Girishwar Misra
Biographic Data
| ID | 606193 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Girishwar Misra |
| GIVEN NAMES | Girishwar |
| FAMILY NAME | Misra |
| SIGNATURE | MISRA G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Delhi |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 188 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1972 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Mohanty, Ajit
Ajit Mohanty has made significant contributions to research on multilingualism, bilingualism, multilingual education, interventions for cognitive development, poverty issues, language processing, and socialization.
Preface to the Special Issue on Beliefs, Practices and Well-being
Decolonizing Counselling
This paper discusses the need to decolonize mainstream counseling practices, predominantly influenced by Eurocentric perspectives, by incorporating non-Western views and experiences. It highlights the importance of recognizing the fluidity of self and identity within diverse social and ecological contexts, particularly in countries like India, where mental health issues are on the rise. The paper critiques the limitations of Western therapeutic a…
Decolonial research practices from an indigenous psychology perspective
The indigenous psychology (IP) movement has challenged mainstream psychology, which is considered rooted in colonial legacies, and has advocated for locally informed and developed theories and practices. The article explores the nexus of IP and decolonial psychology, emphasizes the need to challenge Western-centric hegemony, and promotes a contextually rich, relational paradigm based on reflexivity. IP critiques the Euro-American methodologism an…
The function of love
Conservatism Negatively Predicts Creativity
Previous studies have found a negative relationship between creativity and conservatism. However, as these studies were mostly conducted on samples of homogeneous nationality, the generalizability of the effect across different cultures is unknown. We addressed this gap by conducting a study in 28 countries. Based on the notion that attitudes can be shaped by both environmental and ecological factors, we hypothesized that parasite stress can also…
Beyond Decolonization
Towards Deciphering Shared Spaces Among Religious Groups in Contemporary Indian Society
This article presents the concept of shared spaces among religious groups in the contemporary Indian context. In the land of unity in diversity which India is known to be, this article showcases some illustrations of attempts to build shared spaces historically through religion, social arrangements, and interfaith communications and discusses the challenges in this journey. It is argued that through shared spaces, people come together, feel close…
Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships
Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual…
The Game of Science and Puzzles of Paradigm
Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Across 45 Countries
Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives—an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective—offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the li…
Personality and Value Preference as Predictors of Social Well-being
This article explored the role of personality disposition and value preference as predictors of social well-being in the context of ecological setting. Ecological contexts like rural and urban are critical, particularly in a developing country like India, because they represent significant disparities and variations in the lived experiences of the people. The participants ( n = 360) from the age range of 15–65 years (M = 33.50, SD = 11.99) were d…
Universality of the Triangular Theory of Love
The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale - STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were ba…
Assortative mating and the evolution of desirability covariation
Psychology: Volume 5
This survey of research on psychology in five volumes is a part of a series undertaken by the ICSSR since 1969, which covers various disciplines under social science. Volume Five of this survey, Explorations into Psyche and Psychology: Some Emerging Perspectives , examines the future of psychology in India. For a very long time, intellectual investments in understanding mental life have led to varied formulations about mind and its functions acro…
Psychology: Volume 4
This survey of research on psychology in five volumes is a part of a series undertaken by the ICSSR since 1969, which covers various disciplines under social science. Volume Four of this survey, Themes in Contemporary Mental Health Research , deals with mental health, which constitutes one of the fascinating and important areas of psychological applications. With the rise in incidence and complexity of health-related challenges in the contemporar…
Ajit K. Dalal
Psychosocial Interventions for Health and Well-Being
Introduction to the Special Issue
Gender Differences in Lifestyle
Gendered segregation of lifestyle issues is of central importance in identifying gender-linked priorities of health education being followed in various schools with different economic-cultural settings. Therefore, this study has examined gender differences in multiple aspects of an adolescent’s lifestyle, including dietary habits, food consumption, sleep, sports, games, physical activity, sedentary and leisure patterns through an anonymous lifest…
Pancultural nostalgia
Nostalgia is a frequently experienced complex emotion, understood by laypersons in the United Kingdom and United States of America to (a) refer prototypically to fond, self-relevant, social memories and (b) be more pleasant (e.g., happy, warm) than unpleasant (e.g., sad, regretful). This research examined whether people across cultures conceive of nostalgia in the same way. Students in 18 countries across 5 continents (N = 1,704) rated the protot…
