclear family. On the other hand, increase in the inter-personal relationships leads to a joint family.

Political Change

During post-unification period in the 1990s, Germany witnessed a rapid decline in the number of marriages because the new German state withdrew all the protection and welfare schemes which were provided to the families prior to the unification. This is an example of broader political change influencing the family.

Economic Change

When a society undergoes economic changes, even the family gets affected indirectly. For example, industrialisation has led to the emergence of nuclear families and women have also adopted instrumental roles in the family.

Migration

Due to economic instability in a society, people migrate in search of work. For example, people from a flood affected village migrate to cities in search of new homes and new jobs. In some cases, women stay at their village and perform household activities, while the husbands migrate to the city for work.

Migration also leads to a change in the housing pattern because the people who migrate from villages have to live in slums and in tents. Similarly, in village they live with their parents and other relatives but in the city they either have to stay alone or with their husband or wife and children only. This change depicts a change in the membership pattern of the family.

Q3.Write an essay on `work’. Focus on both the range of occupations, which exist and how they change.

Answer:

Work means carrying out activities that require expenditure of mental and physical effort and can be paid or unpaid. It has the objective of production of goods and services that cater to human needs. Mainly, paid work is considered as real work and paid workers are referred to as being employed.

There are two types of occupations, namely informal and formal.

The informal employment is found in the unorganised sector of the society, whereas the formal employment is found in the organised sector of the society.

Informal employment is mostly unrecorded and the workers are not paid on a regular basis. Also, the payment is made either in terms of money or as goods or services.

Informal employment mostly includes physical work, whereas in the formal employment both physical and mental work is involved. Also, workers are paid a regular salary in terms of money.

Before industrialisation, in traditional societies, the work was performed in house itself. This formed the informal employment. However, after industrialisation, with the advancement of technology, work shifted from home to factories and offices, forming the formal sector of employment.

These occupations change gradually. For instance, as the variety of work expanded and became complicated, it led to a specialised division of labour. Human labour was replaced by machines and Industrialisation broke down processes into simple operations that could be precisely timed, organised and monitored.

Q4.Discuss the kind of rights that exist in your society. How do they affect your life?

Answer:

There are three kinds of rights that exist in our society:

(i) Political rights such as participation in the formation of the government by casting vote.

(ii) Civil rights, such as freedom of speech, choice of religion, the right to equal justice before the law. The citizen has the freedom to live anywhere in the state territory and has the right to own property irrespective of his/her gender.

(iii) Social rights, such as health benefits, unemployment allowance, and setting of minimum level of wages. The citizen can enjoy a minimum standard of economic welfare and security.

These rights help in the smooth functioning of life of individuals, as they help in the growth of personality. For instance, the individual can go for higher studies of his/ her subject of interest, he/she can learn any form of music and dance, and can also practice any religion. Therefore, the individual has right to make his/her own choice and can also demand justice by appealing to the court.

Q5.How does sociology study religion?

Answer:

Sociology studies religion as an institution and conducts it in three ways:

(i) An empirical study on the various functions of religion and its interrelatedness to the society.

(ii) It uses a comparative method.

(iii) It investigates the religious beliefs and practices in relation to other aspects of the society.

There are different groups of religion that originated with the change and need of the society such as Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Jainism, etc.

Religion has certain beliefs, norms, rules and regulations that are expected to be followed by its members, which govern and regulate their behaviour.

Further, religion has had a very close relationship with power and politics. There have been many social movements which were carried out on the basis of religion.

Classical sociologists believed that as societies have modernised, the influence of religion on the lives of individuals has decreased, which has led to secularism.

Many thinkers of sociology have presented their theories upon religion and their origin. For example, Max Weber in his study, The Protestant Ethic and The Rise of Capitalism viewed that capitalism was a result of Calvinism and their thinking of increasing the economic activity, in order to please the god.

Similarly, Emile Durkhiem presented the view of differentiating the sacred from the profane that existed in religious societies.

Further religion is not only a private matter of individual but it also has a public character, as it holds strong ties with other institutions like politics, economics, education and marriage and kinship.

Q6.Write an essay on school as a social institution. Draw from both your reading as well as your personal observations.

Answer:

The need for education gave rise to schools, and sociology terms this need as a process of transmission or communication of group heritage, which is common to all the societies.

The schools function in order to discipline and regulate human behaviour. Hence, acting as a permanent and binding character.

Furthermore, Ginsberg defines the established institutions as “the recognized and established usage governing the relations between individuals and groups”, and schools are established institutions that provide formal education to students.

They have their own norms and values and certain rules and regulations that are to be followed.

According to Durkheim, for its survival, a society needs a common base − a certain number of ideas, sentiments and practices which education must inculcate in all children indiscriminately.

For functionalists, education system maintains and develops the social structure and culture. For those who perceive society as unequally differentiated, education functions as one of the main stratifying agent.

According to common sense knowledge of a lay man, schools provide with one of the basic components of socialisation. As a child grows and learns to become a part of the group amongst his/her peers, this process of inculcating the values and norms of the society starts. Thus, the individual becomes a part of the society.

Q7.Discuss how these social institutions interact with each other. You can start the discussion from yourself as a senior school student. And move on to how you are shaped by different social institutions. Are you entirely controlled or can you also resist and redefine social institutions?

Answer:

All the social institutions of marriage, family and kinship, politics, education, economics and religion interact and affect each other.

For instance, religion had its deep impact on the various spheres of social and cultural life of the individuals affecting the family, marriage, kinship and education. The religious institutions were so strong that they even had their affect on political and economic institutions of the society.

The religion gave way to the capitalism and had the strongest position in the society. However, in modern societies religion comparatively has become less influential. But still has its hold on marriage, family, kinship and politics

Even in contemporary societies, family, kinship and marriages are affected by religion. Similarly, the family and marriages are getting affected by economic and political policies of the state as well. The functions of the family members are also indirectly decided by the policies of the state leading to the fragmentation of family.

These institutions offer many new opportunities while some even constrain the individuals. It is very difficult to resist and redefine any social institution but this can be done through social movements and protests.

Long Answer Type Questions :

Q1.Explain concepts of community, nation and state and differentiate them.
Answer:
A community refers to a group of people whose members are connected to each other by consciously recognized commonalities which, may be based on language, religion, culture and so on.

Nation: A nation is a territorial community psychologically bound together by common ties of kinship, religion, language, history, customs or traditions. A nation has aspirations for political autonomy or political organization. It is not sovereign.
The desire for political unity of a nation expresses itself as the aspiration to form a state.

State: It is a community of persons, settled in a definite territory, having an organized government, and enjoying absolute independence from external control. It has the following elements:

• Population: There can be no state without people as state is an association of people. Exact number of people essential to form a state cannot be fixed. However, just a few families can’t constitute a state. Population should be more or less numerous.
• Territory: A group of people must occupy a clearly defined territory in order to constitute a state. A group of nomads cannot constitute a state. Territory of a state includes a clearly demarcated piece of land, territorial waters, and even the entire air above the territory of the state. This territory is under the supreme control of the state.
• Government: It is the machinery or agency through which the state functions and exercises its will. It includes selected people to enact laws, implement them and enforce justice. It maintains official relations with other states. All members of the state are not part of the government. It includes only those officials, and departments who are elected, appointed or employed to determine and carry out the regulations of the state.
• Sovereign: It is the absolute power of the state. State has full and independent control over its territory and population. It is independent of any external control.

2. Nation-state: Nation states are those states in which the great mass of population are citizens who regard themselves as a part of a single nation.
Differences between community, nation and state:

• Community: No political aspirations to form a state.
• Nation: A community with political aspirations not yet a state, not sovereign.
• State: A state is a politically organized community, sovereign and internationally recognized.

Q2.What is education? Discuss its importance and various forms.
Answer:
Education is an effort of the senior members of the society to transfer their knowledge, skills and values to the younger members of society. It is the process of giving intellectual, moral, physical and social instructions to a child for his all round development.

Importance of education:

• It socializes the child to play adult roles in society. A child through education learns the basic rules, regulations, norms and values of society.
• It helps in maintaining and perpetuating the society and its culture.
• It also helps in promoting change by instilling new ideas and values.
• It provides the necessary knowledge and skills to an individual to be a productive member of society.

Formal and Informal Education
Formal Education: It is in the form of systematic, planned and guided instruction. It is highly institutionalised and organized. It has the following characteristics:

• There is a definite and well defined content and curriculum of education.
• There are definite rules and regulations regarding admission, evaluation etc.
• Instruction is provided by specially qualified teachers.
• It is limited to a definite period or stage, For example, college education. Informal Education

1. Informal education is spontaneous and largely unplanned.

• There is no fixed curriculum and there are no specialized agencies like schools or colleges imparting such education.
• Informal education involves learning of values, norms, moral family rituals, ceremonies etc. through participation at everyday activities.
•  It goes on from birth to death. There is no particular stage or age for this.

2. Education in Primitive and Modem societies:
In primitive societies:

• The content of education was mainly related to religion, philosophy, metaphysics and scriptural subjects.
• There was no need for formal schooling and informal education played a greater role.

3. Modem industrial societies:

• Course content of education is rationalistic and secular. As the modem society relies on an extremely elaborate division of labour it stresses on teaching subjects like sciences, mathematics, languages etc.
• Being change oriented it lays emphasis on instilling principles of democracy, secularism, equality and a scientific world view.
• Formal education plays a greater role in modem societies rather than it did in primitive societies.

SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTION:

Q1.Why do we need to use special terms and concepts in sociology?

Answer:

We need to use special terms and concepts in sociology to understand the society better. In sociology, there are different ways of understanding the society. For example, Max Weber gave importance to individuals for existence of a society whereas Emile Durkheim laid emphasis on society as a whole.

For Karl Marx, the key concepts were class and conflict to understand society whereas for Emile Durkheim, social solidarity and collective conscience were important.

There are different kinds of individuals and groups in society that leads to different concepts and ideas. Therefore, we need special terms and concepts in sociology to differentiate it from our common sense knowledge of society.

An individual studies the society on the basis of his/her own common sense, which is often within a limited range, while sociology provides specific concepts and terms to study the structure, phenomenon and functions of the society in a scientific way.

Q2.As a member of society you must be interacting with and in different groups. How do you see these groups from a sociological perspective?

Answer:

(Within different groups)

We interact with different groups in our daily lives. The students of a classroom form a social group of that class and an individual (you) is a part of that group.

The individual has some of the classmates as his/her friends and this group of friends forms the primary group where interaction takes place with intimacy and co-operation while the rest of the class forms the secondary group.

The group of students of the class sharing common interest and ideas interact with each other in a formal manner. The friends of the individual from the class also shares common interests and ideas but with informal ways of interaction.

(In different groups)

An individual also interacts with the students association which forms a secondary group based on specific goals. The individual discusses his/her school problems with the members of these groups and the members help him/her.

Q3.What have you observed about the stratification system existing in your society? How are individual lives affected by stratification?

Answer:

Social stratification refers to the existence of structured inequalities between groups in a society, in terms of their access to materials or symbolic rewards. Historically, there have been four basic systems of stratification- slavery, caste, estate and class.

In India, there are several stratifications on the basis of caste, class, gender etc. In several organisations, stratification exists on the basis of the roles of the employees.

The life of the individuals is affected by stratification because people are placed in higher or lower strata. The lower strata is devoid of certain symbolic rewards and material advantages which improve the quality of the life of the recipient such as wealth, income, health, security in a job, etc. On the other hand, the higher strata enjoys all the benefits of the society. These material benefits or privileged position are also passed on to the future generations of the higher strata.

Q4.What is social control? Do you think the modes of social control in different spheres of society are different? Discuss.

Answer:

Social control refers to the social processes, techniques and strategies by which the behaviour of an individual or a group is regulated.

There are two types of social control:

(i) The formal social control, which is formal, official and codified. Its agents are law and the state.

(ii) Informal social control, which is personal, unofficial and uncodified. For example, family, religion and kinship. This mode of social control is very effective in our daily life. However, this form of social control may not be adequate to enforce conformity or obedience.

Social control can also be either positive or negative, as in the case of sanctions. It is a mode of reward or punishment that enforces socially expected forms of behaviour. In this case, individuals are rewarded for their good behaviour and are punished for their offence in the society.

The modes of social control in different societies are different because in pre-modern societies, the caste system controlled and regulated the activities of individuals and kept a check on violation against the prescribed norms. Likewise, in modern societies the government and the state control its citizens and act as agents of social order.

Different societies have different norms and values, different structure and functions. Therefore, they have accordingly different techniques and strategies of social control.

