UPHESC Assistant Professor Psychology 2025 PYQs

Concept: Around 12 months children begin using single words (holophrases) that convey a whole sentence's meaning.

1. Cooing (~2 months) – vowel-like sounds.
2. Babbling (~6 months) – consonant–vowel strings ('ba-ba').
3. Holophrastic (~12–18 months) – one word = whole thought ('milk!' = 'I want milk').
4. Telegraphic speech (~2 years) – two-word phrases.

Short trick: Coo → Babble → Holophrase → Telegraphic.

Concept: Surplus energy theory (Schiller, Herbert Spencer) is a classical theory of play, not of language.

1. Sapir–Whorf – linguistic relativity: language shapes thought.
2. Chomsky – nativist theory, Language Acquisition Device, universal grammar.
3. Slobin – cognitive/operating principles children use to acquire language.

Short trick: Surplus energy → children PLAY off excess energy, not speak.

Concept: Developmental designs differ in whether the same or different people are measured, and how often.

1. Cross-sectional – different ages compared at one time → II.
2. Longitudinal – the same people followed across ages → IV.
3. Cross-sequential – several age groups (cohorts) followed and compared several times → III.
4. Cohort effect – influence of growing up in a shared historical time → I.

Short trick: Cross = one cut in time; Longitudinal = long follow-up of same people.

Concept: Egocentrism is the preoperational child's inability to take another person's perspective.

1. Shown in the three-mountains task: the child picks his own view as the doll's view.
2. Also seen in egocentric speech and animism.
3. 'Self-centred cognition' is not Piaget's technical term.

Short trick: Pre-op limits: Egocentrism, Centration, Irreversibility, Animism.

Concept: Each theorist is identified with one developmental theory.

1. Piaget – stage theory of cognitive development → IV.
2. Erikson – psychosocial theory (8 stages) → III.
3. Vygotsky – sociocultural theory (ZPD, scaffolding) → II.
4. Bandura – social (cognitive) learning theory → I.

Short trick: Reverse order: a-IV, b-III, c-II, d-I.

Concept: Erikson's eight stages: Trust–Mistrust, Autonomy–Shame, Initiative–Guilt, Industry–Inferiority, Identity–Role confusion, Intimacy–Isolation, Generativity–Stagnation, Integrity–Despair.

1. Initiative vs Guilt – stage 3 (3–6 yrs) → II.
2. Identity vs Role confusion – stage 5 (adolescence) → III.
3. Intimacy vs Isolation – stage 6 (young adulthood) → IV.
4. Integrity vs Despair – stage 8 (old age) → I.

Short trick: Trust-Auto-Init-Indus-Ident-Intim-Gener-Integ (T-A-I-I-I-I-G-I).

Concept: At rest the inside of a neuron is negative relative to the outside – about –70 mV (polarised state).

1. The Na⁺/K⁺ pump moves 3 Na⁺ out for 2 K⁺ in.
2. Large negatively charged proteins stay inside; membrane is more permeable to K⁺, which leaks out.
3. During an action potential the inside briefly becomes positive (+30/+40 mV).

Short trick: Rest = –70 mV: 'resting is negative'.

Concept: Both statements are standard facts of sleep physiology, but they describe different things.

1. (A) True: REM ('paradoxical') sleep shows low-voltage, fast, desynchronised EEG like waking, with rapid eye movements and muscle atonia.
2. (R) True: the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus is the master circadian clock.
3. The SCN governs the sleep–wake rhythm, not why REM EEG is desynchronised (generated by pontine mechanisms) – so R does not explain A.

Short trick: REM → pons; circadian clock → SCN.

Concept: Each neurotransmitter has a characteristic behavioural role.

1. Norepinephrine – arousal, alertness, vigilance → IV.
2. Dopamine – reward and pleasure (mesolimbic pathway), also movement → III.
3. Serotonin – sleep, mood, anxiety, appetite (SSRIs act here) → I.
4. Endorphins – natural opioids; pain relief, 'runner's high' → II.

Short trick: NE-Alert, DA-Delight, 5-HT-Mood/Sleep, Endorphin-End pain.

Concept: Using the Strange Situation, Ainsworth identified secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant (ambivalent) attachment.

1. Secure – distressed on separation, comforted on reunion.
2. Avoidant – little distress, ignores mother on return.
3. Resistant/ambivalent – very distressed, angry and clingy on reunion.
4. Main & Solomon later added 'disorganised' – there is no 'organised' type.

