IAS Mains 2013 Optional Subject: PSYCHOLOGY Paper -I

 Section A
Question 1: Answer the following, each in not more than 150 words. 10×5=50 marks
1. Critically evaluate the cognitive approach to the study of psychological phenomena.
2. What is ethnocentrism? Bow is it reflected in psychological research?
3. What factors contribute to the encoding of information into LTM?
4. How flow of genes affect development?
5. Describe different reinforcement schedules and indicate their effects on the strength of learning.

Question 2: Answer each in not more than 250 words :15+20+15
1. What do you understand by ‘effect size’ and ‘statistical power’? Explain their significance.
2. Discuss the importance of early relationship l’or developmental outcomes in the light of researches by Bowlby and Anisworth.
3. Compare template matching and feature detection accounts of pattern recognition.

Question 3: Answer the following, each in not more than 400 words. 25+25
1. The discipline of psychology has grown and developed through debate between those who held that it should be modelled on natural science and those who subscribed to the view that it has to follow the model of social science. What arguments you envision for or against these views? What position you would like to endorse and why?
2. Bring out the key developmental challenges faced by adolescents in the cognitive and social domains.

Question 4: Answer the following, each in not more than 250 words: 15+20+15
1. Why our representations of the external world are not entirely accurate?
2. Describe and evaluate the modal model of short-term memory.
3. Describe the basic elements of observation and bring out the implications of the dimension of participation in observational research.

Psychology Paper I: Section B

Question 5: Answer each in 150 words. 10 x 5 =50
1. What is the situational critique of trait psychology?
2. Explain Sternberg’s view of intelligence and bring out its implication for schooling.
3. Every function in the child’s development appears twice : first on social level and later. on the individual level.” Vygotsky. Discuss the above statement and indicate your own position on this proposition.
4. What are the process of language production?
5. How do novices differ from experts?

Question 6: Answer the following, each in not more than 250 words :15+20+15
1. Bring out the role of left and right hemispheres in emotional experience.
2. What is intrinsic motivation? Why it gets reduced if the person gets external rewind for undertaking a task that he or she loves?
3. Explain correspondents’ bias. Is it universal or culturally variable?

Question 7: Answer the following each in more than 400 words :25+25
1. What is the role of social categorization in the formation of prejudice? Suggest some strategies to reduce prejudice.
2. How the psychoanalytic view differs from physiological or cognitive view of dream?
Question 8: Answer the following. each in not more than 250 words: 15+20+15
1. What are the requirements to be met by psychological assessment tools for offering accurate and useful measure of psychological constructs?
2. What makes a persuasive attempt effective? Discuss.
3. Describe the Indian approach to personality as reflected in the principle of three Gunas.