Q5.Identify the different roles and status that you play and are located in. Do you think roles and status change? Discuss when and how they change.

Answer:

Note: Any answer supported with argument or explanation would solve the purpose.

One sample answer has been provided to you:

An individual (you) has many roles and status. For instance, a student whose duty is to study, also plays the role of a son or a daughter. He/she enjoys the status of being a son or a daughter. This status will not change but a new status of husband or wife would get attached to him/her once he/she gets married. Later, the status of being a mother or a father would also apply to him/her.

Not only this, but the individual also plays the role of a brother, sister, nephew, niece, friend, etc.

Similarly, the status and duties of being a student would change accordingly, once his/her studies get over and he/she gets employed.

In this way, the status and role of the individual (you) changes according to time and place and the new status and roles get attached to the individual.

Long Answer Type Questions :

Q1.What are social groups? Discuss various types of group.
Answer:
A number of individuals, defined by formal and informal criteria of membership, who share a feeling of unity or are bound together in relatively stable pattern of interaction are called social groups.

Sociology is primarily concerned with social relations and how these relations develop as a result of social interaction. When some people establish social relations with one another, their gathering is called a group. Direct or indirect relations between two or more people is the fundamental basis of a social group. A collection of human beings may be called a group only when it has a permanent set of patterns. The members need to influence one another by their internal activities. When members establish relationships on the basis of common characteristics and goals and influence each other, it is called a group.

Social groups differ in size, ranging from intimate associations, like a family to large collectivities such as a political party. Groups are organised system of two or more individuals. People join groups because they provide security, status, self-esteem, satisfaction of one’s psychological and social needs, goal achievement, knowledge and information. Group formation is a natural process of society. Proximity, similarity and common motives and goals facilitate group formation. Groups are of different types i.e. primary and secondary, formal and informal and ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’.

Primary groups are preexisting formations in which face to face interaction is possible and relationship bonds are based on personal relationship. In primary groups a person knows one another well and they establish close relationship among them, boundaries are more permeable. Secondary groups are those where relationship among members are more impersonal, indirect and less frequent. In this group it is easy to leave and join another group. Secondary groups provide experience lacking in intimacy.

Formal groups differ in degree to which the functions of the group are stated explicitly and formally. The functions of a formal group are explicitly stated as in the case of an office organisation. The roles to be performed by group members are stated in the explicit manner. The formal and informal groups differ on the basis of structure. The formations of formal groups is based on same specific rules or laws and members have definite roles.

There are a set of norms which help in establishing order.
On the other hand, the formation of informal groups is not based on rules or laws and there is close relationship among members. Formal groups are groups that are arranged and organised e.g. university. Formal groups tend to be large or a part of large organisation having a normative hierarchial structure. Informal groups are typically small and casually or spontaneously formed and function without formal rules, goals or leaders.

The term in-group refers to one’s own group, and out-group refers to another group. For in-group members, we use the word ‘we’ group while for out-group members the word ‘they’ group is used. By using the word ‘they’ and ‘we’, one is categorising people on similar or different basis. It has been found that persons in the in-group are generally supposed to be similar, are viewed favourably, and have desirable traits. Members of the out-group are viewed differently and are often perceived negatively in comparison to the in-group members.

Perceptions of in-group and out-group affect our social lives. Co-operation and proximity are common features of in-group members. Hostile and aggressive relationship leading to conflict and competition is common feature towards out-group members. In-group members maintain mutual dependence, solidarity, faithfulness, friendship, cooperation and communication for members whereas out-groups are known as stranger group.

SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTION:

Q1.Why is the study of the origin and growth of sociology important?

Answer:

Sociology is the study of social life of humans, their groups and societies. The subject matter of sociology is our own behaviour as social beings. It is important to study this subject, in order to understand the society as a whole. Hence, sociology helps us in the understanding of interconnectedness of the social systems across. It is important to study the origin and growth of sociology because it helps in shaping the subject matter according to its principles and perceptions. The study of the origin of the subject also helps us to understand the ideas that led to its origin.

Sociology studies societies that are different in size, characteristics, etc. by using certain methods, material contexts and methodologies. The study of growth of sociology shows the new ideas that were involved in making it a distinct subject of social science. These ideas which were gradually involved in bringing up this subject affects its subject-matter. Therefore, studying the origin and growth of sociology is important to understand the various institutions and their functions present in the society.

Q2.Discuss the different aspects of the term ‘society’. How is it different from your common sense understanding?

Answer:

The different aspects of the term ‘society’ have been made by early sociologists like Auguste Comte, Karl Marx and Herbert Spencer. They classified the societies into two broad groups:

(i) Pre-modern societies such as, hunters and gatherers, pastoral and agrarian and non-industrial civilisations.

(ii) Modern societies such as the industrial societies.

Sociology studies society on the basis of some rules and principles that depend on concepts, data and methods. On the other hand, our common sense understanding of the society depends on our naturalistic or individualistic understanding.

Common sense knowledge does not question its own origins but Sociology has both the systematic and questioning approach that is derived from a broader tradition of scientific investigation.

In our common sense understanding of the society, the aspect of the term ‘society’ is very limited which is quite different from that of sociology.

Q3.Discuss how there is greater give and take among disciplines today.

Answer:

The give and take among disciplines today, is discussed below:

(i) Sociology, as a subject studies the society in the form of social behaviour, social institutions, social policies and programmes that get affected from the historical, political and economic policies.

(ii) Political Science studies the polity of the country. The political atmosphere, political policies, etc. have an impact on society and its economy. Sociology has shared common interests of research with political science. Political sociology focuses mainly on the study of political behaviour of the various institutions and their interactions. Studies have been conducted to understand sociological reasons for support of political parties, the role of gender in politics, the process of decision making in organisations, etc.

(iii) The economy is the subject matter of economics that studies economic activities, economic policies etc. that gets affected by political policies and the needs of the society. The economic behaviour and activities are looked upon through sociological approach in a broader context of social norms, practices, values and interests. Also, the subject of economic sociology has been introduced, because of the wide and critical perspective of both sociology and economics.

(iv) History as a subject has been different from sociology. However, the historians nowadays have started using sociological methods and concepts to understand the social matters, gender relations, customs and other important institutions of the past.

(v) Psychology is the science of behaviour. Society gets affected from individual behaviour in collective form and even the individual behaviour is affected by the society that makes sociology and psychology interrelated. This has introduced the subject of social psychology, which studies the primary interest in the individual by observing his/her behaviour in social groups.

(vi) Anthropologists study simple societies whereas sociology studies complex societies. Social anthropology and cultural anthropology are of concern for sociologists. Anthropology is often regarded as the sister discipline of sociology.

Polity, economy and society are interrelated and get affected by each other. Therefore, these three subjects are necessary to be studied together. Hence, the different disciplines of social sciences such as anthropology, economics, political science, history and psychology are interrelated as they share common interests, concepts and methods.

Q4.Identify any personal problem that you or your friends or relatives are facing. Attempt a sociological understanding.

Answer:

Note: Any answer supported with argument or explanation would solve the purpose.

One sample answer has been provided to you:

My uncle and aunt are looking for a groom for my cousin. They are looking for a boy who is well-qualified, government officer, decent and has a good family background.

However, my cousin wants a well-natured husband who might not be a government officer. She is looking for someone who would provide her freedom to pursue her career and allow her to live the way she wants to. Her family wants a government officer who can make them feel socially and financially strong. They also want the boy to be of same community because of social pressure, but my cousin wants a loving husband irrespective of his community background.

In the above example, it is clear that personal choice is often affected by one’s individual needs and thoughts.

The girl holds a modern thinking and does not believe in the barrier of caste or community to find a soul mate. Her views are shaped with the changing environment of her work place and peer group. On the other hand, her parents are affected by their community and feel the pressure from the society to find a son-in-law who belongs to their own social group. The views/opinions of the parents mentioned above are formed by the pressure of society and the wish to have a government officer as their son-in-law arises from their own need. Therefore, we can say that our needs and opinions or views are formed by the various institutions of society, such as work places, peer groups, etc.

Long Answer Type Questions :

Q1.Describe the growth of Sociology in India.
Answer:
The history of origin and development of Sociology in India is more than 4000 years old. The fundamental source of social ideology was religion. During Indian Vedic era, a systematic development of different social institutions of society was prevalent. Sociology in India has been influenced by various internal processes particularly the colonial regime which tried to prove their cultural superiority in comparison of Indian culture.

First of all, Sociology courses were taught at Calcutta University in the Department of Economics, Political Science, Human Geography and Anthropology. This was pioneered by philosopher Brajendra Nath Seal, Benoy Sarkar, anthropologist K.P. Chattopadhyay and human geographer Nirmal Bose.

• In 1914, the Department of Sociology was started for PG students of economics.
  As Sociology is defined today have been first of all introduced in India in Bombay University under the guidance of Prof. Patriels in 1919.
• In 1923, Mysore University introduced Sociology in BA course as a separate subject. Presently Sociology is being taught in most of the Indian universities as a BA pass or BA honours course and PG courses.
• Presently the premier institutes of India like JNU, Delhi School of Economics, Tata Institute of Social Science have special professional courses in Sociology.
• Indian sociologists who contributed significantly to make their subject flourish are Dr. Radha Kamal Mukherjee, Prof. P.N. Prabhu, Prof. Wadia, Prof. Shrinivas, Dr. R.N. Saxena, Prof. R.R. Shastri, Prof. Kapadia, Prof. N. Prasad, Prof. T.K. Oomen, Prof. S.C. Dubey, Prof Andrea.

Q2.How Sociology and Political Science are related to each other?
Answer:
Political science studies political institution such as state governments and its branches like legislative, executive and judiciary.

• Sociology studies power in terms of social context e.g. during elections.
• Political Science is restricted to study of formal organisation and institutions whereas sociology is concerned with study of behaviour of the people in power.
• Sociology focuses on social stress on the interpersonal relationship between political institution.
• The main task of a political scientist is to study the political behaviour whereas main task of sociologist is to develop knowledge that would explain both social and political behaviour along with the consequences of this behaviour.
• There are several areas of social life that need both the approaches e.g. implementing a law and its effect on people.

Q3.How success of French Revolution and Industrial Revolution caused changes in social life of people universally?
Answer:
Success of French and American Revolution
Enlightenment values of intellectual and political freedom found expressions in the French Revolution in 1789.
These revolutions popularised the nation that individuals possess alienable rights, monarchy was overthrown and democracy was brought in. Ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity put an end to the age of feudalism. Birth based privileges were abolished.

Industrial Revolution and Capitalism
Began in Britain in late 18th and early 19th centuries it had two major aspects.

(a) Systematic application of science and technology to industrial production: Invention of new machines, and harnessing of new sources of power revolutionised the production process. There was now factory production of goods on a large scale.

(b) Industrial revolution was based upon new, dynamic forms of economic activity. Capitalism revolutionised ways of organising labour and markets. Entrepreneurs were now engaged in the sustained, systematic pursuit of profit. Large scale production was geared towards distant markets, raw materials too were procured from all over the world.

These changes in production system led to many dramatic changes in social life too.

1. Before industrialisation, agriculture and textiles were the chief occupations of the British.

2. Most people lived in villages. Like in our own Indian villages, there were peasants and landlords, the blacksmith and leather workers, the weavers and the potters, the shepherds and the brewers.

3. Society was small. It was hierarchical, that is the status and class positions of different people were clearly defined. Like all traditional societies it was also, characterised by close interaction. With industrialisation each of these features changed.

4. One of the most fundamental aspects of the new order was the degradation of labour, the wrenching of work from the protective context of guild, village, and family. Both the radical and conservative thinkers were appalled at the decline of the status of the common labourer, not the skilled craftsmen.

5. Urban centres expanded and grew. It was not that there were no cities earlier. But their character prior to industrialisation was different. The industrial cities gave birth to a completely new kind of urban world. It was marked by the soot and grime of factories, by overcrowded slums of the new industrial working class, bad sanitation and general squalor. It was also marked by new kinds of social interactions.

Consequently many early sociologists like Karl Marx and Durkheim were concerned with the scientific analysis of the developments in industrial society.
Sociology was therefore bom as “Science of the new modem industrial society”.

Q4.What do you understand by Sociology?
Answer:
Capitalism was the new economic system that emerged in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. This system became the driving force behind industrial growth. Karl Marx believed that capitalists were factory owners and entrepreneurs who were engaged in the systematic pursuit of profit and became rich at the expense of their workers who remained poor.