Short trick: Ainsworth = S-A-R (+ Main's D = Disorganised).

Concept: The group we use for social comparison is the reference group; a focus group is a qualitative research technique (a guided group discussion).

1. (B) Dollard et al. (1939): frustration tends to lead to aggression – correct.
2. (C) Categories group instances that belong together – the standard social-cognition description.
3. (D) Social categorisation sharpens boundaries and exaggerates between-category differences (Tajfel's accentuation effect) – correct.
4. (A) Social comparison (Festinger) is done with a reference group, not a 'focused group' – incorrect.

Short trick: Compare with → Reference group; discuss in research → Focus group.

Concept: Bystander effect (Darley & Latané, after the Kitty Genovese case): the more bystanders, the less likely any one of them helps.

1. Main cause – diffusion of responsibility: each person feels less personally responsible.
2. Also pluralistic ignorance – ambiguity is resolved by watching others' inaction.
3. So help becomes less likely, not more.

Short trick: More people → responsibility diluted → less help.

Concept: Conformity and compliance are two different forms of social influence.

1. (A) True: conformity is going along with the (often unstated) norms of a group – no one asks you (Asch).
2. (R) True: compliance is responding to a direct, explicit request (foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face).
3. R describes a different process; it does not explain why people conform.

Short trick: Conformity – implicit norm; Compliance – explicit request; Obedience – explicit command.

Concept: Festinger (1957): holding two psychologically inconsistent cognitions creates an unpleasant tension – cognitive dissonance – which motivates change.

1. Reduced by changing a cognition, adding consonant cognitions or trivialising the conflict.
2. Fundamental attribution error – overestimating dispositional causes of others' behaviour.
3. 'Imbalance' is Heider's balance theory term for P-O-X triads.

Short trick: Smoker who knows smoking kills = dissonance (Festinger).

Concept: Traits are relatively stable, consistent and enduring dispositions – stability across time and situations is their defining feature.

1. Traits are descriptive categories used for one's own and others' behaviour (implicit personality theory).
2. People perceive traits as going together (e.g., warm–kind) – interrelated.
3. 'Unstable' contradicts the very concept of a trait.

Short trick: Trait = stable, consistent, enduring; State = temporary.

Concept: Allport classified personal dispositions as cardinal, central and secondary.

1. Cardinal – a single, ruling passion that dominates almost all behaviour (e.g., Gandhi's non-violence); few people have one.
2. Central – 5–10 characteristic traits describing a person.
3. Secondary – less consistent, situation-specific preferences.

Short trick: Cardinal = 'cardinal/master' trait ruling the whole life.

Concept: Bandura's self-system regulates behaviour through three sub-processes of self-regulation.

1. Self-observation – monitoring one's own performance.
2. Judgemental process – comparing it with personal standards/reference norms.
3. Self-reaction – self-reward or self-criticism.
4. Option A lists mechanisms of moral disengagement; C is Rogerian; D is from Mischel's CAPS units.

Short trick: Observe → Judge → React.

Concept: James–Lange: the stimulus produces bodily changes first, and our perception of those changes IS the emotion.

1. 'We feel afraid because we tremble' (James).
2. Cannon–Bard – thalamus triggers arousal and feeling simultaneously.
3. Schachter–Singer – arousal plus a cognitive label (two-factor).
4. Lazarus – cognitive appraisal comes first.

Short trick: James-Lange: Body first, feeling second.

Concept: Monocular (pictorial) cues need only one eye: linear perspective, texture gradient, interposition (overlap), relative size, aerial perspective, shading, motion parallax.

1. Linear perspective – parallel lines converge in the distance.
2. Texture gradient – texture becomes finer with distance.
3. Interposition – a nearer object covers a farther one.
4. Interpolation is a statistical/mathematical estimation term, not a depth cue.

Short trick: Interposition (overlap) yes; interpolation no.

Concept: In item response theory the item characteristic curve plots P(correct) against the latent ability θ – an S-shaped (logistic) curve.

1. Its location gives item difficulty (b), its slope discrimination (a), its lower asymptote guessing (c).
2. ROC curve – hits vs false alarms in signal detection.
3. Power function – Stevens' psychophysical law; serial position curve – memory for list positions.

Short trick: P(correct) vs ability (θ) = ICC (IRT).