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This study investigated determinants of the willingness to get vaccinated in India and examined the relationship between engagement in preventive behaviours and vaccine uptake intent. A large-scale online survey covering aspects of COVID-19 preventive behaviours, vaccination status, moral emotions, trust in others, role models, and socio-demographics was used. A total of 953 Indians participated in the survey between May and June 2021, of which 770 contained valid data on vaccination status. Past preventive health behaviours (PHBs) such as avoiding social gatherings, higher interpersonal trust, and moral emotions were robustly associated with the willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine. Results also showed that unvaccinated individuals were less likely to follow other PHBs, like wearing a mask; past COVID-19 infection status was associated with similar lower adherence to PHBs. Given the strong associations between positive moral emotions, like gratitude, and vaccine uptake intent (especially in the unvaccinated subsample), targeted communication interventions can boost uptake intent, and subsequently vaccine uptake, in jurisdictions with low vaccination rates.

Forming an optimal identity is a complex task for young people because it requires distinctive personal resources that are flexible and sensitive to their context. One of these resources, creativity, has been explored in recent psychological literature showing ambiguous relationships with identity development. The present study aims to investigate if and when creativity can be a resource for individual well-being during late adolescence and young adulthood, by including the valences of positive creativity (the use of the creative process to achieve something beneficial to oneself or to the society) and negative creativity (the use of creativity to meet morally questionable goals). The focus is an application of a person-centered approach, latent profile analysis to creativity-identity issues. Participants were 338 adolescents who attended the last year of various high schools in Italy. We used five self-report measures of identity development, creativity valence and specific psychosocial correlates to examine the association between creativity valences, identity processes and both well- and ill-being. Using LPA, we found evidence of four qualitatively and quantitatively distinct subgroups or types of individuals differentiated on the basis of the interplay between creativity and identity. Suggestions for developing interventions to foster creativity in this age group are discussed.

The dark side of creativity entails using original thought to meet a selfish, negative, or evil goal, with or without the deliberate intent to harm others. Recent empirical advances have studied the behavioral correlates of such creativity, including associations with aggression, deception, and subclinical psychopathy. The time, therefore, seems apt to propose a theoretical framework for dark creativity’s development and manifestation. This article outlines the AMORAL model of dark creativity, which traces a creative action from its Antecedents to Mechanisms and Operants to its Realization, and to the subsequent Aftereffects and Legacy of the act. We use both real-life and simulated examples to illustrate the application of the theory across multiple domains, from law enforcement to interpersonal relationships. Our goal is to help guide future scholarship and measurement.

Information sharing is often driven by social, legal, and financial incentives. To understand online information-sharing behaviour, the present study assessed whether incentivizing people to share “good” and factual content and disincentivizing the sharing of misinformation influenced information sharing. A mock social media platform was created where participants were shown posts that they could share, react to (using emojis), or choose ‘read more’ to get more information. Participants (N = 908) were divided into two groups where they received either financial (micropayments) or social (followers) incentives for each true information they shared. Results showed that incentivization, regardless of the type, encouraged people to share more true information; however, the two incentivised groups did not differ in their sharing behaviour, of all posts, regardless of veracity. Further, older and more educated individuals and those with a right-leaning political ideology were more likely to share posts, with the latter being more likely to react to posts as well. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

This paper adapts existing theoretical frameworks of social norms and their interactions with laws to study the case of rule violations in Indian road traffic. Specifically, we look at the case where existing laws and rules are violated with such regularity that breaking the law becomes the social norm. We investigate this framework in the case of road user behaviour in (urban) India, where road safety and traffic violations have been the focus of recent policy changes. We propose that a lack of road discipline and traffic violations have an impact on road safety, as well as on congestion. These, in turn, have implications for the economic productivity and development of a country, as well as the well-being of its citizens. Our application of the framework suggests conditions of enforcement under which such harmful social norms can be reversed. Policy interventions and scope for behaviorally-informed policies targeted at improving road user behaviour are discussed.

