Psychology Class 12 Sample Paper 2025
SECTION A (1 Mark)
1. Bobby is diagnosed with diabetes. However, he refuses to accept the diagnosis and continues to maintain the same lifestyle. Identify the defence mechanism that Bobby is using.
A. Repression
B. Rationalization
C. Denial
D. Displacement
Answer: C. Denial
2 Which one of the following is true for personality assessment?
i. A person’s behaviour in a variety of situations can provide us with meaningful information about his/her personality.
ii. Indirect techniques can be scored in an objective manner.
iii. Direct methods of personality assessment cover the unconscious part of our behaviour.
iv. Psychological testing requires great skill and training.
Options:
A. i and iii
B. i and iv
C. ii and iii
D. ii and iv
Answer: B. i and iv
3. Rita wants to perform well in the examination and hence starts attending classes regularly, taking notes, setting study targets, etc. Which theory of intelligence gives importance to this stage of planning?
A. Hierarchical Model of Intelligence
B. PASS Model
C. Theory of Multiple Intelligences
D. Structure of Intellect Model of Intelligence
Answer: B. PASS Model
4. Which of the following statements applies to Sudarshan Kriya Yoga?
A. It combines pranayam with chanting
B. It consists of mindfulness-based meditation
C. It involves rapid breathing technique to induce hyperventilation
D. It refers to asanas or only bodily postures
Answer. C. It involves rapid breathing technique to induce hyperventilation
5. Suhail’s intense and overwhelming fear of driving has disrupted his daily life. He does not go outside for important tasks unless somebody else drives the car for him. He has even left his job and has few social contacts. The most suitable behaviour therapy for Suhail would be:
A. Systematic desensitisation
B. Positive reinforcement
C. Differential reinforcement
D. Token economy
Answer: A. Systematic desensitisation
6. In the following question, a statement of Assertion (A) is followed by a statement of Reason (R). Mark the correct choice:
Assertion (A): In Logotherapy, transference is actively discouraged.
Reason(R): The goal of Logotherapy is to help patients find meaning and responsibility in their lives irrespective of their life circumstances.
Select the most appropriate answer from the options given below:
- A. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
- B. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
- C. A is true, but R is false.
- D. A is false, but R is true.
Answer: A. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
7. Jayant believes that the television news anchor is talking to him. He is exhibiting:
A. Delusion of reference
B. Delusion of control
C. Formal thought disorder
D. Auditory hallucination
Answer: A. Delusion of reference
8. Maya has been feeling anxious and experiencing panic attacks for the past two weeks. She feels a constant sense of fear accompanied by rapid heartbeat, sweating, and shortness of breath. This is affecting her ability to participate in school activities.
Which of the following criteria for abnormality in psychological disorders is best illustrated by Maya’s symptoms?
A. Deviance and danger
B. Distress and dysfunction
C. Duration and distress
D. Danger and depression
Answer: B. Distress and dysfunction
9. Which of the following is not a characteristic of Autism spectrum disorder?
A. Shortness of breath
B. Repetitive behaviour
C. Problem in non-verbal communication
D. Problem in social interaction
Answer: A. Shortness of breath
10 Identify the statements that are not true to group polarisation:
i. It is a consequence of extreme cohesiveness.
ii. Groups are more likely to take extreme decisions than individuals alone.
iii. When you find people having similar views, you perceive them as an ingroup.
iv. As the group becomes one unit, you begin to think, feel and act like them.
Options:
A. i and iv
B. iii and iv
C. ii and iv
D. ii and iii
Answer: A. i and iv
11. Which one of the following statements describes a team?
A. Collection of people who may be present at a place by chance.
B. The members have complementary skills and are committed to a common goal.
C. Only the leader is responsible for the work.
D. Polarisation in attention and actions of persons are in common direction.
Answer: B. The members have complementary skills and are committed to a common goal.