The key to capitalism as a social system was the complex relationship between factory owners, workers and the means of production i.e. factories, machinery and tools. Renaissance was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries, which laid emphasis on reason, individualism and rational thought. The ideas of fraternity, equality and liberty became important and resulted in the French Revolution, which abolished the monarchy, ended feudalism and privileges based on birth. The central idea of Renaissance was that all men are born with certain rights that had to be respected.

Positivism was a theory developed by Auguste Comte, regarded as the “Father of Sociology.” Positivism is based on the theory that on the basis of verifiable facts it is possible to observe social life in a methodical way to establish reliable, valid knowledge which can be used to affect the course of social change and improve human conditions. Positivism has had little influence on contemporary sociology, however, because it is argued that it encourages a misleading emphasis on superficial facts without any attention to underlying mechanisms that cannot be observed.

Q5.In what ways did the Industrial Revolution lead to the birth of Sociology in Europe?

• The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It marked the beginning of the scientific age and led to changes in social lives of people.
• Before industrialization the rural sector was important. The chief occupation was farming and weaving. Society was hierarchical, status and class conscious. People worked according to their needs, factors like daylight and deadlines.
• Industrialisation meant there was a systematic application of science and technology. Huge factories were set up for large-scale production of goods like textiles and iron and steel. New forms of economic activity gave rise to capitalism as the pursuit of profit was geared to markets in distant colonies.
• There was a dramatic change in social life as a new working class emerged. Farmers migrated to industrial cities, which were characterised by overcrowded housing, poor sanitation and general squalor.
• An indicator of this new society was the emergence of “clock time”. The tempo of work was set by the clock and calendar. Factory production meant that work began punctually and people worked in shifts for set hours and were paid according to what they produced.
• Karl Marx and Durkheim were appalled at the degradation of factory workers and became concerned with the scientific analysis of developments in industrial society. Sociology was bom as a result of this as it was based on the understanding of “science of a new modem industrial world”.

Q6.Discuss the revolutionary changes in 19th century Europe that led to the emergence of Sociology.
Answer:
1. Sociology was born in 19th century Europe as a result of the revolutionary changes brought about by Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.

2. Medieval Europe was a feudal society. The church dominated all spheres of society including matters of state and the king was regarded to be divinely ordained to rule over his people as he deemed fit. Gradually people began to question every aspect of life including the authority of the church and the monarchy.

3. This led to the Age of Enlightenment, which laid great emphasis on reason and
rationality. There was a growing conviction that the methods of natural sciences could be extended to study affairs of human society. Eg. Poverty began to be seen not as a natural phenomenon but as a social problem caused by exploitation and human ignorance. Hence poverty could be redressed and resolved.

4. Enlightenment values of intellectual and political freedom found expression in the French Revolution of 1789. This revolution popularised the notion that all individuals possessed the right to liberty, equality and fraternity. The revolution ended monarchy and ushered in democracy. The age of feudalism ended and birth based privileges were abolished.

5. The Industrial Revolution began with the advancement of science and technology. It brought in capitalism as industry became economically very important. Farmers left their holdings to work in factories in the industrial cities of Britain. The features of society changed and the working class became important. Once again society was transformed as a new social order emerged.

6. People like Comte, Marx and Durkheim tried to make sense of these revolutionary changes and restore order to chaos. Their efforts helped the emergence of Sociology, as they believed that the scientific study of Sociology would help in the reconstruction and reorganization of a strong and healthy society.

Q7.Discuss relationship between Sociology and History.
Answer:
Sociology and the other social sciences have much in common. Recently there has been a gradual coming together of various social sciences. Pioneers of Indian sociology like DP Mukerji have stressed on an inter-disciplinary approach within the field of Sociology.
While there are many similarities between other social sciences. They are different in focus, orientation and emphasis.

Differences between Sociology and History:
History is concerned with the description of the past of the society while Sociology is primarily concerned with the present of society and to some extent its future too. Historians try to narrate historical events in their chronological order. Primary interest of sociology is to discover the general laws of society and to establish causal relationships between social phenomenon.

Conventional history has been more about the history of kings and war. The history of less glamorous events such as gender relations within the family have traditionally been less studied by historians but formed a core area of the sociologist’s interest.

Convergence of History and Sociology:

However, recently history and sociology are beginning to converge. This is because the present of society cannot be understood without looking at its past. Sociologists therefore, very often use historical records and refer to the works of historians for their own research.

Even history is often studied now from a sociological point of view. To quote G.E Howard, “History is past sociology and sociology is present history”. Historians today are using sociological methods and concepts in their analysis.
The coming of history and sociology together has led to the emergence of the specialization of historical sociology. It deals with social patterns, gender relations, customs other than the acts of rulers and wars.

Q8.Discuss relationship between Sociology and Economics.
Answer:
Differences between Sociology and Economics:

• Economics is concerned with the study of production and distribution of goods and services in society. On the other hand, sociology is the systematic study of social relations and interactions.
• The classical approach in economics dealt almost exclusively with the interrelations of pure economic variables such as price, demand, supply, money flow etc. Focus of traditional economics has been on a narrow understanding of economic activities.

Convergence of Sociology and Economics:

• Despite the difference irTfocus economics and sociology share a two way relationship because the economic activities of human beings do not exist in a vacuum.
• Production, consumption and distribution of goods and services in a society are influenced by non-economic, socio-cultural considerations like traditions, social norms, consumer nationalities etc.
• The large investment in the advertising industry is directly linked to the need to reshape life styles and consumption pattern of consumers. In fact, a number of MNC’s often refine or change their products to suit local taste and culture.

Q9.Discuss relationship between Sociology and Political Science.
Answer:
Differences between Sociology and Political Science:

• Sociology studies all aspects of society whereas conventional Political Science focused on the study of power embodied in formal institutions such as the state, government, political parties etc.
• Sociology stresses on the interrelationship between different social institutions like religion, education, politics etc whereas political science has tended to focus on the processes within the government.

Convergence of Sociology and Political Science:

• Despite these differences there are similar interests of researchers as well as increased interaction of methods and approaches between sociology and political science.
• The interface of political science and sociology is termed as political sociology. It acts as a bridge between the two subjects. For example, political sociology studies how religious and caste identities are used as vote banks.

Q10.How Sociology is related with Social Anthropology?
Answer:
Relationship between Sociology and Social Anthropology:

1. Types of Society: Sociology emerged as the study of modem, industrial complex societies while Social Anthropology emerged as the study of primitive, simple and small scale societies.
The anthropologists of the past documented the details of simple societies apparently in a neutral scientific fashion. In practice, however, they were constantly comparing those societies with the model of the western modern societies as a benchmark.

2. Scale of study: Social anthropology tended to study society (simple societies) in all their aspects, as a whole. In so far, as they specialised, it was on the basis of area. For example, the Andaman Islands. Sociologists study complex societies and
would therefore often focus on parts of society like the bureaucracy or religion or caste or a process such as social mobility.

3. Methods of Study: Social Anthropology has been associated with the ethnographic methods of participant observation. It is characterised by long field work tradition, living in and with the community being studied for a long time and learning their language.
Sociologists have often relied on survey methods and quantitative data using statistics and the questionnaire mode.

Convergence of Sociology and Social Anthropology:

• Today the distinction between a simple society and a complex one itself needs major rethinking. India itself is a complex mix of tradition and modernity, of the village and the city, of caste and tribe, of class and community.
• Consequently, there is a coming together of sociology and social anthropology in India. There have been fruitful interchanges between the two disciplines and today often methods and techniques are drawn from both.
• On the other hand, Sociology too has been using quantitative and qualitative techniques, macro and micro approaches for studying the complexities of modem societies.

Q11.Discuss relationship between Sociology and Psychology.
Answer:
Relationship between Sociology and Psychology:

Psychology is often defined as the science of behaviour. It involves itself primarily with the individual. It is interested in her/his intelligence and learning, motivations and memory, nervous system and reaction time, hopes and fears.
Sociology attempts to understand behaviour as it is organized in society, that is the way in which personality is shaped by different aspects of society. For instance, economic and political system, their family and kinship structure, their culture, norms and values.

It is interesting to recall that Durkheim who sought to establish a clear scope and method for sociology in his well-known study of suicide left out individual intentions of those who commit or try to commit suicide in favour of statistics concerning various social characteristics of these individuals.

Social psychology, which serves as a bridge between psychology and sociology, maintains a primary interest in the individual but concerns itself with the way in which the individual behaves in social groups, collectively with other individuals.

TEXTBOOK QUESTION AND ANSWER:

Q1. Explain the concept of motivation.
Answer: The term motivation is derived from the Latin word ‘movere’ referring to movement of activity. Thus it pushes an individual (organism) into activity.

• It can be used to explain drives, needs, goals and incentives… Any behaviour is goal driven, demand persistent and often preferred or is in favour of one goal over the other.
• It is individuals internal force which energises and directs the behaviour.

Q2. What are the biological bases of hunger and thirst needs?
Answer: Hunger:

• The stimuli of hunger include stomach contractions, which signify that the stomach is empty.
• A low concentration of glucose in the blood
• A low level of protein and the amount of fats stored in the body.
• The liver also responds to the lack of bodily fuel by sending nerve impulses to the brain.
• The aroma, taste or appearance of food may also result in a desire to eat.
• They all in combination act with external factors (such as taste, colour by observing other’s eating, and the smell of food, etc.) to the help one understands that she/he is hungry.

Thirst: When we are deprived of water for a period of several hours, the mouth and throat become dry, which leads to dehydration of body tissues.

• Drinking water is necessary to wet a dry mouth.
• The processes within the body itself control thirst and drinking of water.
• Water must get into the tissues sufficiently to remove the dryness of mouth and throat.
• Motivation to drink water is mainly triggered by the conditions of the body.
• Loss of water from cells and reduction of blood volume.
• When Water is lost by bodily fluids, water leaves the interior of the cells. The anterior hypothalamus contains nerve cells called ‘osmoreceptors’, which generate nerve impulses in case of cell dehydration. These nerve impulses act as a signal for thirst and drinking.

Ist View:

• The mechanism which explains the intake of water is responsible for stopping the
  intake of water.

IInd View:

• The role of stimuli resulting from the intake of water in the stomach have something to do with stopping of drinking water.
• The precise physiological mechanisms underlying the thirst drive are yet to be understood.

Q3.  How do the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power influence the behaviour of adolescents ? Explain with examples.
Answer:  Needs for achievement:

• It energies and directs behaviour as well as influences the perception of situations.
• During the formative years of social development, children acquire achievement motivation. They learn it from their parents, other role models, and socio-cultural influences.

We are social being. We maintain some form of relationship with others. Nobody likes to remain alone all the time. Formation of group is an important feature of human life. It involves motivation for social contact.

• Need for affiliation seeking other human beings and wanting to be close to them both physically and psychologically is called affiliation. It involves motivation for social contact.
• It is aroused when individuals feel threatened or helpless and also when they are happy. People high on this need are motivated to seek the company of others and to maintain friendly relationships with other people.

Need for power is an ability of a person to produce intended effects on the behaviour and emotions of another person. The various goals of power motivation are to influence, control, persuade, lead and charm others.

Q4.What is the basic idea behind Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Explain with suitable examples.
Answer: Abraham Maslow, a humanist psychologist proposed a hierarchy of needs in which human needs are arranged in a sequence from primitive to human. They are interrelated in the sense that when one need is fulfilled, the next one takes on the mind. At the lowest level are the physiological needs followed by the other higher level needs as given below:

1. Physiological needs:These are needs which are basic for survival.They include such as hunger, thirst.
2. Safety needs: The need to be free from any possible threat-both real and imaginary. It is of both physical and psychological nature.
3. Belongingness: Needs to belong, to affiliate, to love and to be loved by others. One can’t live alone and needs other’s company.
4.  Esteem needs: Individual strives for the need for self-esteem to develop a sense of self worth once his belongingness needs are fulfilled.
5. Self-actualisation: It means to attain the fullest developments of one’s potential.
   Such people are self-aware, socially responsible, creative, spontaneous, open to novelty and change, has a sense of humour and capacity for deep interpersonal relationships.

Q5. Does physiological arousal precede or follow an emotional experience? Explain.
Answer:

• William James and Carl Lange argued that the perception about bodily changes, like rapid breathing, a pounding heart and running legs following an event, – brings forth emotional arousal.
• This theory of emotion holds that body’s reaction to a stimulus produces emotional reaction.
• The theory suggests that environmental stimuli elicit physiological responses from viscera (the internal organs like heart and lungs), which in turn, are associated with muscle movement.
• James-Lange theory argues that your perception about your bodily changes, like rapid breathing, a pounding heart, and running legs, following an event, brings forth emotional arousal.
• The theory can be expressed in the following hierarchy:
  

Canon and Bard contradicted to the James-Lange theory.