Recovering the potentials of non-Western psychological perspectives
We add an Indian perspective to the effort that Wen and Wang (2013 ) took towards developing a cultural psychology based on Confucian roots. Their focus on contextually created co-creation of intentionality suggests a new way to conceptualize social reality. What needs to happen on elaboration of their perspective is the analysis of the process of the growth and development of the cultivated self—how will it be fulfilled, particularly in the mode…
Emerging Perspectives on Human Development Research
Contextualism as an Important Facet of Individualism-Collectivism
Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultural collectivism. A brief measure was developed and refined across 19 nations (Study 1: N = 5,241), sh…
Adolescent Lifestyle in India
The present study investigated the prevalence of lifestyle related concerns among school adolescents. The data were collected from 1,500 Indian school students enrolled in sixth to eleventh grades drawn from rural, urban, and metro settings. They completed an anonymous Adolescent Lifestyle Survey. The study documents the multiple concerns related to inappropriate dietary practices (fast food consumption, cold drinks, low fruit and vegetable intak…
Psychological science in cultural context
For the psychological sciences cultural processes have traditionally served as but a single entry into a considerable list of phenomena under study. Until recent years, such study has not been richly realized. There are many reasons for the secondary role of a culturally focused psychology. Most prominently, there are two chief ways in which culture figures in the logic of psychological science, and neither of these favors a major professional in…
Psychology: Volume 4
This survey of research on psychology in five volumes is a part of a series undertaken by the ICSSR since 1969, which covers various disciplines under social science. Volume Four of this survey, Themes in Contemporary Mental Health Research , deals with mental health, which constitutes one of the fascinating and important areas of psychological applications. With the rise in incidence and complexity of health-related challenges in the contemporar…
On the Place of Culture in Psychological Science
Based on a positivist-empiricist mode of inquiry, mainstream psychology has been vigorously engaged in characterizing human lives in terms of mechanistic and individualistic constructions, with the aim of predicting and controlling the behaviour of acultural and decontextualized others. Committed to a belief in psychological universals, this enterprise is directed at verifying a peculiarly Western intelligibility. In doing so, it ignores the poss…
Contextualism as an Important Facet of Individualism-Collectivism
Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultural collectivism. A brief measure was developed and refined across 19 nations (Study 1: N = 5,241), sh…
Universality of the Triangular Theory of Love
The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale - STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were ba…
Variations in achievement cognitions
The function of love
Conservatism Negatively Predicts Creativity
Previous studies have found a negative relationship between creativity and conservatism. However, as these studies were mostly conducted on samples of homogeneous nationality, the generalizability of the effect across different cultures is unknown. We addressed this gap by conducting a study in 28 countries. Based on the notion that attitudes can be shaped by both environmental and ecological factors, we hypothesized that parasite stress can also…
The Game of Science and Puzzles of Paradigm
Personality and Value Preference as Predictors of Social Well-being
This article explored the role of personality disposition and value preference as predictors of social well-being in the context of ecological setting. Ecological contexts like rural and urban are critical, particularly in a developing country like India, because they represent significant disparities and variations in the lived experiences of the people. The participants ( n = 360) from the age range of 15–65 years (M = 33.50, SD = 11.99) were d…
Recovering the potentials of non-Western psychological perspectives
We add an Indian perspective to the effort that Wen and Wang (2013 ) took towards developing a cultural psychology based on Confucian roots. Their focus on contextually created co-creation of intentionality suggests a new way to conceptualize social reality. What needs to happen on elaboration of their perspective is the analysis of the process of the growth and development of the cultivated self—how will it be fulfilled, particularly in the mode…
Achievement goals
Analytical Studies in Indian Philosophical Problems
Changing Image of Indian Democracy
Variations in achievement cognitions
Professional perspective on democracy
Reflections on contemporary human condition
On the Place of Culture in Psychological Science
Based on a positivist-empiricist mode of inquiry, mainstream psychology has been vigorously engaged in characterizing human lives in terms of mechanistic and individualistic constructions, with the aim of predicting and controlling the behaviour of acultural and decontextualized others. Committed to a belief in psychological universals, this enterprise is directed at verifying a peculiarly Western intelligibility. In doing so, it ignores the poss…
Achievement goals
Psychological science in cultural context
For the psychological sciences cultural processes have traditionally served as but a single entry into a considerable list of phenomena under study. Until recent years, such study has not been richly realized. There are many reasons for the secondary role of a culturally focused psychology. Most prominently, there are two chief ways in which culture figures in the logic of psychological science, and neither of these favors a major professional in…
