ISC Psychology Class 12 Syllabus 2025
Theory paper is of 3 hours duration and 70 marks. There are 7 units in the syllabus: (i) Intelligence and Ability (ii) Personality (iii) Lifespan Development (iv) Stress and Stress Management (v) Psychological Disorders and Psychotherapy (vi) Social Thought and Social Behaviour (vii) Attitudes.
Section A
1. Intelligence and Ability
(i) Intelligence: what is meant by intelligence - theories regarding the nature of intelligence; how intelligence is measured - the concept of IQ, intelligence tests - Individual Tests, Group Tests. Levels of intelligence and associated characteristics. Emotional Intelligence (EQ).
(ii) Aptitude, Achievement and Interest: meaning of these terms. Reason for their assessment and means of aptitude assessment (different tools/ tests) used.
2. Personality
(i) What is meant by Personality.
Definitions of personality - Allport.
(ii) Theories of Personality: Type Theories, Psychoanalytic Theory - Freud’s structure of personality; psycho-sexual stages of development; Post Freudians (in brief); Humanistic - Rogers and Maslow; Traits - Allport, Cattell; Social Cognitive Theory - Bandura.
(iii) How personality is assessed: reports, inventories (MMPI), projective techniques - Rorschach Inkblot Test and Thematic Apperception Test, Behavioural Analysis.
Section B
3. Lifespan Development
(i) Meaning of Development, growth and maturation.
Why is the study of lifespan development important? Determinants - interaction of heredity and environment, context of development - Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System Theory.
(ii) Infancy - motor, cognitive development, socio-emotional development.
Motor Development - definition of motor milestone, reflexes- rooting, moro, grasping, babinski; cognitive development -Piaget’s Sensory Motor Stage; socio-emotional development - attachment (definition). Mary Ainsworth’s & Lamb’s strange situation test (four patterns of attachment).
(iii) Childhood - motor, cognitive development and moral development.
Motor development - gross motor and fine motor skills (definitions only); cognitive development - Piaget’s Theory (Preoperational and Concrete). Moral development - Kohlberg’s perspective Experiment on Moral Dilemma - preconventional, conventional and post conventional morality.
(iv) Adolescence - physical changes, cognitive development, some major concerns.
Physical changes at puberty (in brief); Cognitive development - Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage; Some major concerns -substance abuse (drugs and alcohol) - meaning of substance abuse and symptoms of drug abuse and alcoholism; eating disorders - bulimia, anorexia (meaning and symptoms).
4. Stress and Stress Management
(i) Meaning of stress - its basic nature.
Strain and Eustress; Stress as a process - stressors (negative and positive events); the stages of GAS or the General Adaptation Syndrome (Selye's model). Cognitive appraisal of stress - primary and secondary.
(ii) Common causes of stress.
External / situational: major life events, minor hassles of everyday life, work-related causes, the physical environment.
Internal / dispositional: Personality variables - traits and types.
(iii) Effects of stress on health and performance.
Upsets the internal mechanism and balance - immune system affected, hypertension, heart problems, ulcers, diabetes, asthma (each effect to be briefly explained). Burnout - work related burnout.
(iv) Stress management - effective strategies of handling stress.
Effective strategies - relaxation training and yoga.
Promoting positive health and well-being: Exercise, Diet, Self-Care, Life Skills, Assertiveness, Rational thinking, improving relationships, overcoming unhelpful habits, Social support, Stress Resistant Personality, Positive thinking and positive attitude.
5. Psychological Disorders and Psychotherapy
(i) Meaning of "Abnormal behaviour" - biological, psychological and socio-cultural perspectives. Principles of classification of psychological disorders with reference to DSM IV.
(ii) Characteristics of some psychological disorders: Anxiety - generalised, phobic, obsessive-compulsive; Mood - bi-polar, depression; personality - anti-social, histrionic, avoidant, dependent, passive aggressive (causes and symptoms of all).
(iii) Schizophrenia - meaning and characteristics.
(iv) Psychotherapy - Psychoanalysis; Client-centred; Behavioural. Psychosocial Rehabilitation.
6. Social Thought and Social Behaviour
(i) Social Perception - attribution or the process through which people try to understand the reasons for others’ behaviour.
Attribution - definition, biases in forming judgments. Explain with examples each of the following biases - fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias, self-serving bias, the false consensus effect, automatic vigilance.
(ii) Social Influence - how people try to change others’ behaviour; social norms; conformity and obedience - factors affecting them.
Meaning and characteristics of a group; types of groups - formal and informal, primary and secondary and in-group and outgroup. Meaning of social norms - why people conform to social norms; factors affecting Conformity and Obedience. Asch's study on conformity; why and when people obey others - Milgram's experiment.
7. Attitudes
(i) Meaning of "Attitude" - how attitudes are formed and changed.
What are attitudes - the components of attitude; the process of forming attitudes - how attitudes change: persuasion -definition and methods to change attitude and cognitive dissonance - definition and any three ways to reduce cognitive dissonance.
(ii) Prejudice - meaning of "prejudice" and discrimination; the origins of prejudice; how to combat prejudice.
An understanding of the meaning of prejudice and how it works in the form of discrimination - causes of prejudice: social learning, realistic competition, social categorization and stereotyping; ways in which prejudice can be resisted.