• According to this theory, felt emotion and the bodily reaction in emotion are independent of each other; both get triggered simultaneously.
• This theory of emotion holds that bodily changes and the experience of emotion occurs simultaneously.
• Theory claims that the entire process of emotion is governed by thalamus.
• Thalamus conveys the information simultaneously to the cerebral cortex and to the skeletal muscles and sympathetic nervous system.
• The cerebral cortex then determines the nature of the perceived stimulus. By referring to the past experiences. This determines the subjective experience of emotion. Simultaneously the sympathetic nervous system and the muscles provide physiological arousal and prepare the individual to take action.
• Following diagram shows the CANNON-BARD theory of emotion:
  
• As proposed by the theory we first perceive potential emotion-producing situation which leads to activity in the lower brain region such as the hypothalamus which in turn sends output in two directions:
  (a)To internal body organs, external muscles to produce bodily expressions
  (b)To cerebral cortex where the pattern of discharge from the lower brain areas is perceived as felt emotion.

Q6. Is it important to consciously interpret and label emotions in order to explain them? Discuss giving Suitable examples.
Answer:  Schacter-Singer theory: In 1970, the American psychologists Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer, while adopting an eclectic approach to both the earlier theories of emotion, introduced a new theory named Cognitive theory of emotion.

• They suggested that our physical arousal together with our perception and judgement of situation (cognition) jointly determine which emotions we feel.
• In other words, our emotional arousal depends on both physiological changes and the cognitive or mental on both physiological changes and the cognitive or mental interpretation of those changes. One cannot work without the other.
• The necessary detection and explanation for an emotional state always rests with the interpretation of situation. Since this interpretation is purely a subject of cognitive functioning, the cognitive factors are said to be the potent determiners of our emotional states.

The views expressed by Schachter and Singer was also supported by Magda Arnold by stating that cognitive processes control how we interpret our feelings and how we act on them. She used the term Cognitive Appraisal for the identification and interpretation of emotion provoking stimuli.

• A third element, in understanding the relationship between physical reactions and emotional experience aroused on account of the perception of an emotion provoking stimulus.
• Cognitive theory helped us to learn that the emotional experience and physiological changes through which we pass are determined by the way we interpret a situation through the cognitive element of our behaviour in the form of our previous knowledge and our interpretation of the present situation directly affect our emotional experience.

Q7. How does culture influence the expression of emotions?
Answer:  Emotional expression involves posture, facial expression, actions, words and even silence.

• Cultural similarities in the facial expression of emotions such as anger, fear, disgust, sadness, happiness etc. have been observed. It must however, be noted that facial expression can, in some cases, be also misleading.
• The display rules that regulate emotional expression and emotional vocabulary do vary across cultures.
• It has been found that children would cry when distressed, shake their heads when defiant and smile when happy.
• Despite similarities in expressions of certain basic emotions, cultures do vary in why and how they express emotions.

Q8. Why is it important to manage negative emotion? Suggest ways to manage negative emotions.
Answer:

• It is important to control negative emotions in order to ensure an effective social functioning. Positive emotions should be enhanced. We can reduce/manage negative emotions in the following manner.
• Negative emotions like fear, anxiety, disgust are such emotions if allowed to prevail for a long time, they are likely to have adverse effects on our well¬being. Anxious individuals find it difficult to concentrate. They are not able to take decisions. Depression impairs individuals ability to think rationally, feel realistically and work effectively.
• Following tips prove useful to manage negative emotion effectively The following tips prove useful for achieving the desire balance of emotion:

1. Enhance self-awareness: Try to get insight into your own emotions and this makes you understand them in a better way. Knowing about your capabilities and limitation helps.
2. Appraise the situation objectively: An evaluation of situation and gaining insight into it determines the level and direction of emotion.
3. Self monitoring: A periodic evaluation of past accomplishments, emotional and physical states and other positive experiences enhance faith in yourself and leads to contentment.
4. Self-modeling: Analyzing past performances and the positive aspects attached to it provides with inspiration and motivation to perform better next time.
5. Perceptual reorganization and cognitive rest-ructuring: Changing old patterns and following new positive ones. Restructure your thoughts to enhance positively and eliminate negative thoughts.
6. Be creative: Take up some hobby or develop and interest in something creative and innovative. Create fun for yourself by pursuing such activity of interest.
7. Develop and nurture good relationship: One who shares good interpersonal relationship with others never feel alone and disheartened.
8. Empathy: Looking at other’s situation as it was your own. Understanding others well help you in understanding your own self in a better way. It adds meaning to your life.
9. Participation in community services: this can prove to be very effective in creating a balance of emotion in your life.

TEXTBOOK QUESTION AND ANSWER:

Q1. Explain the nature of thinking.
Answer: Thinking is a complex mental process involved in manipulating and analyzing information, either collected through the senses from the environment, or stored in memory from past experiences.
Such manipulation and analysis occur by means of abstracting, reasoning, imagining, problem solving, judging and decision-making. It is an internal process that can be inferred from overt behavior.
Main features:

1. Thinking is the base of all cognitive activities.
2. It involves manipulation and analysis of information received from the ! environment.
3. Thinking is mostly goal directed and one desires to reach the goal by planning. Two building blocks of thinking?

• Thinking is a complex mental process and people think by means of mental images or concepts.
• Mental image refers to an image which is a mental representation of a sensor}’ experience. In this we actually try to form a visual image of the whole situation.
•  A concept is a mental representation of a category. It refers to a class of objects,
  ideas, events that share common properties, e.g. When we encounter new social situation, we try to categorise it on the basis of past experience and take action towards such situations.

Q2. What is a concept? Explain the role of concept in the thinking process.
Answer: Concepts are mental categories for objects and events, which are similar to each other in one or in more than one way.

• They may be organised in schema. They are mental frameworks which represents our knowledge and assumptions about the world.
• Concepts are building blocks of thinking. They allow us to organize knowledge in systematic ways.
• Concept formation is a basic task of thinking i.e., identifying the stimulus properties that are common to a class of objects or ideas, e.g., in the activity, the participant has to classify the stimuli either on the basis of colour or shape. It is very helpful in the thinking process.

Q3. Identify obstacles that one may encounter in problem solving.
Answer: Problem solving is thinking directed towards the solution of a specific problem,
Problem solving involves following mental operations which are as follows :

1. Identify the problem
2. Represent the problem
3. Plan the solution: Set sub-goals
4. Evaluate all solutions (plays)
5. Select one solution and execute it
6.  Evaluate the putcome
7. Rethink and redefine problems and solutions

There are two major obstacles to solving a problem. These are mental set, and lack of motivation.
Mental set is a tendency of a person to solve problems by following already tried mental operations or steps.
Lack of motivation is another obstacles to solving problems. Due to lack of motivation people give up easily when they encounter a problem or failure in implementing the : first step. Therefore, there is a need to persist in their effort to find a solution.

Q4. How does reasoning help in solving problems?
Answer:  Reasoning is a form of problem solving. It is goal directed activity and involves ‘ i
Reasoning is the process of gathering and analyzing information to a arrive at a conclusion.
Types of reasoning:

1. Inductive Reasoning: Reasoning is based on specific facts and observations. Through this reasoning people analyzing other possible reasons. Scientific reasoning is inductive in nature.
2. Deductive Reasoning: The deductive reasoning begins with general solution and then draws specific solution.
3. Analogy: Analogy helps us in identifying and visualizing the salient attributes of an object.

Q5. Are judgement and decision-making interrelated processes? Explain.
Answer: Judgement and decision-making are interrelated processes. .

• In decision-making the problem before us is to choose among alternatives by evaluating the cost and benefit associated with each alternative. For example, when you have the option to choose between psychology and economics your decision will be based on future prospects.
• Decision making differs from other type or problem solving. In decision-making we already know the various solutions of choices.
• Judgements are not decisions although they make yield information necessary for decision.

Q6. Why is divergent thinking important in creative thinking process?
Answer:  Divergent thinking^ is important in creative thinking process. It’s abilities facilitate generation of a variety of ideas which may not seem to be related.
Fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration are the abilities of divergent thinking.

1. Fluency : produces many ideas for a given task or a problem. The more ideas a person produces, the higher his fluency ability.
2. Flexibility: indicates variety in thinking. It may be thinking of different uses of an object, or different interpretation of a picture, story or different ways of solving a problem
3. Originality : ability to produce ideas that are rare or unusual by seeing new relationship, combining old ideas with new ones, looking at things from different prospective.
4. Elaboration : ability that enables a person to go into details and workout implications of new ideas.
   • Divergent thinking ability facilitate generations of a variety of ideas which may not seem to be related.
   • Divergent thinking is essential in generating a wide range of ideas. Convergent thinking is important to identify the most useful or appropriate idea.

Q7. What are the various barriers to creative thinking?
Answer: Barriers to creative thinking can be characterized as habitual, perceptual, motivational, emotional and cultural.

1. The tendency to be overpowered by habits can be detrimental to creative expression as it becomes difficult to think in novel ways.
2. Motivational and emotional barriers show that creativity is more than just a cognitive process. Lack of motivation, fear of failure, fear of rejection, poor self concept and negativism may hamper creative thinking.
3. Cultural barriers are related to excessive adherence to tradition, expectations, conformity, pressures and stereo types. It arises due to the fear of being different, mediocrity, social pressure, over-dependence, personal security and tendency to maintain the things as it is.
   Strategies to overcome the barriers of creative thinking.

There are certain attitudes, dispositions, and skills, which facilitate creative thinking.
Here are some strategies to help you enhance your creative thinking abilities and skills:

• Cultivate the habit of wider reading, exposure to a variety of information, and develop the art of asking questions, pondering over the mysteries of situations and objects.
• Try deliberately to look for multiple angles of a task and situation to increase flexibility in your thinking.
• Obsbom’s Brainstorming technique can be used to increase fluency and flexibility of ideas to open-ended situations. This helps in increasing the fluency of ideas and piling up alternatives. Brainstorming can be practiced by playing brainstorming games with family members and friends keeping its principles in mind.
• Originality can be developed by practicing fluency, flexibility, and habit of associative thinking, exploring linkages, and fusing distinct or remote ideas.
• Indulgence in activities, which require use of imagi-nation and original thinking rather than routine work according to the interest and hobbies.
• Generate a number of possible ideas or solutions, then select the best from among them.
• Think of what solutions someone else may offer for the problems.
• Give your ideas the chance to incubate. Allowing time for incubation between production of ideas and the stage of evaluation of ideas may bring in the ‘Aha!’ experience.
• Sometimes ideas cluster like branches of a tree. It is useful to diagram your thinking so that you can follow each possible branch to its completion.
• Resist the temptation for immediate reward and success and cope with the frustration and failure. Encourage self-evaluation.
  Develop independent thinking in making judgments.
• Visualize cause and consequence and think ahead, predicating things that have never happened, like, suppose the time starts moving backwards, what would happen? If we had no zero?, etc.
• Be self-confident and positive.

Q8. How can creative thinking be enhanced ?
Answer: Strategies to enhance memory:

1. Originality: Originality can be developed by practicing fluency, flexibility, habit of associative thinking, exploring linkages, and fusing distinct or remote idea.
2. Use of Imagination: Engaging more frequently in activities which require use of imagination and original thinking rather than routine work according to interest and hobbies.
3. Not to accept initial ideas: Never accepting the first ideas or solution. Many ideas die because we reject them thinking that the idea might be a silly idea i.e. we have to first generate a number of possible ideas or solutions, then select the best from among them.
4. Getting feedback: Getting a feedback on the solutions we decide one from others who are less personally involved in the task.
5. Chance to Incubate : Giving ideas the chance to incubate. Allowing time for incubation between production of ideas and the stage of evaluation of ideas, may bring in the ‘Aha!’ experience.
6. Diagram thinking: Sometimes ideas cluster like branches of a tree. It is useful to diagram our thinking so that we can follow each possible branch to its completion.
7. Developing independent thinking: Developing independent thinking in making judgements, figuring out things without any help or resources.
8. Self confident : To be self-confident and positive. Never undermine to your creative potential to experience the joy of your creation.

Q9. Does thinking take place without language ? Discuss.
Answer:

• Thinking is a silent speech
• It cannot take place without language.
• Benjamin Lee Whorf was of the view that language determines the contents of thought. This view is known as linguistic relativity hypothesis. In its strong version, this hypothesis holds what and how individuals can possible think is determined by the language and linguistic categories they use (linguistic determinism).
• Experimental evidence, maintains that it is possible to have the same level or quality of thoughts in all languages depending upon the availability of linguistic categories and structures.
• Some thoughts may be easier in one language compared to another.

