Psychology ISC (Arts) Class 12 CISCE Syllabus 2025-26

• Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
• Planning, Attention-arousal, and Simultaneous-successive (PASS) Model of Intelligence

• What is meant by Aptitude - when aptitude needs to be assessed - the GATB (General Aptitude Test Battery);
• meaning and usefulness of Achievement tests;
• why and how Interest is measured - the SCII (Strong Campbell Interest Inventory). 

• Meaning of personality
• Definition of personality

• Type Theory: Sheldon, Kreshtmer, Hippocrates, Friedman, Charak Samhita of Ayurveda.
• Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality: Freud's levels of consciousness, structure of personality - Id, Ego and Superego
• principles on which they function
• Psychosexual stages of development and fixation
• Post Freudians: Erik Erikson, Horney
• Humanistic theories of Rogers (concept of fully functioning persons) and Maslow (self actualization).
• Traits: Allport (central, secondary and cardinal traits), Cattell (source and surface traits).
• The five-factor model of Costa and McCrae.
• Social Cognition and Social Learning theories of Bandura and Rotter (Identification and explanation of concepts in each theoretical framework).

• The use of Self Reports - inventories/ questionnaires in assessing Personality - an understanding of the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory);
• what is meant by Projective Techniques - how the Rorschach Inkblot and TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) are used (Test details should include procedure, scoring, and results)

• Why is the study of lifespan development important?
• Determinants – the interaction of heredity and environment,
• context of development – Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System Theory.

• Motor – milestones;
• cognitive – Piaget’s Sensory-Motor Stage
• socio-emotional development – emergence of attachment.
• Mary Ainsworth’s & Lamb’s strange situation test.

• Motor development
• cognitive development – Piaget’s Theory (Preoperational, Concrete and Formal Operational)
• the emergence of self – gender awareness, gender identity, stability, consistency, stereotype role, sex-category, constancy;
• The emergence of peer relationships. Moral development – Kohlberg’s perspective
• Experiment on Moral Dilemma –pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional morality.

• Physical changes at puberty
• Cognitive development – Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage
• Socio-emotional development - forming an identity, dealing with sexuality and gender identity
• some major concerns – delinquency, substance abuse (drugs and alcohol) – meaning of substance abuse, symptoms and treatment
• eating disorders - bulimia, anorexia.

• Definition of stress
• 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

• External/situational: major life events, minor hassles of everyday life, work-related causes, the physical environment.
• Internal/dispositional: Personality variables-traits and types.

• Upsets the internal mechanism and balance - immune system affected, hypertension, heart problems, ulcers, diabetes, asthma (each effect to be briefly explained).
• The relation between stress and performance - burnout.

• Coping with stress: Ineffective strategies - defence mechanisms - rationalization, projection, reaction formation, regression, repression (each to be briefly explained), displacement, sublimation
• Effective strategies - relaxation training and yoga
• Effective lifestyles: stress cycles – distress and wellness
• Promoting positive health and well-being: Exercise, Diet, Self-Care, Life Skills; Positive thinking and attitude

• Generalised, phobic, obsessive-compulsive; Mood - bipolar, depression
• What is meant by anxiety - different forms of anxiety disorders: phobias, obsession - compulsive disorders;
• Mood disorders - characteristics of severe depression, manic-depressive or bipolar disorder;
• Personality - anti-social, histrionic, avoidant, dependent, passive-aggressive (causes and symptoms)
• Behavioural and Developmental Disorders Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), Autism

• Therapeutic Relationship

• How people determine whether others' behaviour is a result of internal causes or external factors - biases in forming judgments (attribution).
• Explain with examples each of the following biases - the person positivity bias, motivational biases, self-serving bias, the false consensus effect, automatic vigilance, motivated scepticism, counterfactual thinking

• How people try to change others’ behaviour
• Social norms
• Conformity and obedience - factors affecting them
• What is meant by social norms - why people conform to social norms and why they digress
• Factors affecting Conformity and Obedience
• Asch's study on conformity
• Why and when people obey others - Milgram's experiment

• What are attitudes - the components of attitude;
• how far attitudes determine behaviours: the process of forming attitudes - how attitudes change: persuasion and cognitive dissonance.

• A ‘Green Environment’: The A-B-C Components of an Attitude
• Four significant features of attitudes

1. Valence (positivity or negativity)
2. Extremeness
3. Simplicity or Complexity (multiplexity)
4. Centrality

• 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. Caste, community and gender stereotypes in the Indian context.

• How Psychology helps to facilitate learning in school - students and teachers;
• individual problems: learning differences, teaching and evaluation techniques, school environment.
• Career counselling - how Psychology helps in the choice of a career -requirements of a field or job, testing individuals, matching individual and field/job.

• How Psychology helps to promote efficiency, well-being, and profitability - a study of factors involved.
• Recruitment, motivation, team building and leadership skills, marketing and consumer behaviour. 

Role of a counsellor and a clinical psychologist in dealing with individuals, couples, families and groups.