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Assessment of Individual differences in India

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One of the most pervasive activities of psychologists has been the use of different kinds of measures in appraising intellectual and personality characteristics of the individual as well as of his attitudes and opinions. Various kinds of psychometric and projective measures have been devised and are in widespread use not only among research psychologists but also by those who are concerned with different practical problems that require the assessment of psychological qualities of the individual. Demand for such professional appraisal has led to the development of an infinite variety of psychological tests for measuring intellectual, cognitive, motivational and personality qualities of the individual, and ascertaining with the help of attitude scales and schedules, his opinions and dispositions towards an infinite array of issues. These measures have become the chief source of psychological data both for research and practical purposes.
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The psycho-lexical approach is extended to Hindi, a major language spoken in India. From both the dictionary and from Hindi novels, a huge set of personality descriptors was put together, ultimately reduced to a manageable set of 295 trait terms. Both self and peer ratings were collected on those terms from a sample of 511 participants. Factor analyses (principal components analysis), performed separately on self and on peer ratings, suggested three up to six factors. From a comparison with an ancient but still popular system of personality description, called the triguna, and from a comparison with a recently developed comprehensive trait taxonomy in Dutch, it was concluded that only three factors, not to be confused with the Big Three, firmly stood out, all three belonging to the three-dimensional triguna. Congruence coefficients between factors based on self and on peer ratings confirmed the stability of these three factors. The three factors are called rajasic, representing ambition, friendliness, humility versus hypocrisy, deception and violence, tamasic, representing egoism, mean mindedness and concealment, and finally sattvic, representing competence, impartiality, being organized, sober and harmonious. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology
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In the age of decolonization, Indian psychology engaged with and nationalized itself within global networks of ideas. While psychology was eventually applied by public intellectuals in explicitly political arenas, this essay focuses on the initial mobilization of the discipline's early Indian experts, led by the founder of the Indian Psychological Association, Narendranath Sengupta. Although modern critics have harshly judged early Indian psychologists for blind appropriation of European concepts, an analysis of the networks through which the science of psychology was developed challenges this oversimplification. Early Indian psychologists developed their discipline within a simultaneously transnational and nationalistic context, in which European ideas overlapped with ancient texts, creating a deliberately “Indian” brand of psychology. As the discipline of psychology exploded across the world, Indian psychologists developed a science of swaraj, enabling synergies between modern psychological doctrine, philosophy and ancient texts. This paper explores the networks of ideas within which modern Indian psychology was developed, the institutional and civil environment in which it matured, and the framework through which it engaged with and attempted to claim credence within transnational scientific networks.
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This study explored the meaning of the notion of "intelligence" as understood and used by the lay people in India. In a multi-centric study, participants (n=1,885), varying along the dimensions of ecological context (rural/urban), schooling, age and gender, from five localities, volunteered. Responding to an open-ended question, participants described the characteristics of an intelligent person. Analysis revealed four major dimensions of intelligence: cognitive competence, social competence, competence in action, and emotional competence. Intelligence was conceptualised in terms of socio-affective regulation of one's conduct. It was considered an important attribute contributing to the well-being of the individual and the society. Results have implications for expanding the concept and assessment of intelligence to make it more inclusive encompassing the perspectives from non-Western cultures.
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This study examined the health consequences of an indigenous concept "Anāsakti" which means non-attachment. The scale measuring anāsakti was based on the characteristics of a man of steady wisdom "the sthitaprajña", described in the Bhagvad Gītā. It was hypothesised that those higb on anāsakti would experience less distress and exhibit fewer symptoms of strain when faced with stressful life events. Results showèd tbat anāsakt subjects were less distressed and exhibited fewer symptoms of ill health. Anāsakti was also found to be the most significant predictor of strain symptoms.
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The development and application of psychological tests is an ever increasing activity in India. Based on a cross-cultural perspective, major forms of cultural bias in testing are identified. An historical overview of test development and the attendant problem of bias is presented within an Indian context. The problems of test adaptation, test translation, and psychometric invariance are specifically examined. Recent attempts in the direction of developing culturally appropriate tests are discussed. The role of projective inventories is cited as an emerging trend in this direction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Discusses organizational changes in the discipline, particularly the creation of structures to support new concepts of competence, achievement, and inquiry. Ad hoc and arbitrary bases of operations are criticized in favor of the totality of the different cultures, systems of knowledge, and pesonalities as they become involved in psychological work. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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The Vedic Personality Inventory was devised to assess the validity of the Vedic concept of the three gunas or modes of nature as a psychological categorization system. The sample of 619 subjects included persons of varying ages and occupations from a middle-size city in southeastern United States, and also of subscribers to a magazine focusing on Eastern-style spirituality. The original 90-item inventory was shortened to 56 items on the basis of reliability and validity analyses. Cronbach alpha for the three subscales ranged from .93 to .94, and the corrected item-total correlation of every item score with its subscale score was greater than .50. Three measures of convergent validity and four measures of discriminant validity provide evidence for construct validity. The loading of every item on the scale is stronger for the intended subscale than for any other subscale. Although each subscale contains congeneric items, the factors are not independent. The nonorthogonality is consistent with Vedic theory. This inventory requires psychometric development and testing cross-culturally as well as to be experimentally implemented in group research and individual assessment.
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Methodological issues in cultural and cross-cultural personality research are described. A taxonomy of these studies is presented, based on whether a study is exploratory or tests hypotheses, and whether or not contextual information is measured. Core methodological issues are bias and equivalence: a taxonomy and a brief overview of statistical procedures to examine equivalence are presented, with a focus on procedures for assessing structural equivalence (i.e., similarity of meaning of an instrument across cultures). Examples are given of studies in which cultural and cross-cultural approaches, often seen as antithetical, have been fruitfully integrated. Finally, multilevel models are described in which personality characteristics are examined at individual and cultural level.
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