Right–left political ideologies and attribution of the causes of poverty

Abstract

The present research is a continuation of other recent studies (Sinha, Jain and Pandey, 1980;Pandey, Kakkar, and Bohra, 1982) related to attributions of the causes of poverty. In that study income and ownership of means of production were considered major determinants of an individual's perspective with respect to attribution processes. The role of perspective in attribution processes has also been emphasized by several others (Mannheim, 1960;Kelley, 1973).This study originated from our conviction that the nature of political affiliation and political ideology greatly determine perspectives affecting perception of social reality. We have observed that different political parties of the right and left have evolved their own perspectives of viewing poverty in India, a predominant and pervasive aspect of social reality. The causes of poverty or the removal of poverty have been the main-spring of many political campaigns. Political parties differ in their ideology with leftist advocating more radical approaches than rightist. It can therefore, be expected that individuals having different political affiliations and ideological beliefs ought to vary in their perception of the poverty phenomena (Rayan, 1972).The argument that ideology affects knowledge and the perception of causes has been a favourite concern of epistomologists and attribution theorists (Heider, 1958;Jones and Davis, 1965;Kelley, 1972Kelley, , 1973. We may characterize ideology as a manner of thinking, a system of values, assumptions and beliefs which affect the perception of social reality. Thus, due to the ideological variations emerging from varied political affiliations, individuals may differ in attribution of causes to poverty. Especially, in this study we have made an attempt to explore how political

The Role of Psychology in the An alysis of Poverty: Some Suggestions

“…Feather (1974) replicated Feagin's (1972) study and found that although Australians were less likely than Americans to offer individualistic reasons their explanations were affected by similar variables. Similar findings have been reported by other researchers-in India (Pandey et al, 1982); and in the UK (Furnham, 1982). In contrast, Lamarche and Tougas (1979) did not observe any influence of demographic factors on French-speaking Canadians who incidentally preferred structural reasons to individualistic ones.…”

“…In contrast, Lamarche and Tougas (1979) did not observe any influence of demographic factors on French-speaking Canadians who incidentally preferred structural reasons to individualistic ones. Political belief also seems to be an important factor with right-wingers preferring individualistic reasons to structural ones (Furnham, 1982;Pandey et al,1982).…”

Effect of Political Positioning on Explanations of Delinquency: An Experimental Study of Social Differentiation and Representation

“…Conservatives tend to offer individualistic explanations, which places responsibility on the behavior of the person, while Labour voters tend to offer societal explanations which places responsibility on external social and economic forces" p. 116). Thus, Furnham and Henderson's observations match those of different authors (e.g., Echebarria-Echabe & Gonzales-Castro, 1993;Gaffié, Marchand, & Cassagne, 1997Pandey, Sinha, Prakash, & Tripathi, 1982) and confirm Moscovici's intuition that: "in the societies we inhabit today, personal causality is a right-wing explanation and situational causality is a left-wing explanation" (1984, p. 50). …”

A Study of Teachers' Perceptions of Youth Problems

“…For example studies by Feagin (1972) and Townsend (1979) found that North American countries more often explained poverty in individualistic terms that in situational terms. On the contrary, researchers in India (Pandey et al, 1982) found that participants offered situational explanations more often to explain the problems such as poverty.…”