12 Shweta has joined the National Cadet Corps. Identify the type of group she is now a member of:
i. Primary
ii. Secondary
iii. Informal
iv. Formal
Options:
A. i and iv
B. iii and iv
C. ii and iv
D. ii and iii
Answer: C. ii and iv
13. The concept of balance as proposed by Fritz Heider states that balance is found when:
A. All three sides of the P-O-X triangle are negative.
B. Two sides of the P-O-X triangle are positive, and one side is negative.
C. Two sides of the P-O-X triangle are negative, and one side is positive.
D. There is a state of cognitive dissonance.
Answer: C. Two sides of the P-O-X triangle are negative, and one side is positive.
14. Identify the statement that can help in reducing social loafing.
A. Making the group effort identifiable, instead of individual effort.
B. Decreasing the pressure to work hard towards the achievement of group goals.
C. Making people feel that their individual contribution is important.
D. Weakening group cohesiveness and increasing motivation to increase productivity.
Answer: C. Making people feel that their individual contribution is important.
SECTION B (2 Marks)
15. ‘An individual’s response to a stressful situation largely depends upon the perceived events and how they are interpreted or appraised.’ Do you agree with this statement with reference to Lazarus’ theory? State a reason for your answer.
Answer. Yes.
Lazarus has explained two types of appraisal, i.e. primary and secondary.
OR
Primary appraisal refers to the perception of a new or changing environment as positive, neutral, or negative in its consequences.
OR
A secondary appraisal is the assessment of one’s coping abilities and resources and whether they will be sufficient to meet the harm, threat or challenge of the event.
16(A). Explain two major limitations of rating scales in assessment.
Answer:
- i. Halo effect: a rater may be influenced by a single overall favourable or unfavourable judgement of a person
- ii. Middle category bias: tendency to place individuals either in the middle of the scale
- iii. Extreme response bias by avoiding middle categories on the scale (Any two)
OR
16(B). State the main characteristics of Type A personality.
Answer: Type A personalities seem to possess high motivation, lack patience, feel short of time, be in a great hurry and feel like always being burdened with work. (Any four )
17. “The cross-situational consistency of traits is found to be quite low”. Evaluate this statement with reference to the interactional approach to personality.
Answer: Situational characteristics play an important role in determining our behaviour. People may behave as dependent or independent not because of their internal personality trait, but because of external rewards or threats available to a particular situation.
Cross-situational consistency of traits is found to be quite low, implying that there is a compelling influence of the situation on people’s behaviour.
18. Is intelligence an interplay of nurture and nature? Support your answer with one evidence for each.
Answer: Nature-High correlation between identical twins reared together and reared apart; studies on twins, fraternal twins and siblings (any one evidence)
Nurture- role of environment; as children grow in age, their intelligence becomes similar to adoptive parents; (any one evidence)
19. Aslam is a manager in an organisation. To conduct a team-building activity, he assigned work to selected members randomly. He observed that while executing the task, there came a stage when there was conflict among the members.
At what stage of group formation would this have taken place, and explain the stage that is likely to follow?
Answer: The stage when the conflict took place was the storming stage. After this stage, there is a hierarchy of leadership and a vision to achieve the goal. This is then followed by the norming stage, when norms develop in a group.
SECTION C (3 Marks)
20. Maninder is confident in saying ‘no’ to a request that he cannot fulfil. He is also able to organise his work and not procrastinate it. Explain the life skills exhibited by him.
Answer: (with reference to Maninder)
- Assertiveness: It is a behaviour or skill that helps to communicate, clearly and confidently, our feelings, needs, wants, and thoughts.
- Time Management: The way you spend your time determines the quality of your life. Learning how to plan time and delegate can help relieve the pressure.
- Overcoming Unhelpful Habits: Unhelpful habits such as perfectionism, avoidance, procrastination, etc., are strategies that help to cope in the short term but make one more vulnerable to stress.
21. Peter is a 28-year-old man who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He lacks the necessary skills to be independent and productive member of society. As a mental health professional, suggest any three rehabilitation techniques to support Peter in becoming self-sufficient.
