Political Correctness: Exploration Within the Indian Context

Political correctness (PC) is a particular type of anti-bias norm that sets expectations for people to censor words, thoughts, and actions that might be offensive to various identity groups. Hence, the words that may be considered politically correct in India may not be considered as politically correct in the western context. The primary objective of the study was to understand the prevalence of usage of politically correct words among the youth of India. The study also aimed to understand the relation between the usage of politically correct language and the personality traits of the participants and their attitude toward politically correct language. For the same, an open-ended questionnaire was developed and data was collected from 50 participants across three domains, namely ‘Attitude Towards Political Correctness’, ‘Politically Correct Language’, and ‘Ten Item Personality Inventory’. The study found that 21 people fall in the bracket of ‘very frequent’, 26 in ‘frequently’, and 3 in ‘not frequently’ use politically correct language. Politically correct words referencing caste and region saw a higher frequency as compared to person-first language and gender. Attitudes scores of the participants were positively related to the politically correct language scores. Participants who scored high on agreeableness and low on conscientiousness, openness to experience, and extraversion traits showed more frequent use of politically correct language. There is a marginal difference between the politically correct language scores of participants high and low on emotional stability.