Q10. How is language acquired in human beings?
Answer: To achieve linguistic competence, children must master the four sub-systems or language :

• Phonology – the ability to understand and produce speech sounds
• Semantics – the ability to understand words and the different combinations of words
• Grammar – the ability to understand the rules by which words are arranged into sentences and the rules by which words can indicate tense and gender
• Pragmatics – the ability to understand the rules of effective communication such as turn-taking, initiating and ending conversations and so on.

There are two contrasting views on how language is acquired. Some suggest that language acquisition is primarily biologically determined. This is typical nativity position in nature-nurture debate. Other position is the environmentalist position which views learning as the basis of language acquisition.
Language development for behaviourists like B.F. Skinner follow the learning principles such as association, imitation and reinforcement. They explain it in terms of operant conditioning
Regional differences in pronunciation and phrasing illustrate how different patterns are reinforced in different areas.

• The nativist view supported by Noam Chomsky argues that human being’s extra ordinary capacity to learn and use language is based on certain innate mechanisms.
• Chomsky suggested that children are born with powerful language acquisition, device, LAD, which represents a knowledge of universal grammar.
• Children throughout the world seem to have a critical period that is form infancy to puberty where learning must occur if it is to occur successfully for learning language.
  Most psychologists accept that both nature and nurture are important in language acquisition.

TEXTBOOK QUESTION AND ANSWER:

Q1. What is the meaning of the terms ‘encoding’, ‘storage’ and ‘retrieval’?
Answer: Memory is conceptualized as a process consisting of three independent, though interrelated stages. These are:

1. Encoding:
   • It is the first stage which refers to a process by which information is recorded and registered for the first time so that it becomes usable by our memory system.
   • In encoding, incoming information is received and some meaning is derived.
2. Storage: It is the second stage of memory:
   •  Information which was encoded must also be stored so that it can be put to use later.
   • Storage refers to the process through which information is retained and held over a period of time.
3. Retrieval: It is the third stage of memory.
   •  Information can be used only when one is able to recover it from his/her memory.
   • Retrieval refers to bringing the stored information to his/her awareness so that it can be used for performing various cognitive tasks.

Q2. How is information processed thrdugh sensory, short-term and long-term memory systems?
Answer: Atkinson and Shiffrin model of memory also known as stage model of memory.

• This proposes the existence of three separate but sequentially linked memory systems, the sensory memory, the short-term memory and the long-term memory.
• The sensory memory—contains a fleeting impression of a sensory stimulus (a sight or a sound). It is initial process that preserve brief impression of stimuli. It has a large capacity. It is of very short duration that is less than a second.
• The short-term memory—a limited recollection of recently perceived stimuli (a telephone number or an order of drinks). It holds small amount of information for a brief periocfof time i.e. less than 30 seconds. It is primarily encoded acoustically.
• The long-term memory—a more or less permanent store of memories for later retrieval (e.g. our telephone numbers). In this stage informations are encoded semantically and storage capacity is unlimited.
• Each of these memory system is seen as differing in the way they process information, how much information they can hold and for how long they can hold that information.
  The model can be expressed in the following diagram:
  

Q3. How are maintenance rehearsals different from elaborative rehearsals?
Answer:  Maintenance rehearsals:

• It is an important control process of STM.
• It is used to retain the information for as much time as required.
• As the name suggests these kinds of rehearsals simply maintain information through repetition and when such repetitions discontinue the information is lost.
• It is carried through silent or vocal repetition.

Elaborative rehearsals:

• From the STM information enters the long term memory through elaborative rehearsals.
• This rehearsal attempts to connect the “to be retained information” to the already existing information in long term memory.
  e.g. the task of remembering the meaning of the work “humanity” will be easier if the meaning of concepts such as “compassion”, “truth” and “benevolence” are already in place.
• In elaborate rehearsals, one attempts to analyse the information in terms of various information it arouses.
• Assignment of meaning and associations are formed. –
•  It involves organization of the incoming information in as many ways as possible e.g. we can expand the information in some kind of logical framework, link it to similar memories or else create a mental image.

Q4. Differentiate between declarative and procedural memories.
Answer: Difference between declarative and procedural memories are following:
Declarative Memory

• All information pertaining to facts, names, date, such as rikshaw has three wheels or that India became independent on August 15,1947 or a frog is an amphibian or you and your friend share the same name are part of this.
• Facts retained in this memory are related to amenable to verbal descriptions.

Procedural Memory

•  It refers to memories relating to procedures of accomplishing various tasks, i.e. skill learning e.g. how to make tea, play basketball or drive a car. .
• Contents of this memory can not be described easily.

Q5. Discuss the hierarchical organisation in long-term memory?
Answer:

• Allan Collins and Ross Quillian suggested that knowledge in long-term memory is organized in terms of concepts, categories and images and are organised hierarchically and assumes a network structure. Elements of this structure are called nodes.
• Nodes are concepts While connections between nodes are labelled relationships, which indicate category membership or concept attributes.
• According to this view, we can store all knowledge at a certain level that ‘applies to all the members of a category without having to repeat that information at the lower levels in the hierarchy’.
• This ensures a high degree of cognitive economy, which means maximum and efficient use of the capacity of long-term memory with minimum effort.
• Images: An image is a concrete form of representation which directly conveys the perceptual attributes of an object.
• All concrete objects generate images and the knowledge related to them is encoded both verbally as well as visually. This is known as dual coding hypothesis, originally proposed by Paivio. Such information can be recalled with greater ease.
• According to this hypothesis, concrete nouns and information related to concrete objects are images.
• Information related to abstract concepts assume a verbal and a descriptive code. For example, if you are asked to describe a bird, the first thing that happens is that an image of a bird is generated and based on this image, you describe a bird. But, on the other hand, the meanings of concepts like ‘truth’ or ‘honesty’ will not have such accompanying images.

Q6. Why does forgetting take place?
Answer:  Each one of us has experienced forgetting and its consequences almost routinely. There | . are some reasons because of which we forget:

1.  It is because the information we commit to our long term memory is somehow lost.
2.  It is because we did not memorise it well enough.
3.  It is because we did not encode the information correctly or it is because during storage, it got distorted or misplaced.

There are theories which have been developed to explain forgetting:

1. Theory of forgetting developed by Hermann Ebbinghaus:
   According to him the rate of forgetting is maximum in the first nine hours,particularly during the first hour. After that, the rate slows down and not much is forgotten even after many days.
2.  Forgetting due to Trace decay:
   (a)Trace theory (also called disuse theory) is the earliest theory of forgetting.
   (b)The assumption here is that memory leads to modification in the central nervous system, which is akin to physical changes in the brain called “memory traces”. When these memory traces are not used for a long time, they simply fade away and become unavailable.
   Drawbacks:
   • If forgetting takes place because memory traces decay due to disuse, then people who go to sleep after memorizing should forget more compared to those who remain awake.
   • Those who remain awake after memorizing show greater forgetting than those , who sleep.
3. Forgetting due to interference:
   • The interference theory suggests that forgetting is due to interferences between various informations that the memory store contains.
   • Interference comes about at a time of retrieval when these various sets of associations compete with each other for retrieval.
     There are two kinds of interferences that may result in forgetting.
     (a) Proactive (forward moving): Proactive means what you have learnt earlier interferes with the recall of your subsequent learning. In other words, in proactive interference past learning interferes with the recall of later learning, e.g. If you know English and you find it difficult to learn French it is because of proactive interference.
     (b) Retroactive (backward moving): Retroactive refers to difficulty in recalling
     what you have learnt earlier because of learning a new material. In retroactive interference the later learning interferes with the recall of past learning.e.g. If you cannot recall English equivalents of French words that you are currently memorizing then it is because of retroactive interference.
     
4. Forgetting due to retrieval failure:
   • Forgetting can also occur because at the time of recall, either the retrieval cues are absent or they are inappropriate.
   • Retrieval cues are aids which help us in recovering information stored in the memory.
   • This view was advanced by “Tulving and his associates” who carried out several experiments to show that recall of content become poor either due to absence or inappropriateness of retrieval cues that are available /employed at the time of recall.
   • Without getting any cues one may recall a couple of them only but if the learner get cues like category names then the recall improves significantly.
     Category names may act as retrieval cues.

Q7. How is retrieval related forgetting different from forgetting due to interference?
Answer:  According to Tulving retrieval cues are adds which help us in recovering information stored in the memory.

• Tulving said that contents of memory may become inaccessible either due to absence or inappropriatance of retrieval cues that are available at the time of recall.
• According to interference theory of forgetting we forget due to interference between various informations the memory store contains.
• According to this theory learning and memorizing involve forming of associations between items and these associations remain in the memory.

Q8. What evidence do we have to say that ‘memory is a constructive process’?
Answer: “Bartlett” saw memory as a constructive and not a reproductive process.

1. He used the method of “serial reproduction” in which the participants of his experiments recalled the memory materials reportedly at varying time intervals.
   • While engaging in this method of learning material, his participants committed a wide variety of errors which Bartlett considered useful in understanding the process of memory construction.
2. Using meaningful materials such as texts, folk tales, fables etc.
   • He attempted to understand the manner in which content of any specific memory gets affects by a person’s knowledge, goals, motivation, preferences and various other psychological process.
3.  Schemas play an important role in the process of memorization. Schemas refer to an organization of past experiences and knowledge which influence the way in which incoming information is interpreted, stored and later retrieved.
   • Memory, therefore becomes encoded and is stored in terms of a person’s understanding and within his/her previous knowledge and expectations.

Q9. Define Mnemonics? Suggest a plan to improve your own memory.
Answer:  All of us desire to possess an excellent dependable memory system. There are a number of strategies for improving memory called “mnemonics” (pronounced ni – mo-nicks) to help you improve your memory.
Some of these mnemonics involve use of images whereas others emphasise self- induced organization of learned information.
Mnemonics using Images: Mnemonics using images require that you create vivid and interacting images of and around the material you wish to remember. The two prominent mnemonic devices, which make use of images are following:

1. The Keyword Method: In this method, an English word that sounds similar to the word of a foreign language is identified. This English word will function as a keyword, e.g. If you want to remember the Spanish word for duck which is “pato” you may choose “pot” as the keyword and then evoke images of keyword and the target word (Spanish word) and imagine them as interacting. You might imagine a duck in a pot full of water.
   This method of learning words of a foreign language is much superior compared to any kind of rote memorization.
2. The Method of Loci:
   • This method is particularly helpful in remembering items in serial order.
   • It requires that you first visualize objects/places that you know well in a specific sequence, imagine the objects you want to remember and associate them one by one to the physical locations.
   • Suppose you want to remember bread, eggs, tomatoes and soap on your way to the market, you may visualize a loaf of bread and eggs placed in your kitchen, tomatoes kept on a table and soap in the bathroom. When you enter the market all you need to do is to take a mental walk along the route from your kitchen to the bathroom recalling all the items of your shopping list in a sequence.
3. Mnemonics using organization: Organization refers to imposing certain order on the material you want to remember. Mnemonics of this kind are helpful because the framework you create while organization makes the retrieval task fairly easy.
   (a)Chunking: In chunking, several smaller units are combined to form large chunks. For creating chunks, it is important to discover some organization principles, which can link smaller units. This method is very much used to improve short term memory.
   (b)First letter technique: For this method you need to pick up the first letter of each word you want to remember and arrange them to form another word or a sentence, e.g. colours of a rainbow are remembered in this way (VIBGYOR— that stands for Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red).
   Drawbacks of mnemonics:
   (a)Mnemonics strategies for memory enhancement are too simplistic.
   (b)It underestimates complexities of memory tasks and difficulties people experience while memorizing.

More comprehensive approaches to memory improvement:
(a)Engage in Deep Level processing:

• “CRAIK and LOCKHART” have demonstrated that processing information in terms of meaning that they convey leads to better memory as compared to attending to their surface features.
• Deep processing would involve asking as many questions, related to the information as possible, considering its meaning and examining its relationships to the facts you already know.
• In this way, the information will become a part of your existing knowledge framework and the chances that it will be remembered are increased.

(b)Minimise interference: Maximum interference is caused when vary similar materials are learned in a sequence.

• To avoid this, Arrange your study in such a way that you do not learn similar subjects one after the other.
• Instead pick, up some other subject unrelated to the previous one. Give yourself rest periods while studying to minimize interference.