Answer: Peter can be trained in
- Occupational therapy- skills such as candle making, paper bag making and weaving to help him form a work discipline.
- Social skills training helps patients develop interpersonal skills through role play, imitation, and instruction. The objective is to teach the patient to function in a social group.
- Cognitive retraining – to improve the basic cognitive functions of attention, memory, and executive functions.
- Vocational training – the patient is helped to gain skills necessary to undertake productive employment. (Any three of the above )
22(A). Ramit, a painter, is a happy, self-fulfilled and fully functioning person. He holds exhibitions of his artwork, which is always appreciated by all the visitors. How will Carl Rogers explain Ramit’s personality?
Answer: Fulfilment is the motivating force for personality development.
- People try to express their capabilities, potential and talents to the fullest extent possible.
- Behaviour is goal-directed and worthwhile. People (who are innately good) will almost always choose adaptive, self-actualising behaviour.
- Rogers suggests that each person also has a concept of an ideal self.
- An ideal self is the self that a person would like to be. When there is a correspondence between the real self and the ideal self, a person is generally happy.
- Discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self often results in unhappiness and dissatisfaction. (Any 3 points )
OR
22(B). The Birhors, a tribal community, largely lead a nomadic life depending on hunting and gathering. How will this lifestyle influence the personality development of children from this community?
Answer:
- Children from an early age are allowed enormous freedom to move into forests and learn hunting and gathering skills.
- The child socialisation practices are also aimed at making children independent, autonomous and achievement-oriented.
- This makes the people more functional, thereby displaying a personality pattern of autonomy, independence and achievement orientation.
23. Differentiate between obsessive and compulsive behaviour.
Answer: Obsessive behaviour is the inability to stop thinking about a particular idea or topic. The person involved often finds these thoughts to be unpleasant and shameful.
Compulsive behaviour is the need to perform certain behaviours over and over again. Many compulsions deal with counting, ordering, checking, touching and washing.
SECTION D (4 Marks)
24(A). Sara believes in the importance of regular exercise for maintaining good health. Despite this belief, she rarely engages in any form of physical activity. With respect to Sara, explain the reasons for the lack of consistency between her attitude and behaviour.
Answer: Explain with reference to Sara. Psychologists have found that there would be a lack of consistency between attitudes and behaviour when:
- The attitude is weak, and does not occupy a central place in the attitude system, the person is unaware of her/his attitude, and there is a lot of external pressure for the person to behave in a particular way.
- The person’s behaviour is being watched or evaluated by others, the person does not think that the behaviour would have a positive consequence, and therefore, intends to engage in that behaviour.
OR
24(B). Rajan has a prejudice against senior citizens. As a result, he ignores their inputs and ideas. What are the likely sources of the prejudice that he holds?
Answer: Social psychologists have shown that prejudice has one or more of the following sources: (any four of the following concerning Rajan)
- Learning: Like other attitudes, prejudices can also be learned through association, reward and punishment, observing others, group or cultural norms and exposure to information that encourages prejudice.
- A strong social identity and ingroup bias: Individuals who have a strong sense of social identity and have a very positive attitude towards their own group boost this attitude by holding negative attitudes towards other groups.
- Scapegoating: This is a phenomenon by which the majority group places the blame on a minority outgroup for its own social, economic or political problems.
- Kernel of truth concept: Sometimes people may continue to hold stereotypes because they think that, after all, there must be some truth, or ‘kernel of truth’ in what everyone says about the other group.
- Self-fulfilling prophecy: In some cases, the group that is the target of prejudice is itself responsible for continuing the prejudice.
25. Gagan’s psychologist used a technique of personality assessment that required story writing around pictures and completion of sentences etc. Identify and describe the techniques being referred to here.
Answer: The techniques being referred to are projective techniques.
- It involves the use of vague, ambiguous or unstructured stimuli which allows the individual to project her/his feelings, desires and needs onto that situation.