Mainstream Hindi cinema, or Bollywood, has often clustered female characters into a finite number of gendered tropes, from damsels in distress, Hindu goddesses, virtuous wives and mothers, to vamps, molls, vindictive mothers-in-law, and justice-seeking avengers. Recently, women-centric cinema has attempted to depart from such stereotypical portrayals, with movies such as Queen, Pink, and Tumhari Sulu. The present study investigates the nature of female rebellion in women-centric Bollywood movies from 2007 to 2017, delineated by a major act of rebellion undertaken by the female protagonist(s), the antecedents to the major act, the immediate reactions to, and the cinematic consequences of this act. Based on these criteria, four coders independently assessed 13 movies depicting rebellion in women-centric Bollywood movies. Quantitative analyses revealed a consistent story arc of rebellious depictions across movies. Qualitative analyses showed that major acts of rebellion occurred subsequent to negative antecedents such as disrespect, lack of freedom, abandonment, and inequality. Overall, the study contributes to understanding the contemporary portrayal of female rebellion in Bollywood.

The victim’s decision to report a crime is generally dependent on the advice received from a confidant. The effects of a confidant’s relationship to victims and perpetrators on the advice given to report rape were investigated. Indian participants ( N = 418) read one of the seven scenarios of acquaintance rape as a confidant; the scenarios depicted different relationships between the victim and perpetrator (family vs. friend vs. stranger). Confidants closer to victims were more likely to advise reporting, whereas confidants closer to the perpetrator were less likely to advise reporting. Rape myth acceptance and victim blaming negatively predicted reporting to agencies.

Conversations about the internationalization of psychological science have occurred over a few decades with very little progress. Previous work shows up to 95% of participants in mainstream journal studies are from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) nations. Similarly, a large proportion of authors are based in North America. This imbalance is well-documented across a range of subfields in psychology, yet the specific steps and best practices to bridge publication and data gaps across world regions are still unclear. To address this issue, we conducted a hackathon at the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science 2021 conference to develop guidelines to improve international representation of authors and participants, adapted for various stakeholders in the production of psychological knowledge. Based on this hackathon, we discuss specific guidelines and practices that funding bodies, academic institutions, professional academic societies, journal editors and reviewers, and researchers could engage with to ensure psychology is the scientific discipline of human behavior and cognition across the world.

The Dark Triad (DT) is associated with maladaptive interactions in their social and interpersonal relationships as well as defection in social situations. However, it is unclear how DT traits perceive helpfulness. We conducted a two part study to understand whether individuals high on DT traits are able to perceive help from others. DT traits were measured using the Short Dark Triad scale. In Study 1, vignettes were presented to the participants (N = 679) to assess perception of help which depicted situations that differentially benefitted them. Findings revealed that situations wherein others were objectively unhelpful, those with high levels of psychopathy and Machiavellianism uniquely perceive others as helpful and when others are objectively helpful, those with high psychopathy perceive others as less helpful. Study 2 explored the perception of helpfulness and defection through an ultimatum game at different levels of helpfulness (high- and low- help condition). Data from 1059 participants showed that individuals with high scores on psychopathy are less likely to recognize others' helpfulness towards them. High scores on narcissism predicted a greater likelihood of accepting a high help offer. Machiavellianism did not predict perception of help and defection in either of the conditions. Limitations and future scope are discussed.

The Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (K-DOCS; Kaufman, J. C. (2012). Counting the muses: Development of the Kaufman domains of creativity scale (K-DOCS). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6(4), 298-308. doi:10.1037/a0029751) is a self-report assessment of five creative domains: Everyday, Scholarly, Performance, Scientific, and Artistic. This investigation was designed to reassess the factor structure of the K-DOCS, examine its measurement invariance across men and women, and develop norms across the five domains. Data on 22,013 American participants who had completed the assessment as part of past or ongoing studies between 2012 and 2020 were collated across multiple samples. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that both five- and nine-factor solutions had superior fit compared to a one-factor solution. The models were also gender invariant, indicating that creative domains were assessed similarly across male and female samples. Norms across gender and age-groups were provided to enable future comparisons in research settings; it is not recommended to use these norms in clinical or diagnostic contexts. The investigation concluded that the K-DOCS is a robust psychometric tool for the self-assessment of creativity across domains.

The influence of husband’s alcohol consumption and that of women’s empowerment has been largely studied separately in relation to the intimate partner violence (IPV) faced by women, which has hindered a nuanced understanding of gender-based violence in India. This study aimed to understand how husbands’ alcohol consumption shapes the relationship between women’s empowerment and violence among Indian couples. Data from the 2015–16 National Family Health Survey (NFHS) were used in this study. A composite women’s empowerment index was constructed and its association with husbands’ drunkenness and odds of facing emotional, physical, severe, and sexual violence was examined. This study found that compared to women whose husbands were never drunk, those whose husbands were sometimes or often drunk had significantly higher odds of experiencing physical, emotional, and sexual violence. For all the types of IPV, an increase in the empowerment index was associated with a significant reduction in the odds of experiencing violence. However, increasing frequency of husband’s drunkenness in combination with increasing scores on the empowerment index was associated with a significant increase in the odds of IPV, except sexual violence. Our findings highlight the nuances of IPV, situating the experiences of women in the social, cultural, and economic realities of Indian society.