Psychology in India
The twentieth century has witnessed a multifaceted growth of the discipline of psychology. As a human scientific enterprise as well as a profession, psychology is increasingly expected toplaya key role in many areas. Teaching, training and research in Indian institutions of higher learning are finding it difficult to face this challenge and to keep at par with the developments taking place at the international level. This article addresses the pr…
Lay People's Understanding and Use of Intelligence
This study explored the meaning of the notion of "intelligence" as understood and used by the lay people in India. In a multi-centric study, participants (n=1,885), varying along the dimensions of ecological context (rural/urban), schooling, age and gender, from five localities, volunteered. Responding to an open-ended question, participants described the characteristics of an intelligent person. Analysis revealed four major dimensions of intelli…
Image of Self in the Sikh Community
This article explores the social, psychological and historical processes through which the Sikh community has categorised and differentiated itselffrom other communities to form a distinct self. It traces the socio-historical circumstances that have shaped and helped consolidate the Sikh community's distinctive features including dress code, symbols, and a political ideology. The identity of this community has evolved through a series of struggle…
Individual and relational conceptions of self in India and the United States
A comparison involving individuals in urban areas of India and the United States reveals both individual and relational concepts of self in each sample. However, cultural differences arose in specific ways in which individual and relational concepts are constructed
Patterns of Prosocial Reasoning in Indian Children
Prosocial reasoning of 5to 13-year-old Indian children (N= 167), belonging to low/high socioeconomic strata, was investigated through individual interviews seeking responses to vignettes depicting prosocial dilemmas. Children’s prosocial reasoning was characterised primarily by concern for physical needs of others, hedonistic considerations, orientation to affectional relationship, stereotypes of a good/bad person or behaviour, and internalised n…
Prosocial Reasoning and Behaviour among Indian Children
This study explored the nature and development of patterns of prosocial reasoning and behaviour of Indian children (N = 167), between 5 and 14 years of age, from low and high SES, in naturalistic contexts. Prosocial reasoning of children in real life contexts was characterised primarily by authority/punishment orientation, concern for needs of others, pragmatism, mutual gain orientation, and orientation to honouring request made. Orientation to p…
The Core and Context of Indian Psychology
This article makes an effort to conceptualise the emerging field of scholarship called Indian Psychology (IP) in the backdrop of the disciplinary developments. After situating IP in the disciplinary matrix, the article articulates the meaning and scope of IP, its critical features and misconceptions about its conceptualisation. It is argued that IP is a school of psychology primarily rooted in the diverse Indian thought systems with panhuman appe…
Adolescent Lifestyle in India
The present study investigated the prevalence of lifestyle related concerns among school adolescents. The data were collected from 1,500 Indian school students enrolled in sixth to eleventh grades drawn from rural, urban, and metro settings. They completed an anonymous Adolescent Lifestyle Survey. The study documents the multiple concerns related to inappropriate dietary practices (fast food consumption, cold drinks, low fruit and vegetable intak…
Kenneth J. Gergen and Social Constructionism
Emerging Perspectives on Human Development Research
Contextualism as an Important Facet of Individualism-Collectivism
Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultural collectivism. A brief measure was developed and refined across 19 nations (Study 1: N = 5,241), sh…
Pancultural nostalgia
Nostalgia is a frequently experienced complex emotion, understood by laypersons in the United Kingdom and United States of America to (a) refer prototypically to fond, self-relevant, social memories and (b) be more pleasant (e.g., happy, warm) than unpleasant (e.g., sad, regretful). This research examined whether people across cultures conceive of nostalgia in the same way. Students in 18 countries across 5 continents (N = 1,704) rated the protot…
Recovering the potentials of non-Western psychological perspectives
We add an Indian perspective to the effort that Wen and Wang (2013 ) took towards developing a cultural psychology based on Confucian roots. Their focus on contextually created co-creation of intentionality suggests a new way to conceptualize social reality. What needs to happen on elaboration of their perspective is the analysis of the process of the growth and development of the cultivated self—how will it be fulfilled, particularly in the mode…
Gender Differences in Lifestyle
Gendered segregation of lifestyle issues is of central importance in identifying gender-linked priorities of health education being followed in various schools with different economic-cultural settings. Therefore, this study has examined gender differences in multiple aspects of an adolescent’s lifestyle, including dietary habits, food consumption, sleep, sports, games, physical activity, sedentary and leisure patterns through an anonymous lifest…
Psychosocial Interventions for Health and Well-Being
Introduction to the Special Issue
Assortative mating and the evolution of desirability covariation
Psychology (26 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (13 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Context (archaeology (10 works) · Developmental psychology (9 works) · Community Health and Development (7 works)