- The person being assessed is usually not told about the purpose of the assessment, the method of scoring or incorrect responses.
- The person is informed that there are no right or wrong answers.
- Each response is considered to reveal a significant aspect of personality.
- Scoring and interpretation are lengthy and subjective.
26. Shanta has an Iof 140. She has recently won an award for the ‘Best Author’ as well. Will she be gifted or talented? Elaborate on giftedness and its characteristics.
Answer:
Shanta would be gifted as she has exceptional general ability, shown in superior performance in a wide variety of areas. Whereas Talent is a remarkable ability in a specific field.
Characteristics of giftedness:
- Advanced logical thinking, questioning and problem-solving behaviour.
- High speed in processing information.
- Superior generalisation and discrimination ability.
- An advanced level of original and creative thinking.
- High level of intrinsic motivation and self-esteem. (any three characteristics)
27. Explain the effect of stress on the psychological functioning of an individual.
Answer: There are four major effects of stress associated with the stressed state, viz., emotional, physiological, cognitive, and behavioural.
- Emotional Effects: Those who suffer from stress are far more likely to experience mood swings and show erratic behaviour that may alienate them from family and friends.
- Physiological Effects: When the human body is placed under physical or psychological stress, it increases the production of certain hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol.
- These hormones produce marked changes in heart rate, blood pressure levels, metabolism and physical activity.
- Cognitive Effects: If pressures due to stress continue, one may suffer from mental overload.
- Cognitive effects of stress are poor concentration and reduced short-term memory capacity.
- Behavioural Effects: Stress affects our behaviour in the form of eating less nutritious food, increasing intake of stimulants such as caffeine, excessive consumption of cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs such as tranquillisers, etc.
SECTION E (6 Marks)
28(A). What are the features of Neurodevelopmental Disorders? Explain any two
disorders under this category.
Ans:
- Manifest in the early stage of development.
- Symptoms appear before the child enters school or during the early stage of schooling.
- Hampers personal, social, academic and occupational functioning.
- Get characterised as deficits or excesses in a particular behaviour or delays in achieving a particular age-appropriate behaviour.
Types:
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: The two main features of ADHD are inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity. Children who are inattentive find it difficult to sustain mental effort during work or play. They have a hard time keeping their minds on any one thing or in following instructions.
- Autism Spectrum Disorder: Autism Spectrum Disorder is characterised by widespread impairments in social interaction and communication skills, and stereotyped patterns of behaviours, interests and activities. Children with autism spectrum disorder have marked difficulties in social interaction and communication across different contexts, a restricted range of interests, and strong desire for routine.
- Intellectual Disability: Intellectual disability refers to below average intellectual functioning (with an IQ of approximately 70 or below), and deficits or impairments in adaptive behaviour (i.e. in the areas of communication, self-care, home living, social/interpersonal skills, functional academic skills, work, etc.) which are manifested before the age of 18 years.
- Specific Learning Disorder: Here, the individual experiences difficulty in perceiving or processing information efficiently and accurately. These get manifested during early school years and the individual encounters problems in basic skills in reading, writing and/or mathematics. The affected child tends to perform below average for her/his age. However, individuals may be able to reach acceptable performance levels with additional inputs and efforts. (Explain any two in detail )
OR
28(B). Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Phobia are types of anxiety disorders. How will different psychological models explain the development of these disorders?
Answer:
- Psychodynamic model- unconscious conflicts/id, ego, superego
- Behavioural model- abnormal behaviour is the result of learning maladaptive ways of behaving. Explain with Classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning
- Cognitive Model- abnormal functioning can result from cognitive problems; irrational, overgeneralized thinking can lead to anxiety
- Humanistic – Existential model –
- Humanists believe that human beings are born with a natural tendency to be friendly, cooperative and constructive, and are driven to self-actualise, i.e. to fulfil this potential for goodness and growth.
