With Sampada Karandikar, Hansika Kapoor
Abstract: Most work assessing political ideology and its underpinnings has used primarily western samples. Given India’s unique position as the world’s largest parliamentary democracy with a multiparty system, the present research aimed to develop a scale to measure political ideology in India. Pilot work indicated that the social and economic bifurcation of the conception of political ideology was inadequate in assessing Indians’ stance on political issues. Therefore, in Study 1, 48 items were written relevant to the complex context of political ideology in India. Three factors were extracted based on a sample of 541 Indians (Mage = 24.80, SD = 8.44): purity-based cultural norms, obedience to hierarchy, and economic ideology, highlighting the importance attributed to social concerns. In Study 2, 382 Indians responded to a revised scale (Mage = 26.15 years, SD = 9.00). Based on a confirmatory factor analysis, the three-factor structure was retained. Measurement invariance revealed expected differences between men and women in a few gendered issues such as dowry. Across both studies, economic ideology had poor fit, indicating unreliability of economic issues constituting a consistent ideology in India. Implications, especially with respect to temporal contexts and economic ideology, are discussed.
With Hansika Kapoor
Abstract: The relationship between ideology and partisanship is understudied in India. Using secondary data, we ask whether ideology predicts party preferences, and whether Indians can be clustered with respect to their ideological positions. To do so, we define ideology as differing along two dimensions: adherence to social norms and obedience to hierarchies. We find that a preference for hierarchies significantly determines which party is preferred compared to NOTA, whereas adherence to social norms significantly predicts voting for a number of left- and right-positioning parties. Second, a cluster analysis shows three clusters, which have been named “social reformists” for individuals who are left leaning on both dimensions, “disguised traditionalists” for those who are left leaning in terms of social norms, but right leaning in terms of adherence to hierarchies, and “traditionalists,” for those who are right leaning in terms of both dimensions. Implications and future directions are discussed.
With: Sampada Karandikar, Hansika Kapoor
Abstract: Reality television is a social experiment and interactions observed among contestants reflect a microcosm of real-life exchanges. In the present study, we inspected gossip in the eleventh season of Bigg Boss, an Indian reality show fashioned after UK’s Big Brother. Specifically, two independent raters coded the frequency of conversations, how many of them were gossip, who the targets were, and how much each contestant contributed to the exchange. The connotation, content, and purpose of gossip was investigated for the top three contestants and those who were evicted in earlier episodes. We found that the winners engaged in and were targets of more conversations than those evicted. Consistent with theories of group and sexual selection, women spoke more about physical appearance and reputation, and the only male contestant investigated discussed status and prestige more than other topics. Information sharing was primarily motivated by social comparisons and intrasexual competition, but not so much to compare groups. Limitations are discussed.