Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Abstract

Indians may have negative attitudes towards transgender youth compared to Americans (Elischberger et al., 2017). However, there has been little research that has examined the correlates of attitudes toward transgender people in India. In this research, I examined seven potential correlates of transgender attitudes that have emerged in other cultures—religiosity, political orientation, social dominance orientation, gender essentialism, contact quantity, contact quality, and gender—as well as one previously unexamined variable that may relate to attitudes in the Indian context, karma beliefs. The study involved 92 Indian citizens currently living in India recruited through Besample who completed several questionnaires online. Contrary to my hypothesis, stronger karma beliefs were associated with more positive, rather than more negative, attitudes towards transgender individuals. As expected, males showed more negative attitudes towards transgender people than females. The quality of contact with transgender individuals was also related to more positive attitudes. However, there were no connections between religiosity, political beliefs, social dominance orientation, gender essentialism, or frequency of contact, and attitudes towards transgender people. Overall, participants in this study held fairly positive attitudes toward transgender individuals, and many endorsed the idea that transgender people have unique spiritual qualities. Hindus reported more positive attitudes than Christians or Muslims. These results suggest that encouraging meaningful contact between cisgender and transgender individuals could be an effective approach to decrease bias. The study also suggests that it is important to take cultural context into account when studying the predictors of attitudes toward transgender people.

Year of Submission

2024

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Psychology

First Advisor

Helen Harton

Date Original

2024

Object Description

1 PDF file (109 pages)

Language

en

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