(c)Give yourself enough Retrieval cues: Cues will be easier to remember compared to the entire content and make link to the parts of the study material to these cues. Then this content will facilitate the retrieval process.
“THOMAS and ROBINSON” have developed another strategy to help students in remembering, more which they called the method of “PQRST”. It stands for Preview, Question, Read, Self-recitation and the test.

• “Preview” refers to giving a cursory look at the chapter and familiarizing oneself with its contents.
• “Question” means raising questions and seeking answers from the lesion.
• “Read”—Now start Reading and look for answers of questions you have raised.
• “Self-recitation”—After reading try to rewrite what you have read.
• Test-At the end test how much you have been able to understand.

TEXTBOOK QUESTION AND ANSWER:

Q1. What is learning? What are its distinguishing features?
Answer:  The process of learning has certain features:

1. Learning always involves some kinds of experience or practice.
   • Changes due to maturation or growth are not learning.
     e.g.: One learns that if the bell rings in the hostel after sunset, then dinner is ready to be served.
2. Sometimes a single experience can lead to learning.
   e.g.: A child strikes a match stick on the side of a matchbox and gets her/his finger burnt. Such an experience, makes the child learn to be careful in handling the matchbox in future.
   • Before it can be called learning, the change must be relatively permanent, it must last for a fairly long time.
3. Learning must be distinguished from the behavioural changes that are neither permanent nor learnt.
   eg. changes in behaviour due to fatigue, habituation and drugs.
4. Learning is a change in behaviour, for better or worse.
5. Learning follows a sequence.

Q2. How does classical conditioning demonstrate learning by association?
Answer:

• Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an organism learns to associate stimulus.
• Conditioning is the simplest form of learning.
• Classical conditioning was first explained in Pavlovs experiments in which a dog was kept on a harness with a tube attached to the dogs jaw on one end, a measuring jar on the other end.
• The dogs was kept hungry in the course of experiments, every time the dogs was
  given food a bell was rung before it, slowly the dog become conditioned to believe that the ringing bell meant that food was coming. .
• So, he began salivating at the sound at the bell.
• The dog continued to salivate even when food was not given after the bell.
• Hence, salivation became a conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus. Various forms of classical conditioning are:

1. Unconditioned stimulus (US): This stimulus consistently evoked a response or is reliably followed by one or it has potential capacity to evoke a natural response. e.g. food.
2. Conditioned stimulus (CS): It is also known as a neutral stimulus because except for an altering or intentional response, the first few times it is presented, it does not evoke a specific response.
   Any stimuli which lacks natural capacity to evoke natural response but developes this capacity with consistent pairing with US. For example bell.
3. Unconditioned Response (UR): The response that reliably follows the unconditioned stimulus is known as the unconditioned response, e.g. Saliva due to food. (iv) Conditioned Response (CR): When presentation of the originally neutral conditioned stimulus evokes a response.
   This response is what is learned in classical conditioning, e.g. Saliva s a response to the bell.

Determinants of classical conditioning: 

1. Time Relations between stimuli: In classical conditioning the first three are called Forward Conditioning Procedures and the forth one is called Backward Conditioning.
   The basic experimental arrangements of these procedures are as follows:
   • Simultaneous Conditioning: When the CS and US are presented together.
     It is effective to acquire CR but requires greater number of trials.
   • Delayed Conditioning: The onset of CS precedes the onset of US. The CS ends before the end of the US. It is most effective way of acquiring CR.
   • Trace Conditioning: The onset and the end of the CS precedes the onset of US with some time gap between the two. It is effective but requires greater number of trials.
   • Backward conditioning: The US precedes the onset of CS. It is least effective way to acquire CR.
2. Type of unconditioned stimuli: The unconditioned stimuli used in studies of classical conditioning are of two types: Appetitive e.g. eating drinking etc. according to researches it is slower and requires greater number of trials
   • Aversive e.g. Noise, bitter taste etc. classical conditioning is established in one, two or three trials so it is more effective.
3. Intensity of conditioned stimuli: This influences the course of both appetitive and aversive classical conditioning. More intense conditioned stimuli are more effective in accelerating the acquisition of conditioned responses, e.g.: The more intense the conditioned stimulus, the fewer are the number of acquisition trials needed for conditioning, ie intense irritating noise is more effective.

Q3. Define operant conditioning. Discuss the factors that influence the course of operant conditioning.
Answer:  Operant or instrumental conditioning is a form of learning in which behaviour is
learned, maintained or changed through its consequences.
Determinants of operant conditioning :
1. Reinforcers

• A reinforcer is defined as any stimulus or event which increases the probability of the occurrence of a desired response.
• The type – positive or negative, frequency, quality and schedule or reinforcer are determinants of operant conditioning.

1. Type of reinforcement:
   • Positive reinforcement involves stimuli that have pleasant consequences.
     They strengthen and maintain the responses that have caused them to occur.
   • Negative reinforcer involve unpleasant and painful stimuli. Responses that lead organisms to get rid of painful stimuli or avoid and escape from them provide negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement leads to learning of avoidance and escape responses.
2. Frequency/number of reinforcement and other feature :
   • Frequency of trial on which an organism has been reinforced or rewarded.
   • Amount of reinforcement i.e. how much of reinforcing stimulus (food or water) one receives on each trial.
   •  Quality of reinforcement i.e. to the kind of reinforcer. Bread of inferior
     quality as compared with pieces of cake have different reinforcing value.
3. Schedule of reinforcement:
   • This refers to the arrangement of the delivery of reinforcement during trials.
   • When a desired response is reinforcement every time it occurs we call it continuous reinforcement.
   • When according to schedule responses are sometimes reinforced, sometimes not it is known as partial reinforcement and has been found to produce greater resistance to extinction.
4. Delayed reinforcement:
   • It is found that delay in the delivery of reinforcement leads to poorer level of performance.

Q4. A good role model is very important for a growing up child. Discuss the kind of learning that supports it.
Answer: Observational learning: The acquisition of new forms of behaviour, information or concepts through exposure to others and the consequences they experience is called observational learning. This learning is also called social learning because we human beings learn many simple and complex social skills through observations.The concept of social learning was introduced by BANDURA.
Characteristics of observational learning

• Individualsleam social behaviour of person of status, respect and behave similarly when put in specific social situation e.g. In games, children quite often use.
• For such learning only those persons are observed who are considered to be as role models.
• Social behaviours are learned by observation.
• Personality characteristics, habits are developed through observational learning.

Concept of modeling

• According to social learning much of what human beings learn through direct experience can be learned through watching someone. It is because of modeling.
• Observational learning observers acquire knowledge by observing the model’s behaviour, but performance is influence by model’s behaviour being rewarded or punished. 1
• Children of fearful parents become fearful, children of critical parents become critical and children who observe confident adults tend to become confident themselves.

Influence of modeling

• It can be well understood by studies conducted by BANDURA.
• He showed a 5 minute film to children. The film showed numerous dolls including bobo dolls in a play room. The film had three versions:
  1st group of children see a boy being punished for his aggressive behaviour while playing.
  2nd group of children see boy being rewarded and praised by adult for being aggressive to the doll.
  3rd group of children see nothing, neither the boy being rewarded nor punished for aggressive behaviour displayed.
• It was found that those children who displayed aggressive behaviour being rewarded were most Aggressive, those who had seen aggressive model being punished were least aggressive.

Conclusion
In observational learning, observers require knowledge by observing model’s behaviour but performance is influenced by model’s behaviour being rewarded or punished.

Q5. Explain the procedures for studying verbal learning.
Answer: Verbal Learning: The process of learning to respond verbally to verbal stimulus, which may include symbols, nonsense syllables and lists of words.
Procedures for studying verbal learning are:

1. Paired—Associated learning:
   • This method is similar to S-S conditioning and S-R learning.
   • When the list of paired-associates is prepared, the first word of the pair is used as the stimulus and the second word as the response.
   • The first members of the pairs (stimulus term) are nonsense syllables (consonant-vowel-consonant), and the second are English nouns (response term).
     e.g.: Stimulus = Response
     Gen = Loot
     Dem= Time
     Div= Lamp
   • The learner is first shown both the stimulus response pairs together and is instructed to remember and recall the response after the presentation of each stimulus term. After that a learning trial begins.
   • Trials continue until the participant gives all the response words without a single error.
2.  Serial learning:
   • First, lists of verbal items, i.e. nonsense syllables, most familiar or least familiar words, interrelated words etc. are prepared.
   • In serial learning the participant is presented the entire list and is required to produce the items in the same serial order as in the list.
   • Learning trials continue until the participant correctly anticipates and recall in the given order.
3. Free Recall:
   • In this method, participants are presented a list of words, each word is shown at a fixed rate of exposure duration.
   • Immediately after the presentation of the list, the participants are required to recall the words in any order they can.

This method is used to study how participants organize words for storage in memory.
Studies also indicate that the items placed in the beginning or end of the lists are easier to recall than those placed in the middle which are more difficult to recall.

Q6. What is a skill? What are the stages through which skill learning develops?
Answer: A skill is defined as the ability to perform some complex task smoothly and efficiently, e.g.: car driving, writing etc.
Skill consists of a chain of perceptual motor responses or as a sequence of S-R associations, e.g.: Movements of legs, feet and toes etc.
According to Fitts skill learning develops through three stages:

1. Cognitive Phase: In cognitive phase of skill learning, the learner has to understand and memorise the instructions.
   • The learner has to understand how the task has to be performed.
   • In this phase every outside cue instructional demand, and one’s response outcome have to be kept alive in consciousness.
2. Associative Phase:
   • Different sensory inputs or stimuli are to be linked with appropriate responses.
   • As the practice increases, errors decrease, performance improves and time taken is also reduced.
3. Autonomous Phase: two important changes take place in performance.
   • The Attentional demands of the associative phase decreases.
   • Inference created by external factors reduces. Finally, skilled performance attains Automaticity with minimal demands of – conscious effort.

Q7. How can you distinguish between generalisation and discrimination?
Answer:  Generalisation:

• Pavlov noticed that when a C.S – C.R. bond has been established by conditioning, a stimulus which is similar to the C.S can produce the same response and he called this stimulus Generalisation, or in other words Generalisation occurs due to similarity.
  e.g. If the dog is conditioned to salivate to tone, it will salivate to any type of tone , like electric bell, worship bell, college bell, buzzer and other sounds.
• Stimulus Generalisation in conditioning happens usually more in childhood particularly when the child has not developed the capacity to differentiate between two stimuli.
  For example; During infancy the baby considers every woman to be his mother.

Discrimination:

• Discrimination is the process of learning to make one response to one stimulus and another response – or no response to another stimulus.
  e.g: discrimination can be obtained in classical conditioning by pairing one stimulus (the CS+) with an unconditioned stimulus and never pairing another stimulus (the CS) with the unconditioned stimulus.
• Discrimination is a response due to difference or in other words discriminative response depends on the discrimination capacity or discrimination learning of an organism.

Q8. How does transfer of learning takes place?
Answer: Transfer of learning refers to the way in which we might transfer skills learned in one situation to a second, related situation. Thus, learning to play tennis may introduce a range of coordination and racket skills that would then transfer to similar games such as squash.

• It refers to the effects of prior learning on new learning.
• Transfer is consider to be positive if the earlier learning facilitates current learning. If new learning is a related then it is consider to be negative transfer.
• Absence of facilitative of retarding effect means zero transfer i.e. earlier learning has no effect on later learning.

Q9. Why is motivation a prerequisite for learning?
Answer: Motivation is considered a pre-requisite and acts as a main facilitator of learning.

1. It is a mental as well as a physiological state, which arouses an organism to act for fulfilling the current need.
2. Motivation energises an organism to act rigorously for attaining some goal, and such sets persist until the goal is attained and the need is satisfied.
   e.g.: The more motivated you are the more hard work you do for learning.
3.  Motivation for learning arises from two sources:
   • Intrinsic motivation: One may learn many things because he/she enjoys them or it provides the means for attaining some other goal.
   • Extrinsic motivation: Throughout the session one learn to acquire knowledge and skill, which may help to get a good job later.

Q10. What does the notion of preparedness for learning mean?
Answer: Preparedness is a reference to the fact that organisms are better able to associate certain combination of stimuli, responses and reinforces than others.

• If an animal eats and is then ill, it may develop an aversion to the flavor of the food, but not to visual or auditory stimuli that works present at the same time.
• The members of different species are very different from one another in their capacities and response abilities.
• The kinds of S-S or S-R learning an organism can easily acquire depends on the associative mechanism it is genetically endowed with or prepared for.
• A particular kind of associative learning is easy for apes or human beings but may be extremely difficult for another species.
• It implies that learning very much dependent on those association for which one is genetically prepared at the same time on his/her psychological preparedness to learn a particular task.

