Learner and Learning Process I: Growth and Development, Personality, Mental Health, and Approaches to Intelligence
2. Personality: definitions and theories, and mental health and hygiene
| Theorist | Core structure of personality |
|---|---|
| Sigmund Freud | Psychoanalytic theory: personality is driven by unconscious conflict among id (pleasure-seeking instinct), ego (reality-testing mediator) and superego (internalised moral standard), shaped by psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) |
| Carl Rogers | Humanistic (person-centred) theory: personality develops around the self-concept, and psychological health depends on congruence between the real self and the ideal self, nurtured by unconditional positive regard |
| Gordon Allport | Trait theory: personality is organised around cardinal traits (rare, dominating the whole personality), central traits (five to ten core characteristics) and secondary traits (situational preferences); each person's trait pattern is unique |
| Max Wertheimer | Founder of Gestalt psychology: perception and personality are organised wholes ('the whole is different from the sum of its parts'), not a sum of separate elements — laid the ground for Gestalt principles of perceptual organisation |
| Kurt Koffka | Co-founder of Gestalt psychology; applied Gestalt principles to child development and learning ('Growth of the Mind', 1921/1924), arguing a child perceives and learns whole meaningful patterns, not isolated stimuli built up piece by piece |
Mental health is a state of psychological well-being in which a person realises their own abilities, copes with the normal stresses of life, works productively and contributes to their community — not merely the absence of illness. Mental hygiene is the applied science of preserving and promoting that state: preventive practices (stress management, healthy relationships, adequate rest, realistic goal-setting, help-seeking without stigma) that keep minor strain from becoming disorder. In a school, mental hygiene extends to the classroom climate a teacher creates — freedom from constant fear of failure, a sense of belonging, and early recognition of a child under unusual stress.
3. Approaches to intelligence: from unitary to multiple
Early theories treated intelligence as a single, general capacity (Charles Spearman's 'g' factor, 1904, extracted from correlated test performance across tasks). The field has since moved toward pluralist models that separate different kinds of intelligence. Social intelligence (Edward Thorndike, 1920) is the ability to understand and manage people and to act wisely in interpersonal relations, distinct from the ability to handle ideas (abstract intelligence) or objects (mechanical intelligence). Emotional intelligence (Peter Salovey and John Mayer, 1990; popularised by Daniel Goleman, 1995) is the capacity to perceive, understand, regulate and use one's own and others' emotions effectively — self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill in Goleman's popular framing.
| Theorist and theory | Structure |
|---|---|
| Robert Sternberg — triarchic theory of intelligence (1985) | Three components: analytical (academic problem-solving, as tested by conventional IQ tests), creative (coping with novelty, generating new ideas) and practical (street smarts — adapting to, shaping or selecting real-world environments); success needs a balance of the three, not analytical ability alone |
| Howard Gardner — theory of multiple intelligences (1983, 'Frames of Mind') | Eight (originally seven) relatively independent intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic (added 1995) — a person can be strong in one and weak in another, so a single IQ score misrepresents ability |
- Assessment of intelligence — individual tests (Stanford-Binet, Wechsler scales — WISC for children, WAIS for adults) and group tests; performance is expressed as an intelligence quotient (IQ = mental age ÷ chronological age × 100 in the older ratio formula, or a deviation score against age norms in modern tests).
- Problem solving — the cognitive process of moving from a given state to a goal state through strategies such as trial-and-error, algorithms (guaranteed but exhaustive procedures) and heuristics (efficient rules of thumb that may not guarantee a solution); can be blocked by functional fixedness (seeing an object only in its usual use) and mental set (persisting with a strategy that worked before even when it no longer fits).
- Critical thinking — the disciplined evaluation of claims, evidence and arguments for validity and bias before accepting a conclusion, rather than accepting information at face value.
- Metacognition (John Flavell, 1979) — 'thinking about one's own thinking': awareness and regulation of one's own cognitive processes — planning an approach, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating and adjusting strategy — central to self-directed learning.
- Creativity (J. P. Guilford's divergent thinking, 1950; often measured by fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration) — the capacity to generate novel and valuable ideas, associated with divergent rather than convergent thinking.
4. Individual differences: bringing development, personality and intelligence into the classroom
A single classroom holds children at different points on every scale this section has described: a stage-appropriate concrete-operational activity for most of a class of nine-year-olds may still be too abstract for a slower-developing child and too easy for one already reasoning formally; a lesson planned on Sternberg's analytical component alone rewards only the subset of learners strong in that component, while Gardner's framework argues the same content can be taught and assessed through several intelligences — a fraction lesson through spatial diagrams, musical rhythm and bodily movement as well as through symbolic arithmetic — reaching learners a single method would miss. Trait differences (Allport) mean two children with identical intelligence can need different classroom management; a shy child high in the trait of introversion is not unmotivated, merely differently expressed.
- Developmental readiness — a teacher pitches tasks to the learner's actual cognitive stage (Piaget), not only to chronological age, and uses concrete materials for a concrete-operational child even when teaching content that will later be abstract.
- Personality-informed relating — Rogers's unconditional positive regard suggests a teacher's acceptance of a student should not depend on performance, which supports the congruence between real and ideal self that mental health depends on; Allport's traits remind a teacher that quiet, withdrawn or highly assertive behaviour can be stable disposition rather than a discipline problem to fix.
