Why does Arraylist hold object rather than reference variable, as opposed to Array holding reference variable or primitives?

Question

enter image description here When I'm learning array's knowledge, there are such descriptions saying array holds reference variables(not object itself) or primitives, as opposed to ArrayList holding an object. I want to confirm why ArrayList can hold object rather than reference variables. enter image description here

Answer 1

You're just taking everything out of context...

if you would read further in the second image then you'd understand that there exists primitve arrays ( int[] ) but no such thing as a primitive List ( List<int> ).

Instead you have to use wrapper classes ( List<Integer> ).

Then don't mess up the definition of Object and Object reference because in java you never can have an Object in place, you're always working with Object-references (and also with primitives to be really clear).