Then, participants had to choose from nine pictorial depictions representing the protagonists in the story on a vertical line, with varying degrees of status distance. Results showed evidence for the black sheep effect and, furthermore, revealed that no other identity religious, national, and regional resulted in devaluing the status of fellow in-group member.
The consequences of social categorizations are often not only seen in the dynamics of social interactions, but also in the way social status is represented. The caste system provides a hierarchy of social roles that hold inherent characteristics and, more importantly, remain stable throughout life Dirks, This, created status hierarchies on hereditary basis with limited social mobility.
For instance, individuals born into the highest caste, that is, the Brahmin caste have usually been priests and scholars. Individuals born into the Kshatriya caste have been warriors and kings.
Individuals born into the Vaishya caste have been merchants. Finally, individuals born into the Shudra caste have been laborers.
In modern India, the Indian government introduced a categorization scheme in which the untouchable castes were categorized as scheduled castes SC , the backward tribes were categorized as scheduled tribes ST and the disadvantaged castes as other backward castes OBC. The Forward caste FC community generally constitute the high caste group.
The FC has historically been and, continues to be, in a strong socioeconomic position with the highest status in society 1. Thus, one of the main objectives of the present research was to examine how status is cognitively represented in the Indian society as a consequence of the way caste is perceived 2. Even now, people in India continue to define their self-identity by means of the caste they belong to and the social group that they find themselves in.
Caste membership is thus ingrained in the society and there is considerable reason to claim that caste as a type of social identity would probably be one of the most salient identities in the Indian context. Social identity claims that people derive an important part of their identity from an affirmation of membership with the group they belong to.
Tajfel and Turner suggested that any group e. The Indian societal structure provides a fertile ground to examine the interactive roles of multiple identities like religious, national, regional north vs. But many researchers have stressed the importance and the influence of caste as an integral social identity among many South Asians compared to other social identities like gender and ethnicity for example, Gayer, ; Mand, It has in fact been argued that caste identity may override other social identities, because of its primary importance for many South Asians Judge and Bal, We argue that in the context of status representation, caste identity as opposed to religion, national and regional identities would be the most prominent identity in explaining the differences in status perception, due to the inherent associations of caste and status.
Thus, according to social identity theory, individuals would strive to maintain a positive image of their caste identity. We further argue below that caste identity will especially be more salient for high caste individuals.
A strong caste identity could provide feelings of belongingness or self-esteem, thereby relying on some caste norms. Particularly, it is known that high caste individuals see caste identity as a more stable construct wherein this identity is inherited at birth.
High caste individuals also develop feelings of temporal continuity, positive distinctiveness, and heightened self-esteem from essentialisation of their caste identity Jaspal, In fact, in a study conducted by Cotterill et al. Furthermore, when members of higher castes essentialise their caste identity Mahalingam, they permit themselves to stigmatize members of the lower castes. The low caste members or the Dalits on the other hand, do not believe that their caste identity is inherited and therefore do not essentialise it.
They may thus enhance their self-efficacy, through the possibility of social mobility, based on the idea that caste identity can be seen as less permanent Mahalingam, We thus argue that caste identity is more salient amongst high caste individuals due to the belief they have about being privileged to have inherited this positive image of high caste at birth. Low caste individuals would not have a salient caste identity because they believe that this identity is not essentialised and belonging to this group has negative consequences.
Social identity effects are based on the protection of self-concepts Tajfel and Turner, and thus any threat to this self-concept would be associated with strong identity effects. Research has shown that highly identified group members would find ways to protect their in-group identity see Spears et al.
However, Branscombe et al. For instance, they suggest that those who are highly identified with their in-group are more likely to show defensive responses than those who are not so highly identified.
We can assume that high caste individuals who legitimize their inherent high caste would also show strong high caste identity. So, what specifically could elicit an identity threat related to caste?
We claim that norms and expectations that are associated with caste membership, when questioned, could fundamentally be a source of threat.
In fact, it is most commonly seen that a person engaging in any sort of norm violation especially of the higher caste is ostracized and devalued Mahalingam, One of the most deeply rooted caste norms relates to marriage.
Branscombe et al. For many years, the high caste members in general had greater status in the society, and viewed themselves as living to higher moral standards and values, as compared to low caste individuals Mahalingam, It is generally believed that high caste individuals hold qualities related to wisdom, intelligence, honesty, austerity, and morality while low caste individuals possess qualities of dullness, stupidity, immorality, impurity, and other negative qualities Deshpande, These ancient established norms carried over into modern day Indian society and thus certain norms were explicitly attached to a caste type.
Marriages between high and low caste persons are especially harshly punished and sometimes lead to public lynching of couples or their relatives, murder of the bride, groom or their relatives , rape, public beatings and other sanctions NYU , p.
In fact, in Northern India, inter-caste marriages frequently result in family members choosing to kill the couple Flintoff, ; Goli et al. When a norm is violated, members often perceive this deviant behavior as potentially threatening to the group identity, and therefore deal with the deviance in order to reduce the threat Jetten and Hornsey, However, research has shown that the tendency for a group to defend the threat depends on the extent to which an individual is identified with the group Marques and Paez, It can thus be understood that high identifiers would show greater motivation to engage in in-group protection to defend the threat Doosje et al.