Students display resistance in the classroom in numerous ways, often in the form of academic misconduct. Some argue that resistance can reflect cleverness and creativity, rather than apathy. This investigation aimed to develop a psychometric tool to examine classroom resistance as well as identify individual and situational determinants of the same. Data from 853 participants (Mage = 19.36 years, SD = 1.93) was collected on measures of resistance behaviors in educational contexts and their environmental contributors, creativity, personality, and deception. Further, participants indicated their frequency of resistance across two time periods: kindergarten through middle school, and high school through college. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified a robust three-factor structure for the Classroom Resistance Scale, comprising Test-Oriented Cheating, Blatant Academic Dishonesty, and Unethical Shortcuts. The person-situation analysis indicated that students who engaged in resistance shared some consistent characteristics: they were more likely to be closed to new experiences, unimaginative, more extraverted, and highly influenced by their peers. Moreover, the frequency of classroom resistance increased in higher grades as compared to lower ones. Implications of spillover effects of academic dishonesty into the workplace are discussed, in addition to suggestions for future research.

With the aggravation of COVID-19 pandemic, there is increasing reliance on mitigation strategies such as compliance of COVID-19 behaviors (masking, social distancing, sanitizing, and so on). Political ideology reflects the way people conduct themselves in the social world, affecting their decisions and actions, including those pertaining to health care. Thus, maximizing COVID compliant behaviors mandates an understanding of its sociopolitical context. Study 1 aims to investigate the role of political ideology and collective narcissism in predicting COVID-19 policy support, physical hygiene, and social distancing in India. While political ideology was not associated with COVID-19 compliant behaviors, collective narcissism was found to significantly predict policy support and physical hygiene. However, considering the multi-party system in India, most people (apart from political elites) are not politically sophisticated enough to self-locate on an ideology scale. Thus, study 2 aimed to understand whether district-level partisanship affects mobility during COVID-19 in India. Results indicate that during the first wave of COVID-19 (May-October, 2020), there was a greater change in the amount of time spent at the places of residence in districts based on the partisanship. Further, during the second wave (April-June, 2021), partisanship predicted a higher change in mobility to groceries and pharmacies.

India witnessed a large surge in COVID-19 cases in April 2021, a second wave of nearly 350,000 daily new infections across the country. As of December 2021, cases have reduced drastically, in part due to greater vaccine coverage across the country. This study reports results on vaccine hesitancy, attitudes, and behaviors from an online survey conducted between February and March 2021 in nine Indian cities (N = 518). We find that vaccine hesitancy negatively predicts willingness to take the vaccine, and beliefs about vaccine effectiveness supersede hesitancy in explaining vaccine uptake. Furthermore, we find that mask-wearing and handwashing beliefs, information sources related to COVID-19, and past COVID-19 infection and testing status are all strongly associated with the hypothetical choice of vaccine. We discuss these findings in the context of behavioral theories as well as outline implications for vaccine-related health communication in India.

Classic findings from psychology and the behavioural sciences are increasingly being revisited. Methodological and technological advances provide opportunities to replicate studies across a wide range of countries and settings to investigate whether these findings are universally applicable, limited to specific countries, or vary in magnitude depending on settings. Researchers from around the world connect to revisit such findings collaboratively, adapt the original design to the Zeitgeist, integrate new knowledge to improve statistical analyses, and broaden the scope by testing effects globally – or at least in as many countries, as budget and feasibility allow. We currently observe multiple international consortia conducting large-scale multi-country replications. How do such collaborations form and how do they approach these complex investigations? This paper brings together researchers from different initiatives that conduct replications on an international scale to outline approaches and summarises what we have learned in applying them: Junior Researcher Programme (JRP), Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA), ManyBabies, Collaborative Open-science REsearch (CORE), and International Study of Metanorms (ISMN). We describe different ways for study selection, methodological approaches, statistical analyses, ethical issues, and most importantly, how the different collaborations formed and how team communication worked. We look in detail at challenges of including typically underrepresented countries in psychological science, not only in terms of data collection but also in making it possible for local researchers to contribute. This paper provides a structured insight into how different collaborations work and issues to consider for anyone who seeks to conduct a multi-country replication in psychology, or looking for additional perspectives to their existing plan. We close the article with a checklist built as a helpful tool for colleagues putting together their study protocols for such efforts – and invite them to collaboratively expand it in the future.

