Normative predictions of collectivist‐individualist intentions and behaviour of Indians

Five hundred and thirty‐four college students, drawn from five distantly located cities in India that varied in affluence and infrastructural facilities, participated in a study designed to understand their normative predictions about people's responses to 20 situations. The responses consisted of five combinations: collectivist behaviour with collectivist intention (CC), individualist behaviour with individualist intention (II), collectivist behaviour with individualist intention to behave subsequently in an individualist way or to serve individualist intention (CI), individualist behaviour with collectivist intention to behave subsequently in a collectivist way or to serve a collectivist purpose (IC), and a mix of collectivist and individualist intention and behaviour (C&I). The findings indicated that the situations involving family members were reported to induce collectivism in behaviour as well as intentions. However, compelling personal needs were believed to lead to serve individualist interests, but by adopting collectivist behaviour. Further, collectives, compared to individuals, were reported to behave in collectivist way. Even when collectives behaved in individualist fashion, the ultimate aim was conjectured to serve a collectivist purpose. Females, like males, were perceived to meet compelling individual needs by resorting to collectivist behaviour. In less compelling matters that are less salient to their gender role, females were reported to remain collectivist in their behaviour as well as intentions. More affluent places with better infrastructure are believed to manifest either a mix of collectivist and individualist behaviour and intentions or a response pattern that enables individualist interests to be served through collectivist behaviour. A clear individualist pattern of behaviour and intention was rarely predicted to occur. The changing socioeconomic scenario has probably induced a shift towards cultivating individualist intentions that are still realized through collectivist behaviour. With the rate of change accelerating further, individualism is likely to get stronger, particularly in more affluent areas with better infrastructure. However, the combinations of collectivist and individualist behaviour and intentions are likely to remain complex.     

Context Sensitivity and Balancing in Indian Organizational Behaviour

This paper attempts to explain Indian organizational behaviour with the help of two interrelated concepts: context sensitivity and balancing. Context sensitivity pertains to beliefs about person (patra), time (kal), and ecological (desh) components of the environment. Balancing is a behavioural disposition to avoid extremes and to integrate or accommodate diverse considerations. Traditional systems such as Hindu religion, caste as a form of social stratification, and agricultural mode of production have interacted with foreign invasions and alien rules to give rise to several sociocultural characteristics: (1) group embeddedness and hierarchy while relating to people (patra), (2) uncertainty about future and the resultant short-term perspective while relating to time (kal), and (3) scarcity of resources, deficient infrastructural facilities, and poverty syndrome while relating to ecology (desh). Rapid industrialization and the transplant of Western technology and work forms in the last three decades have added individualistic values and Western management practices. While responding to the three components of the environment, people exhibit both a primary expresive mode that is traditional in nature and a secondary expressive mode that is acquired as a result of the transplantation of the Western management system onto a traditional core. Superior-subordinate relationships, work behaviour, and management practices reflect both the primary and secondary modes in varying degrees.     

PSYCHOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF THIRD WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Unlike other social sciences, psychology has for long remained outside the orbit of social change and national development. Because of the very nature of socio-economic development that is taking place in the Third World countries, psychology has a distinct role. Temporal compression and cacophonic nature of changes have caused conditions of instability that have brought to the fore many socio-psychological problems requiring immediate attention. The role of psychology in this context and the factors underlying the limited impact it has made so far have been discussed. Some robust findings in psychology that have obvious implications for policy formulation and action programme are outlined.     

Predicting personality disorder traits with the Defense Style Questionnaire in a normal sample.

This research examined the efficacy of the 40-item Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40), measuring mature, neurotic and immature defense styles, to predict DSM-III-R personality disorders. The Coolidge Axis II Inventory, the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II, and the MMPI personality disorder scales were used to measure 11 personality disorders in a nonclinical sample. The results show that most personality disorders are positively associated with the highly maladaptive immature defense style, and negatively associated with the mature defense style. Multiple regression analyses reveal that the combined variance accounted for by the defense styles range from 12% to 42% on the CATI, 3% to 42% on the MCMI-II, and 2% to 32% on the MMPI-PD. However, specific personality disorders cannot be predicted with the defense styles on any measure.     

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the Brief Symptom Inventory

A cross-cultural study of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) was conducted with a sample of university students from India and Canada. The results indicated much higher rates of symptom reporting in the Indian sample. Canadian students also had higher reported symptom scales when compared to a similar size USA sample. A small sample of older respondents was also compared with a British sample. Examination of the structure of the BSI scale was investigated using a multidimensional scaling analysis. The Indian data had a somatization—paranoid ideation dimension and a psychoticism—interpersonal sensitivity dimension. With the Canadian sample, there was a hostility—phobic anxiety dimension along with a somatization—paranoid ideation dimension.     

Vision following extended congenital blindness

Animal studies suggest that early visual deprivation can cause permanent functional blindness. However, few human data on this issue exist. Given enough time for recovery, can a person gain visual skills after several years of congenital blindness? In India, we recently had an unusual opportunity to work with an individual whose case history sheds light on this question. S.R.D. was born blind, and remained so until age 12. She then underwent surgery for the removal of dense congenital cataracts. We evaluated her performance on an extensive battery of visual tasks 20 years after surgery. We found that although S.R.D.'s acuity is compromised, she is proficient on mid- and high-level visual tasks. These results suggest that the human brain retains an impressive capacity for visual learning well into late childhood. They have implications for current conceptions of cortical plasticity and provide an argument for treating congenital blindness even in older children.     

The effect of one experience upon the recall of another

An exploratory experiment was made to show how one experience may exert an influence upon the recall of another, and how both may lose their separate identities in memory, to become merged into what Bartlett has described as an active organization of related experiences. The original material was a story, and the experience interpolated between it and its recall was a picture which illustrated part of it, in some respects correctly, in others incorrectly. Some subjects were asked to recall the story, others the picture, after from one to four weeks, or in a few cases a year.

The picture was viewed under the influence of the attitudes induced by the story. These determined its selection from a number of other unrelated pictures, to be perceived as a related experience. In consequence only few details gained attention, and these were interpreted in terms of the attitudes induced by the story, in some cases contrary to the meaning given to them by the rest of the picture. Other details without significance in the theme of the story were neglected. In its turn, seeing the picture favoured the recall of some aspects of the theme of the story, details not reinforced by the picture tending to be left out in recall. Many picture details intruded into the reproductions of the story. This tendency was progressive, and at the end of a year picture and story details were not separated. Especially, the picture brought about changes in the points of emphasis in the story.