Q11. Explain the different forms of cognitive learning.
Answer:  Insight learning is a form of cognitive learning.

• Insight is defined as sudden perception of relationship between the learner, the
  goal and intervening obstacles.
• Insight occurs when the learner suddenly sees the relations between two valuables. Many experiments have been performed on insight learning. One Of the simplest of these experiments requires the chimpanzee to reach food with a stick when it cannot be reached by hand and when nothing else other than a stick is a available in the room. Latent learning is another form of cognitive learning.

The word latent means ‘hidden’ and thus latent learning is learning that occurs but is not evident in behaviour until later, when conditions for its appearance are favourable.

• Latent learning is said to occur without reinforcement of particular responses and seems to involve changes in the ways information is processed.
• Thus latent learning is an example of cognitive learning.

Experimental evidence:

• Rats in an experimental group-the latent learning group were first given plenty of experience in a maze. After they thoroughly experienced the maze, reinforced maze learning under instrumental conditioning began ie. They were rewarded for their successful effort.
• The rats in a control group are not being given experience with the maze. The control group animals were put in a box that is unlike the maze.
• When reinforcement for maze learning starts, the experimental group did better than the rats in the control group.
• The latent learning group rats learned the maze faster and with fewer errors than did the control animals.
• It proves that the latent learning showed up in their performance.

Q12. How can we identify students with learning disabilities?
Answer: Learning disability refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested in terms of difficulty in the acquisition of learning, reading, writing, speaking, reasoning, and mathematical activities.

• The sources of such disorders are inherent in the child.

We can identify students with learning disabilities from many symptoms. These symptoms are following:

1. Difficulties in writing letters, words, and phrases, reading out text, and speaking, appear quite frequently, quite often they have listening problems, although they may not have auditory defects. Such children are very different from others in developing learning strategies and plans.
2. Learning disabled children have disorders of attention. They get easily distracted
   and cannot sustain attention on one point for long. Some times it leads to hyperactivity ie they are always moving, doing different things and trying to manipulate things without any purpose.
3. Poor space orientation and inadequate sense of time are common symptoms. Such children do not get easily oriented to new surroundings and get lost. They lack a sense of time and are late or sometimes too early in their routine work. They also show confusion in direction and misjudge right, left, and down.
4. Learning-disabled children have poor motor-coordination and poor manual dexterity. This is evident in their lack of balance. They show Inability to sharpen pencil, handle doorknobs, difficulty in learning to ride a bicycle, etc.
5. These children fail to understand and follow oral directions for doing things.
6. They misjudge relationships as to which classmates are friendly and which ones are indifferent. They fail to learn and understand body language.
7. Learning-disabled children usually show perceptual disorders. These include visual, auditory, tectual and kinesthetic, misperception etc. They fail to differentiate a call-bell from the ring of the telephone. It is not they do not have sensory acuity.They simply fail to use it in performance.
8. Fairly large number of learning-disabled children have dyslexia. They quite often fail to copy letter and words, e.g,: they fail to distinguish between b and d, p and q, p and I, was and saw, unclear and nuclear etc., they fail to organize verbal material.

TEXTBOOK QUESTION AND ANSWER:

Q1. Explain the functional limitations of sense organs.
Answer: Sense organs function with certain limitations. For example our eyes cannot see things which are very dim or very bright. Similarly our ears cannot hear very faint or very loud sounds. The same is true for other organs also. As human beings, we function within a limited range of stimulation. For being noticed by a sensory receptor a stimulus has to be of an optimal intensity or magnitude.

Q2. What is meant by light and dark adaptation? How do they take place?
Answer: Bright adaptation refers to the process of adjusting to bright light after exposure to dim light. This process takes nearly a minute or two.
Dark adaptation refers to the process of adjusting to a dimly illuminated environment after exposure to bright light. This may take half an hour or even longer depending on the previous level of exposure of the eye to light. The dark-adapted eye is about 100,000 times more sensitive to light than the light-adapted eye.

Q3. What is colour vision and what are the dimensions of colour?
Answer:

• A person’s ability to distinguish different shades of colour is termed colour vision.
• Person with normal colour vision can distinguish more than seven million different shades of colour.
• There are three basic dimensions of colour-hue, saturation, and brightness.
• Hue is property of chromatic colours. It refers to the name of the colour, e.g.,red, blue, and green. Hue varies with wavelength, and each colour is identified with a specific wavelength. For example, blue has a wavelength of about 465 nm. and green of about 500 nm. achromatic colours like black, white or grey are not characterised by hues. .
• Saturation is a psychological attribute that refers to the relative amount of hue of a surface or object.
• The light of single wavelength (monochromatic) appears to be highly saturated.
• As we mix different wavelengths, the saturation decrease. The colour grey is completely unsaturated.
• Brightness is the perceived intensity of light. It varies across both chromatic and achromatic colours.
• White and black represent the top and bottom of the brightness dimension.
• White has the highest degree of brightness, whereas black has the lowest degree.

Q4. How does auditory sensation take place?
Answer:  Sound servers as stimulus for auditory sensation. Loudness, pitch, and timbre are the – properties of sound. Organ of corti located in the basilar membrane is the chief organ of hearing
Auditory sensation begins when sound enters our ear and stimulates the chief organs of hearing.
Pinna collects the sound vibration and serve them to the tympanum through the auditory meat us.
From the timpani cavity the vibrations are transferred to the three ossicles, which increase their strength and transmit them to the inner ear. In the inner ear the cochlea receives the sound waves.
Through vibrations the endolymph is set in motion, which alsor vibrate the organ corti. Finally the impulses are sent to the auditory nerve, which emerges at the base of cochlea and reaches the auditory cortex where the impulse is interpreted.

Q5. Define attention. Explain its properties.
Answer: The process through which certain stimuli are selected from a group of others is generally referred to as attention.
The properties of attention are selection, alertness, concentration and search.

1. Selection— A large number of stimuli impinge upon our sense organs simultaneously, but we do not notice all of them at the same time. Only a selected few of them are noticed, e.g. when you enter your classroom you encounter several things like doors, walls, windows etc but you selectively focus only on one or two of them at one time.
2. Alertness— Alertness refers to an individual’s readiness to deal with stimuli that appear before him/her. e.g. while participating in a race in your school you must have seen the participants on the starting line in an alert state waiting for the whistle to blow in order to run.
3. Concentration— Concentration refers to focusing of awareness on certain specific objects while excluding others for the moment, e.g. in the classroom a student concentrates on the teacher’s lecture and ignores all sorts of noises coming from different comers of the school.
4.  Search— In search an observer looks for some specified subset of objects among a set of objects, e.g. when we go to school to fetch our younger sister and brother from the school we just look for them among innumerable boys and girls.

Q6. State the determinants of selective attention. How does selective attention differ from sustained attention?
Answer: Selective attention refers to the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. It is concerned mainly with the selection of a limited number of stimuli or objects from a larger number of stimuli Factors affecting selective attention :
External factors:
These are related to the features of the stimuli. Other factors held constant.

• The size, intensity and movement of stimuli are important determinants.
• Large, bright and moving objects easily catch our attention.
• Auditory narrations are readily attended than visual narrations.
• Stimuli that are novel and slightly complex catch our attention.
• Human figures are more likely to be attended then the in animate objects.

Internal factors can be of two types :
(1) Cognitive factors (2) Motivational factors

1. Cognitive factors include factors like interests, attitudes and preparatory set.
   • Stimuli that appear interesting are readily attended.
   • Stimuli that are favorably disposed by us also catch our attention.
   • Preparatory set a state of mind to act in a certain way and to respond to some stimuli and not to others at that moment.
2. Motivational factors
   • These are related to our biological and social needs e.g. hungry person will attain food first. During examination days students focus more on teacher’s instructions.
   • Selective attention is concerned mainly with the selection of a limited number of stimuli from a large number of stimuli whereas sustained attention refers to focusing of awareness on specific objects while excluding others for the movement.
   • It is ability to maintain attention on an object or event for longer duration.

Q7. What is the main proposition of Gestalt psychologists with respect to perception of the visual field?
Answer: Gestalt psychologists (Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler) outlines several principles that describe the way in which basic sensory input are oganized into whole patterns.

• According to Gestalt psychologists, human beings perceive different stimuli note as discrete elements, but as an organised, “whole” that carries a definite form.
• They believe that the form of an object lies in its whole, which is different from the sum of their parts.
• For example, a flower-pot with a bunch of flowers is a whole. If the flowers are removed, the flower-pot still remain a whole. It is the configuration of the flower-
  pot that has changed. Flower pot with flower is one configuration, without flowers it is another configuration.
• Gestalt psychologists also indicate that cerebral processes of human beings are always oriented towards the perception of a good figure. That is the reason why human being perceive everything in an organized form.

Some of these principles are discussed below:

1. Figure ground relationship—We tend to divide the world around us into two parts: figure, which has a definite shape and a location in spaces; and ground, which has no shape, seems to continue behind the figure, and has no definite location. The’ figure-ground relationship helps clarity the distinction between sensation and perception.
2. Contours—Contours are formed whenever a marked difference occurs in the brightness or colour of the background. Contours give shape to the objects in our visual world because they mark one object off-from another or they mark an object off from the general ground. Contours determine shape, but by themselves they are shapeless.
3. Grouping—Haws of grouping describe basic ways in which we group items together perceptually. These are simple principles through which we perceive the world around us. The principles of grouping include similarity, proximity, closure, and continuity.
   • The principle of similarity says that objects of similar shape, size, or colour tend to be grouped together. In the auditory sense, sounds of similar tone and intensity are grouped together.
   • The law of proximity says that items which are close together in space or time tend to be perceived as belonging together or forming an organized group
   • Principle of continuation describes the tendency to perceive a line that starts in one way as continuing in the same way.
   • Law of closure refers to perceptual processes that organize the perceived world by filling in gaps in stimulation.
   • In case of principle of continuity if interruptions are too pronounced or too long, continuity disappears and a unified whole is not perceived.
4. Camouflage: When contours are disrupted visually, objects are difficult to distinguish from the background. This is camouflage. It works because it breaks up contours, e.g. uniform of soldiers in the forest.

Q8. How does perception of space take place?
Answer:  Space is perceived in three dimensions. This is because of our ability to transfer a two-dimensional retinal vision into a three dimensional perception. Spatial attributes of objects like, size, shape and distance between objects also contribute towards the perception of space.

Q9.What are the monocular cues of depth perception? Explain the role of binocular cues in the perception of depth.
Answer:  Monocular cues are psychological cues.

• These cues are often used by artists to induce depth in two dimensial paintings.
• Hence they are also known as pictorial cues.
• They help us in judging the distance and depth in two dimensal surfaces.
• Some important monocular cues that in judging the distance and depth in two dimensional surfaces are as follows:

1. Relative Size: The size of retinal images allows to judge distance based on post and present experience with similar objects. As the objects gets away, the retinal image becomes smaller and smaller. One tends to perceive an object farther away when it appears small, and closer when it appear bigger.
2. Interposition or Overlapping: These cues occur when some portion of the object is covered by another object. The overlapped object is considered farther away, whereas the object that covers it appears nearer.
3. Linear Perspective: This reflects a phenomenon by which distant objects appear to be closer together than the nearer object. For example, Parallel lines, such as rail track appear to converge with increasing distance.
4. Aerial Perspective: The air contains particles of dust and moisture that make distant objects look hazy or blurry. This effect is called aerial perspective.
5. Light and Shade: In the light some parts of the object get highlighted, whereas some parts become darker. Highlights and shadow provide us with information about an object’s distance.
6. Relative Height: Larger objects are perceived being closer to the viewer and smaller object a being farther away.
7. Texture Gradient: It represents a phenomenon by which the visual field haying more density of elements is seen farther away.
8.  Motion Parallax: It is kinetic monocular cue, and hence not considered as a pictorial cue. It occurs when objects at different distances move at a different relative speed. The distant objects appear to move slowly than the objects that are close. The rate of an objects movement provides a cue to its distance. For example, when we travel in a bus, closer objects move “against” the direction of the bus, whereas the farther objects move “with” the direction of the bus.