Numerous conspiracy theories have been circulating related to COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. In three studies, we assessed the relationship between ideology, partisanship, and conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19. Study 1 assessed the mediating role of conspiratorial blame on the relationship between political ideology and risk perception among US Americans and Indians. We found that conspiracy beliefs mediated this link only among US Americans. We also assessed the mediating role of conspiracy beliefs and trust in media on the relationship between partisanship and preventative health behaviors (Study 2a), including vaccination status (Study 2b) in India. Trust in traditional and non-traditional media and conspiracy theories both mediated the relationships between partisanship and necessary health behaviors (e.g., wearing a mask), but not non-necessary health behaviors (e.g., home remedies). It can be argued that temporal and contextual information need to be explored in cross-cultural examinations. Implications are discussed.

The present study (N = 212; 150 females) examined the relationships between the Dark Triad, empathy, and emotion recognition in a cross-cultural sample. The Dark Triad, especially psychopathy, impeded cognitive empathy, which highlights their indifference towards others’ emotional states. Further, the Dark Triad and primary psychopathy, but not secondary psychopathy, hampered emotion recognition, which was measured using multi-modal stimuli. We discuss how measures of psychopathy assess the construct differently, as well as how the relationship between psychopathy and emotion recognition is complicated. Finally, we found that those high on the Dark Triad spectrum were worse at recognizing the emotions of female actors on the Geneva Emotion Recognition Test.

Negative creativity is using the creative process to meet a negative goal, without the deliberate intent to harm. This report investigates whether sex differences exist in the expression of negative creativity. Secondary data across four experiments ( N = 641, 293 women) using divergent thinking tasks were compared for differences in positive and negative creativity, between and within men and women. Results showed that all but one result was in line with a gender similarities perspective to negative creativity, with men and women being equally negatively creative. However, greater variability was noted for men in positive creativity on object-based tasks, and for women in negative creativity. Further, whereas men were more likely to be positively than negatively creativity, women's creative performance was equivalent across valences in real-world divergent thinking tasks. This may be accounted for by differing cognitive styles adopted during creative task performance as well as creativity task effects.

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.

Given the high transmission rates of the COVID-19 virus, policies aim at the maximal adoption of preventative health behaviours (PHBs) such as mask-wearing and maintaining physical distance. Moral emotions, risk perception, and message frames have previously been shown to foster favourable PHBs during various pandemics. To investigate the factors associated with PHBs during the COVID-19 pandemic, the present study explored the predictive role of moral emotions and message frames on PHBs (reduced physical contact and COVID-19 related policy support), controlling for risk perception regarding wearing a mask. Thus, a 2 (target of the message: self vs others) x 2 (valence: negative vs positive) between-groups experiment was conducted amongst Indians. Negative moral emotions predicted both (reduced) physical contact and policy support, and positive moral emotions predicted policy support. Exposure to differently framed health messages did not predict PHBs. The present study contributes to the field of health communication by highlighting the need for culture-specific practices such as focusing on the affective aspects of such communication. The results are increasingly relevant owing to the continuance of the COVID-19 crisis in India, and suggest that eliciting moral emotions throughCOVID-19 communication may significantly improve compliance with PHBs.

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.

The dark triad is associated with maladaptive interactions in their social and interpersonal relationships. Those with high levels of dark personality traits are also assumed to be defectors in social situations. However, it is unclear whether they are able to assess when others are being helpful to them. The present study aimed at understanding whether these individuals are able to perceive help from others, when provided with situations that differentially benefit them. In a multinational sample from over 40 countries (N = 679), we found that in a situation where others are not very helpful, those with high levels of psychopathy and Machiavellianism uniquely assess others as helpful. On the other hand, in a situation where others are helpful, those with high psychopathy assess others as helpful; Machiavellianism and narcissism did not have a link with appraising helpfulness. Implications are discussed.

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-jpa-10.1177_07342829211008334 for Norming the Muses: Establishing the Psychometric Properties of the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale by Hansika Kapoor, Roni Reiter-Palmon and James C. Kaufman in Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-vaw-10.1177_10778012211005565 for Who Are You to Me? Relational Distance to Victims and Perpetrators Affects Advising to Report Rape by Arathy Puthillam, Aneree Parekh and Hansika Kapoor in Violence Against Women