Submitted By : Meena Venkatesh

Abstract
Personality is best understood in terms of internal and external influences. At every moment our genes, our experiences, environment and our free will determine our personality. In the Western perspective, the various personality theories fall into five major perspectives - the Psychoanalytic perspective which defines personality in terms of the dynamics that underlie behaviour, the Trait perspective which defines personality in terms of behaviors, the Humanistic perspective which pays attention to the growth potential of people, the Social cognitive perspective which emphasizes the ways in which our personalities are influenced by our environment and the Evolutionary perspective which asserts that the patterns of behavior seen in a species is a product of evolution. In the Indian perspective, the essence of human personality is the Self, which in conjunction with the gross physical and subtle bodies becomes subject to experience pleasure and pain. Self-realization is the goal of human life according to Indian psychology.

Education has a big role to play in the personality development of a student. Education to be complete must have five principal aspects relating to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the mental, the emotional, the intellectual and the spiritual. All these aspects are looked into in our ancient system of yoga.

The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of yoga on the personality development of students and the objectives were to study the effect of yoga practices on the muscle strength, dexterity, primary mental functions, emotional and behavioral aspects and the intellectual abilities of the students.

The participants for this quasi-experimental study were drawn from two co-educational schools in Bangalore that were from different socio-economic levels. Four hundred and three children participated in this study. In each school, two classes were randomly assigned to the 'yoga' group and two classes to the 'control' group. The 'yoga' groups were given yoga training by qualified yoga teachers whereas the 'control' groups went on with their routine schoolwork. The yoga training was given for 45 minutes, 5 days a week for one academic year. All the groups were assessed at the beginning and at the end of the academic year by administering the Grip strength test and Dexterity test to assess the physical development, the Personality Inventory, the School and Home Inventories, GASC, Anxiety test and EQ test to assess the emotional and behavioral development, the Concentration and Structure of Abilities tests to assess the primary mental functions and intellectual abilities development.

The contrast of the post-test scores of the 'Yoga' vs. 'Control' using Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) with the pre-test scores as covariates followed by Gain score analysis (post-test, pre-test, independent 't' test) was deemed the most powerful and complete analytic framework to evaluate the outcome of this study.

Results revealed significant increases in Grip strength, Dexterity, Confidence, Self-sufficiency, Mental Health, Creativity, Concentration, Memory and Intellectual abilities of students who practised yoga. Findings also revealed significant reduction in Neurotic Tendency, General anxiety, Physiological anxiety and Sleep disturbance in the Yoga group. The results suggest that regular practice of yoga techniques had a beneficial effect on the development of personality on the physical, mental, emotional and intellectual levels of students of the experimental groups compared to the control groups. In conclusion, going by the results of the present study, yoga techniques may prove to be an effective means for producing positive personality growth in adolescent students.