We argue that high caste individuals would be high identifiers with their caste, and low caste individuals would be low identifiers with their caste.
However, we claim that in-group identity protection will be seen in the form of black sheep effect and not as in-group favoritism. In certain situations, in-group members are known to exclude undesirable members from the in-group in order to maintain a positive and distinctive social identity Marques and Paez, For instance, research by Otten claims that an aggressive social interaction between a victim and a perpetrator would lead to generally biased responses that could either lead to in-group favoritism or black sheep effect; the latter effect being most likely to occur in situations.
More specifically it is said that in-group favoritism is particularly observed when the deviant behavior of the perpetrator was ambiguous or unintentional Duncan, ; Sagar and Schofield, Wang et al.
Thus, there is some evidence indicating that aggressive, intentional, and unambiguous interactions would lead to more in-group derogations. Furthermore, this pattern of in-group derogation tends to be more distinct among individuals who are highly identified with their group Biernat et al.
Furthermore, Castano et al. Research by Stamkou et al. Thus, in general, norm-deviating in-group members are seen as more negative than non-deviating members Marques et al. Also, according to the threat classification by Branscombe et al. We would thus argue that high caste individuals who are also high identifiers with their caste would devalue another in-group member committing norm transgression that is aggressive and intentional and would find the transgression morally unacceptable in order to protect their threatened social identity.
Elaborating on the black sheep effect, according to subjective group dynamics theory SGD; Marques et al. This motivation then results in positive evaluations of in-group conformers and negative evaluations of in-group deviants Marques et al.
In a similar vein, Stamkou et al. Likewise, according to relational models theory RMT, Fiske, , , a derogation of in-group member in order to protect a group identity and integrity is explained by a transgression of moral norms regulated by specific in-group relations.
In our context it particularly refers to moral motives for unity and hierarchy. Unity is aimed at caring for and supporting the integrity of in-group by avoiding or eliminating threats of contamination. When a group member commits a moral violation, the whole group feels contaminated and shamed until it purifies itself. Hierarchy in turn is aimed at maintaining linear orderings of social status where subordinates are motivated to respect and obey, and superiors to guide, protect, but also take moral responsibility for the actions of their subordinates for review of all moral motives see Rai and Fiske, Thus, high caste individuals who break the strongly ingrained high caste norm of morality, purity, self-control, and pastoral care must expect group aversion or even a punishment.
We were therefore interested in identity threat in the form of caste norm violation, and the ensuing cognitive representations of caste and status, which could be identity-maintaining. We assume in this context only the caste-based identity will be activated whilst other identities, such as religion, national and regional affiliation, will not play a role.
One of the most common social problems of the caste system was the discrimination of low caste members as explained earlier. A reservation system was introduced wherein a certain number of seats were reserved for members of the lower castes at places of higher education and government jobs. However, this legislation was soon met with a lot of resistance from the high caste community who felt that the system was not meritocratic, and provided an unjust advantage to the low caste members e.
It was argued that social identity would play an integral role in the way people represent status. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the role of caste-norm inconsistent violating vs. Furthermore, we also wanted to examine how high caste and low caste individuals make moral judgments in situations of norm violation vs. We predict that caste identity threat would be most salient for high caste individuals because these individuals in general have higher levels of caste identity.
In general, we predicted that high caste individuals would show a black sheep effect when caste norm violations are introduced. Moreover, we expect that this black sheep effect is mediated by high caste identity and not mediated by regional, religious or national identity. In this study, we used vignettes describing a social conflict situation which comprised norms of violence and morality, as reflecting common norms in the Indian context.
The social conflict situation always entailed an intentional aggressive interaction between a victim and a perpetrator. Participants read two stories that depicted two protagonists as either a victim or perpetrator. The protagonists were either of high or low caste which was depicted using implicit stimuli of names and faces pre-tested. They then had to choose and pick, as a response, one out of nine pictorial depictions that represented the protagonists in the story on a vertical line with varying degrees of status distance.
At the end of each story participants also had to rate the moral acceptability of the behavior that took place between the protagonist and the victim. This procedure was chosen based on the general idea that status judgments are supported by an automatic simulation of vertical location von Hecker et al. We assume that abstract concepts such as status can be mentally represented in an embodied way Niedenthal et al.
The paradigm used here involves such status representations via the vertical dimension. In this study, we interpret black sheep effect in the form of status evaluations wherein the in-group member is not necessarily excluded but devalued in status instead. That is, when the perpetrator is portrayed as someone from their in-group high caste , they would then derogate that individual by representing him as having lower status. Low caste individuals on the other hand would not differ in the way they represent status regardless of the condition, that is, they would generally show the trend of depicting a perpetrator as having greater status than a victim regardless of whether the perpetrator is of high or low caste 3.
Finally, we also predict that high caste identity will also mediate the relationship between caste affiliation and social outcomes of caste like endorsement of affirmative action. One hundred and two South Indians from various parts of Chennai, India, were recruited in person by choosing a convenience sampling technique. The participants were approached from various parts of the city and explained the study with examples and in the local language — Tamil.