Binocular cues are depth information based on the coordinated efforts of both eyes.Three of them are:

1. Retinal or Binocular Disparity:
   • Retinal disparity occurs because the two eyes are separated from each other horizontally by some distance.
   • Because of this distance, the image formed on the retina of each eye of the same object is slightly different.
   • This difference between the two image is called retinal disparity.
   • The brain interprets large retinal disparity to mean a close object and a small retinal disparity to mean a distant object.
2. Convergence:
   • When we see a nearly object our eyes converge inward in order to bring the image on the fovea of each eye.
   • A group of muscles send message to the brain regarding the degree to which eyes are turning inward and these messages are interpreted as cues to depth perception.
   • The degree of convergence decreases as the object moves further away from the observer.
3. Accommodation: Accommodation refers to a process by which we focus the image on the retina with the help of ciliary muscles.
   • These muscles change the thickness of the lens of the eye. If the object gets away (more than 2m) the muscle is relaxed.
   • When it moves nearer the muscles get tensed and the thickness of the lens increases.
   • The signal about the degree of contraction of the muscle is sent to the brain which provides the cue for distance.

Q10. Why do illusions occur?
Answer:

• Illusions occur because of a result of a mismatch between the physical stimuli and its perception by the individual.
• The mismatch is caused by incorrect interpretation of information received by sense organs.
• Illusions are called primitive organizations as they are generated by an external stimulus situation that generates the same kind of experience in all the individuals.
• Some illusions are universal in nature as they are found in all individuals.
• These are also called permanent illusions because they do not change with experience and practice.
• Illusions that vary from individual to individual are called personal illusions.

Q11. How do socio-cultural factors influence our perceptions?
Answer:

• Several psychologists have studied the processes of perception in different socio-cultural setting. For example, they have used Muller-Lyer and vertical-Horizontal illusion figures with several groups of people living in Europe, Africa, and many others place, by comparing samples from remote. African villages and western settings.
• It was found that African subjects showed greater susceptibility to horizontal vertical illusions, whereas Western subjects showed greater suspectibility to Muller-Lyer illusion.
• Similar findings have been reported in other studies also. Living in dense forests the African subjects regularly experienced vertically (e.g., long trees) and developed a tendency to overestimate it.
• The Westerners, who lived in an environment characterised by right angels, developed a tendency to underestimate the length of line characterised enclosure (e.g., arrowhead).
• This research suggests that the habits of perception are learnt differently in different cultural settings.
• Hudson did a study in Africa, and found that people, who had never seen pictures, had great difficulty in recognizing objects depicted in them and in interpreting depth cues.
• Sinha and Mishra have carried out several studies on pictorial perception using a variety of pictures with people from diverse cultural settings, such as hunters and gatherers living in forests, agriculturists in cities.
• Their studies indicate that interpretation of pictures is strongly related to cultural experiences of people.

TEXTBOOK QUESTION AND ANSWER:

Q1. What is development? How is it different from growth and maturation?
Answer:  Development is a process by which an individual grows and changes throughout the life cycle.

• The term Development refers to the changes that have a direction and hold definite relationship with what precedes it.
• includes changes in size (physical growth), changes in proportion (child to adult), changes in features (disappearance of baby teeth) and acquiring new features.

Development includes growth as one of its aspects.
Growth:

• Growth refers to an increase in the size of body parts or of the organism as a whole.
• It can be measured or quantified, e.g. growth in height and weight.

Maturation: refers to the changes that follow an orderly sequence and are largely dictated by the genetic blueprint which produces commonalities in our growth and ” development.

Q2. Describe the main features of life-span perspective on development.
Answer:

• The term development means a progressive series of changes that occur as a result of maturation and experience.
• Development implies qualitative changes in behaviour.
• Development does not consist merely of adding inches to one’s height or of improving one’s ability.
• It is a complex process of integrating many structures and functions.

The study of development according to the Life-span perspective (LSP) includes the following assumptions:

• Development is life long i.e. it takes place across all age groups starting from conception to old age. It includes both gains and losses, which interact in dynamic (change in one aspect goes with changes in others) ways throughout the life-span.
• The various Process of human development i.e. biological, cognitive and socio- emotional are interwoven in the development of a person throughout the lifespan.
• Development is multi-directional. Some dimensions or components of a given dimension of development may increase, with others show decrement, e.g. the experiences of adults may make them wiser and guide their decisions. However, with an increase in age, one’s performance is likely to decrease on tasks requiring speed, such as running.
• Development is highly plastic, i.e. within a person, modifiability is found in psychological development, though plasticity varies among individuals.
• Development is influenced by historical conditions, e.g. The career orientation of school students today is very different from those students who were in schools 50 years ago.
• Development is the concern of a number of disciplines. Different disciplines like psychology, anthropology, sociology and neuro-sciences study human development with different perspectives.
• An individual responds and acts in a particular context, e.g. the life events in everyone’s life are not the same such as death of a parent, accident, earthquake etc affect the course of one’s life as also the positive influences such as winning an award or getting a good job.

Q3. What are developmental tasks? Explain by giving examples.
Answer:

• A task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of the individual, successful achievement of which leads to happiness and to success with later tasks.
• Some tasks arise mainly as a result of physical maturation, such as learning to walk.
• Others develop primarily from the cultural pressures of society, such as learning to read; and still others grow out of the personal values to read.
• Still others grow out of the personal values and aspirations of the individual, such as choosing and preparing for a vocation.

Purposes of Developmental Tasks :

• Developmental tasks serve three very useful purposes.
• They are guidelines that enable individuals to know what society expects of them at given ages. Parents, for example, can be guided in teaching their young children different skills by the knowledge that society expects the children to master these skills at certain ages and that their adjustments will be greatly influenced by how successfully they do so.
• Developmental tasks motivate individuals to do what the social group expects them to do at certain ages during their lives.
• Finally, developmental tasks show individuals what lies ahead and what they will be expected to do when they reach their next stage of development.

Q4. ‘Environment of the child has a major role in the development of the child’. Support your answer with examples.
Answer: 

• Environment of the child has a major role to play in the development of the child because it includes the surroundings in which the child develops various cognitive and motor skills. It also influences the physical development of the child according to the limits set by genetic characteristics.
• The socio-economic and cultural environment has a major role in the development of the child’s process, e.g., a child who is sent to school is able to develop characteristics of confidence and self-reliance more easily than a child who does not receive education.
  Thus, environment plays a vital role in the child’s development.

Q5. How do socio-cultural factors influence development?
Answer: 

• Environmental factors are those factors which act upon the organism from outside and influence its structure and behaviour.
• After birth the infant is exposed to a complex external environment with its variety of physical and chemical energies, as well as the social forces which arise from contact with other human beings.
• The environment differs and so also the effect on individuals. Different individuals within the same environment also differ. They develop different interests and attitudes, and they identify themselves to different groups- religious, political and recreational.

Man’s genotype serves as a ‘potential’ source for his development of behaviour. Realisation of these potentialities, however, depends upon the interactions of the genotype with his environmental factors.
A child with average potential intelligence but a ‘fertile’ co-environment would do better in life. If the environment is congenial, the development is positive while it takes a negative turn if the environment is unpleasant.

Q6. Discuss the cognitive changes taking place in a developing child.
Answer: Piaget’s given four types of stages for cognitive development:

1. Sensorimotor Stage: (Approximate age is of 0-2 years). In this stage infant explores the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions.
2. Preoperational Stage: (Approximate age is of 2-7 years). In this stage symbolic thought develops and helps to expend his/her mental world. There are two features of preoperational stage:
   • Egocentrism (self-focus): children see the world only in terms of their own selves and are not able to appreciate other’s point of view.
   • Centration: focusing on a single characteristic or feature for understanding an event e.g. a child may insist on drinking a “big glass” of juice, preferring a tall narrow glass to a short broad one, even though both might be holding the same amount of juice.
3. Concrete Operational Stage: (approximate age is of 7-11 years).
   • It is made up of operations-mental actions that allows the child to do mentally what was done physically before.
   •  Concrete operations are also mental actions that are reversible.
   • Concrete operations allow the child to focus on different characteristics and not focus on one aspect of the object.
   • The child can reason logically about concrete events.
   • This helps the child to appreciate that there are different ways of looking at things.
4. Formal Operational Stage: (Approximate age is of 11-15 years). The adolescent can apply logic more abstractly, hypothetical thinking develops.

Q7.  Attachment bonds formed in childhood years have long-term effects. Explain taking examples from daily life.
Answer:

• Attachment bonds formed in childhood years have long term effects because these are notably developed between the parents and children. These bonds determine the level of trust and perception of the would during the formative years of childhood, e.g, a child growing up in a secure family, with sensitive, responsive and affectionate parents will is not them.
• The child will also make decisions in his/her life with the parents and thus, have a good relationship. However, a child who does not have a steady and good relationship with the parents will lack communication.
• Problems of juvenile delinquency are after related to the lack of attachment of an individual towards his/her parents.

Q8. What is adolescence? Explain the concept of egocenirism.
Answer:  Adolescence: The term adolescence comes from the Latin word “adolescere”, meaning “to grow” or “to grow to maturity”. The term ‘adolescence’ includes mental, emotional and social maturity as well as physical maturity.

1. It is the transition period in a person’s life between childhood and adulthood.
2. It has been regarded as a period of rapid change, both biologically and psychologically. Though the physical changes that take place during this stage are universal, the social and psychological dimensions of the adolescent’s experiences depend on the cultural context.
3. It is a time of search for identity. They begin to crave identity and are no longer satisfied to be like their peers in every respect, as they were earlier, e.g. They try to establish themselves as individuals by the use of status symbols in the form of car, clothes and other readily observable material possessions.
4. Adolescence is the threshold of adulthood they are anxious to shed the stereotype of teenagers and to create the impression that they are adults, e.g. dressing and acting like adults, they start engaging in smoking, drinking, drugs and in sex. Egocentrism: (self-focus) Children see the world only in terms of their own selves and are not able to appreciate others point of view. The egocentrism of early childhood is especially pronounced in the first year or two before children begin to play with other children-the age of parallel play.
   • Boys tend to be more egocentric then girls, partly because they sense they are often parental favourites and partly because they are given more privileges. While all children tend to be egocentric, there are certain ones whose environment encourage greater egocentrism than is found in the average child of the same age ’ level.
     Adolescents develop a special kind of egocentrism.
     According to DAVID ELKIND adolescents develop two components of egocentrism:
   • Imaginary audience
   • Personal fable.

1. Imaginary audience: adolescent’s belief that others are as occupied with them as they are about themselves.
   They imagine that people are always noticing them and observing each and every behaviour of theirs.
2.  Personal fable: it is adolescents sense of uniqueness. It takes them think that no one understands them or their feelings.

Establishment of identity: Adolescence is the stage when primary task is to establish an identity separate from their parents.
Identity refers to knowing who am I? what are the commitments and beliefs are.

• In the establishment of identity children may develop conflict with their parents and may develop “Identity Confusion”.
• Such adolescents may at one time complain of being ‘treated like a baby’ whereas on other occasions treated like ‘grown ups’.
• This identity crisis involves searching for conformity and sameness in on self and trying to get a clear sense of who am I? where I am going in my life?
  Adolescence is a period of storm and stress: It is period of uncertainties occasional loneliness, self doubt, anxiety, conforming to peer pressure and concern about themselves and their future.

Q9. What are the factors influencing the formation of identity during adolescence? Support your answer with examples.
Answer:  The formation of identity during adolescence is influenced by several factors:

1. The cultural background, family and societal values, ethnic background and socio-economic status all prevail upon the adolescents’ search for a place in society.
2. Increased interactions with peers provide them with opportunities for refining their social skills and trying out different social behaviours.
3. Peers and parents are dual forces having major influence on adolescents. Generally parents and peers serve complementary functions and full fill different needs of the adolescents.
4. Vocational commitment is another factor influencing adolescent identity formation.
5. To achieve a sense of identity, children must have an inner assurance that they get this feeling of assurance, they are secure.
   e.g. Career counselling in schools offers information regarding appraisal of the students for the formation or search of identity.
   e.g. In some cultures freedom is given to the young people to choose an occupation, whereas in certain other cultures the option of making this choice is not given to the children.

Q10. What are the challenges faced by individuals on entry to adulthood?
Answer: An adult is generally defined as someone who is responsible, mature, self-supporting
and well-integrated into society.

• In early adulthood, two major tasks are exploring the possibilities for adult living and developing a stable life structure.
• A transition from dependence to independence should occur.

Career and work:

• Adults get new responsibility at work.
• They have to adjust with new challenging situations.
• There are apprehensions regarding differences , adjustments, proving one’s competence and coping with expectations and both employer and self.

Marriage, parenthood and family:

• Adults have to make adjustments while entering a marriage relation and to know their spouse and cope with each others’ likes/dislikes. Responsibilities have to be shared if both are working.
• Parenthood is a difficult and stressful transition in young adults. It depends on factors such as number of children in the family, availability of social support, etc.