- Recognising giftedness and difficulty through multiple lenses — a child weak on a conventional IQ test may be strong in Gardner's spatial or bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, or in Sternberg's practical intelligence, so identification of both gifted and struggling learners should draw on more than one measure.
- Emotional intelligence in classroom management — a teacher's own self-regulation (Goleman) models calm conflict resolution, and reading a student's emotional state before it escalates into disruption is itself an application of emotional intelligence to pedagogy, not only a personal virtue.
Key takeaways
- Growth is quantitative and tapers after maturity; development is qualitative and lifelong, following cephalocaudal and proximodistal direction, a predictable sequence with variable rate, and interaction between maturation and learning.
- Piaget's four stages — sensorimotor (object permanence), preoperational (egocentric, no conservation), concrete operational (conservation, classification) and formal operational (abstract, hypothetical reasoning) — mark cognitive development by age.
- Freud (id-ego-superego), Rogers (real self-ideal self), Allport (cardinal-central-secondary traits) and the Gestalt founders Wertheimer and Koffka (the whole is more than the sum of parts) each structure personality differently; mental health is well-being, not merely absence of illness, and mental hygiene is its preventive practice.
- Intelligence moved from Spearman's single 'g' (1904) to social (Thorndike, 1920), multiple (Gardner, 1983), triarchic (Sternberg, 1985) and emotional (Salovey-Mayer, 1990; Goleman, 1995) models; problem solving, critical thinking, metacognition (Flavell, 1979) and creativity (Guilford, 1950) are the related cognitive processes assessed alongside IQ.
- In the classroom, developmental readiness, Rogers's unconditional positive regard, plural measures of giftedness beyond a single IQ score, and a teacher's own emotional intelligence together turn these theories into daily practice — which is why the learner is placed before teacher education and curriculum in the syllabus.
Practice questions (10)
Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.
Development that proceeds from the head and neck toward the trunk and legs before finer control appears is called:
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Answer: B — Cephalocaudal
Cephalocaudal is head-to-tail direction. Proximodistal is centre-to-periphery (shoulder before wrist). Egocentric describes Piaget's preoperational stage; metacognitive is unrelated to physical development direction.A child who insists a tall thin glass has 'more' water than a short wide one holding the same amount, poured in front of them, has not yet mastered:
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Answer: B — Conservation
This is the classic conservation task, mastered in Piaget's concrete operational stage (7-11); a preoperational child (2-7) fails it. Object permanence is a sensorimotor-stage achievement; formal operational reasoning and metacognition are unrelated to this specific task.The personality theory built around id, ego and superego, and organised through psychosexual stages, was given by:
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Answer: B — Sigmund Freud
Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Rogers's vocabulary is real self and ideal self; Allport's is cardinal, central and secondary traits; Wertheimer founded Gestalt psychology, unrelated to psychosexual stages.'The whole is different from the sum of its parts' is the founding claim of which school, associated with Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka?
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Answer: C — Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology, founded by Wertheimer with Koffka and Köhler. Psychoanalytic theory is Freud's, trait theory is Allport's, and humanistic (person-centred) theory is Rogers's.Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence (1985) names analytical and creative intelligence along with a third component often called:
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Answer: A — Practical intelligence
Practical intelligence, or 'street smarts', is Sternberg's third component. Naturalistic and bodily-kinesthetic are among Gardner's eight multiple intelligences; emotional intelligence is Salovey and Mayer's separate model.Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, first published in 1983 in 'Frames of Mind', originally proposed how many relatively independent intelligences before naturalistic intelligence was added in 1995?
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Answer: B — Seven
Gardner originally named seven — linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal — and added naturalistic in 1995 to make eight.The capacity to perceive, understand, regulate and use one's own and others' emotions effectively, proposed by Salovey and Mayer in 1990 and popularised by Daniel Goleman, is called:
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Answer: C — Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence (Salovey and Mayer, 1990; Goleman, 1995). Social intelligence is Thorndike's earlier (1920) and narrower construct about handling people wisely; practical intelligence is Sternberg's; naturalistic is one of Gardner's eight.A student who is aware of not understanding a passage, and deliberately switches from silent reading to reading aloud to improve comprehension, is exercising:
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Answer: C — Metacognition
This is metacognition (Flavell, 1979) — awareness and active regulation of one's own thinking. Functional fixedness and mental set are both obstacles to problem solving, the opposite of adapting strategy; conservation is a Piagetian concept unrelated to reading strategy.A teacher who accepts and values a student regardless of the student's current performance, so as to support congruence between the student's real and ideal self, is applying:
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Answer: B — Rogers's unconditional positive regard
Rogers's humanistic theory holds that unconditional positive regard supports the congruence between real and ideal self that mental health depends on. The superego is Freud's internalised moral standard, not an acceptance practice; analytical intelligence and conservation are unrelated concepts from this unit's other sections.A child who scores poorly on a conventional IQ test but shows unusual skill in map-reading and mentally rotating shapes is likely strong in which of Gardner's intelligences?
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Answer: B — Spatial intelligence
Map-reading and mental rotation of shapes are markers of spatial intelligence, one of Gardner's eight. Linguistic and intrapersonal are different intelligences in the same model; analytical intelligence belongs to Sternberg's triarchic theory, not Gardner's.