Existentialists believe that from birth, we have total freedom to give meaning to our existence or to avoid that responsibility. Those who shirk from this responsibility would live empty, inauthentic and dysfunctional lives. (Any four )
29(A). Differentiate between information processing and the psychometric approach to understand intelligence. Explain any four theories of the psychometric approach.
Answer:
The psychometric approach considers intelligence as an aggregate of abilities. It expresses the individual’s performance in terms of a single index of cognitive abilities.
The information processing approach describes the processes people use in intellectual reasoning and problem solving, and studies cognitive functions underlying intelligent behaviour.
A brief description of any four approaches:
- Unifactor theory
- Two-factor theory
- Hierarchical model
- Theory of primary mental abilities;
- Structure of the intellect model
OR
29(B). What is the relationship between creativity and intelligence? Differentiate between creativity tests and intelligence tests.
Answer: Terman in 1920- all creative people are intelligent; But all gifted people may not be creative. Intelligence by itself does not ensure creativity. Variations in the potential for creativity- heredity and environment, like motivation, commitment, family support, peer influences, training, and opportunity.
Features of creativity test: open-ended; freedom to use one’s imagination and express it in original ways; divergent thinking; ability to see new relationships; guess causes and consequences; put things in a new perspective. Creativity tests contain words, figures, action and sounds.
Intelligence tests are closed-ended; convergent thinking; assess memory, logical reasoning, accuracy, perceptual ability, and clear thinking. No scope for originality, spontaneity, or imagination.
SECTION F
CASE 1
Read the following passage and answer questions numbered 30 and 31.
Anita, a 40-year-old woman having a history of persistent depression, was referred for therapy. She described feeling overwhelmed by feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness, which had significantly impacted her personal and professional life.
Anita’s childhood was marked by significant adversity, including growing up in a dysfunctional family environment characterised by parental neglect and emotional abuse. As a child, Anita internalised feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. She exaggerated her flaws and overlooked her strengths. Her self-critical thoughts manifested statements such as "I'm a failure," "I'll never be happy," and "Nobody cares about me." These distorted thoughts reinforced her feelings of hopelessness and contributed to her ongoing depressive state.
30. Identify the core beliefs developed during Anita’s childhood.
Answer: Core beliefs: “I am a failure”; “I’ll never be happy”, “Nobody cares about me” or inadequacy, worthlessness. (Anyone)
31. Which therapy would be most suitable to reduce Anita’s distress? Give reason for your answer.
Answer: Cognitive Therapy- Cognitive therapies locate the cause of psychological distress in irrational thoughts and beliefs. It was Anita’s distorted thoughts that reinforced her ongoing depressive state.
CASE 2
Read the following passage and answer questions numbered 32 and 33.
Renowned environmentalist T. Shobheendran, after retiring as a Professor of Economics, dedicated himself to fostering a culture of nature conservation among young people. Shobheendran spearheaded unique programs to engage students in tree planting and conservation efforts, transforming approximately 100 acres of barren land surrounding the college campus into a lush green area adorned with over 5,000 trees. Additionally, he actively participated in planting hundreds of saplings in public spaces and along roadsides.
Shobheendran's initiatives also led to the establishment of research centres for afforestation projects at both the campus and city levels. Members of the Kerala Prakruthi Samrakshana Samiti fondly recalled Shobheendran's tireless efforts against riverbank encroachments and water pollution. His advocacy prompted government authorities to take decisive action.
Shobheendran's legacy as a champion for nature lives on through the countless individuals he inspired with his relentless conservation activities and social campaigns.
32. ‘He actively participated in planting hundreds of saplings in public spaces and along roadsides.’ Which component of attitude is expressed here?
Answer: Behavioural Component
33. Explain any two processes that may have led to the formation of T. Shobheendran’s attitude towards the environment.
Answer: (Explanation of any two of the following)
- Learning attitudes by association
- Learning attitudes by being rewarded or punished
- Learning attitudes through modelling (observing others)
- Learning attitudes through group or cultural norms
- Learning through exposure to information
Psychology Class 12 Sample Paper 2025 PDF
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