Judgments of personal autonomy and interpersonal responsibility in the context of Indian spousal relationships: An examination of young people's reasoning in Mysore, India

Abstract

This study examined social judgments of autonomy and responsibility in the context of Indian spousal relationships. The sample included 72 Hindu Indian children, adolescents and young adults (M ages = 10.2, 15.1 and 19.8 years) from Mysore, India. Participants were presented with a series of vignettes in which the needs and desires of spouses conflicted, designed so that the protagonist in each situation was either a husband or wife. Participants were asked to decide what the actor should do and why, indicating whether personal autonomy or interpersonal responsibility concerns were dominant. A repeated measures MANOVA found a main effect of spousal condition, indicating that judgments were influenced by norms of patriarchy: autonomy was emphasized more often for husbands, responsibility more often for wives (particularly among male children). However, participants also went against cultural norms, with 58% of participants supporting autonomy for wives when their personal concerns were relatively important. Although Hindu India is often described as a collectivistic culture in which personal concerns are subordinated to interpersonal concerns, the Hindu Indian participants in this study displayed concern with both autonomy and responsibility, and gender hierarchy played a role in the manifestation of these concerns.