As a cover story, they were informed that the survey was part of a large research project that would help in understanding the Indian society better. The test materials were administered using paper and pencil. The researcher stayed in the area until the participants had completed the survey and they answered questions if necessary. Descriptive details of participant demographics are outlined in Table 1. All participants completed the demographic questions and were then instructed that they would be reading a few stories and were required to answer a few questions based on them.
Participants were then randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. Participants then read the stories pertaining to each condition and answered questions on status representation and moral acceptability for each story. This was then followed by answering questions on attitudes toward affirmative action, about their national, regional, caste and religious identities and, finally, the manipulation check.
At the end of the questionnaire all participants were debriefed. Names and faces were pre-tested, from which four names and faces emerged; two belonging to low caste and two belonging to high caste from South India. The names contained the first name and a surname, indicative of a certain caste. The length of the name was not controlled since certain surnames are more indicative of the caste than others. The low caste names included Selvaraj Mani and Kannan Pandian.
The high caste names included Murali Raman and Ravi Krishnamurthy. The characteristic features used to distinguish faces belonging to different caste included i Skin color, wherein a high caste face typically had lighter skin color and a low caste face had a darker skin color ii Facial hair, wherein a higher caste face would have less to no facial hair while a lower caste face would have more facial hair, and iii General grooming, wherein a high caste face looked more groomed than a low caste face.
Participants were never explicitly informed that the people in stories were either of high or low caste. Participants read two stories that described a social threat situation wherein two protagonists in a story were either a victim or a perpetrator. The particular conflict situations, involving issues of violence and morality, were chosen because of their commonness in the Indian society and because such issues are heavily rooted in distinguishing high and low caste characteristics.
In the caste norm-consistent condition all participants read two stories in a South Indian context, wherein the victim was portrayed as a high caste member and the perpetrator was portrayed as a low caste member, based on the caste associations which names and faces would elicit.
While nobody got hurt, the drivers jumped out of their cars and started hurling verbal abuses at each other. That quarrel soon turned into a proper fight when Selvaraj Mani jumped out from his car and attacked Murali Raman. Murali Raman was pulled out of his car and was punched hard by Selvaraj Mani. Murali Raman finally fell to the ground and shouted apologies, but Selvaraj Mani did not stop kicking him until the police came and pulled the two drivers apart. This Social stratification represents the karma work and dharma duty of all these Castes.
Brahmins were allotted to be the priests and teachers. They are supposed to be the learned men in the society. They should learn all the Vedas and Upanishads written by the sages and are supposed to recite all the slokas of Shastras.
They were given the duty to strictly perform Pujas and Yagnas which means offerings to god on behalf of every man in the society. They are expected to live for the welfare of the society and to make everyone aware regarding the knowledge of god and his existence. They are supposed to believe the Karma Siddhanta and live a life with meager resources and with complete satisfaction, devoting themselves to acquiring knowledge and spreading it. Kshyatriyas who originated from the shoulders of Brahma was given the duty of being the Rulers.
They were supposed to have great strength with which they should fight the battles. Their duty was to fight evil and preserve peace in the society. They have to look after the welfare of the society by opposing whatever is harmful to the society.
With the help of Brahmin scholars, they used to gain knowledge on what is good for people. Kshatriyas were believed to be the preservers and hence a part of Lord Vishnu.
For the best experience, we recommend using a modern browser that supports the features of this website. Travelers to India have commented on caste for more than two thousand years. In Indian society the group comes first, unlike our own society that gives so much importance to the individual personality. Indians still often identify themselves by the community they belong to and caste is still a factor in marriage selection.
In addition, caste has allowed countless groups that have migrated into India to find a place and to play an important role. The caste system, as it actually works in India is called jati. The term jati appears in almost all Indian languages and is related to the idea of lineage or kinship group. There are perhaps more than jatis in India and there is no one all-Indian system of ranking them in order of status.
Yet in each local area jati ranking exists and is very much related to purity and pollution. Each jati has some unique job, but not everyone in the jati performs it.
Thus there are barbers who do not shave, carpenters who do not build, and Brahmins who do not act as priests. A jati is identified in a local setting by whom its members will accept food and water from and to which jatis its members will give food and water. People will try to marry their sons and daughters to members of their same jati and will give their major loyalty to their jati.
A jati will usually be organized into a biradari a brotherhood , and this organization carries out the business and oversees the working of the jati and has the power to exclude an offender from the jati. The jati system is not static in which all groups stay in the same position. There is mobility in the system and jatis have changed their position over the centuries of Indian history. However, the jati moves up the social scale as a group and not as individuals.
A jati can improve its position in the class system by advancing economically and emulating social groups with money and power. At the same time, a jati can also move up in the caste hierarchy. To gain position in this process, a lower jati copies the habits and behavior patterns of the dominant jati in the area.
This may mean a lower jati will change its name to one of a higher jati, adopt vegetarianism, observe more orthodox religious practices, build a temple, and treat its women in a more conservative way.
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