The Intra and Intergroup perception of three Religiocultural Groups : The Hindus, Muslims and Christians

Abstract

The intra and intergroup perception of different religio-cultural groups would play a crucial role in the multi-cultural context in determining the degree of harmony and conflict in their practical interactions. India being multi-cultural with three prominently operative religio-cultural groups, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, needs to be explored from the standpoint of Intra and intergroup perception to evolve the necessary strategies to promote harmony in their mutual interaction. Against the back drop of the existing literature in this context seven hypotheses were formulated to put to test. The inter religious perception Scale developed by Smitha (2005) was administered to samples of Hindu, Muslim and Christian college students and the obtained data were analyzed to test the  hypotheses. The following findings emerged : The intra group perception of all the three groups was positive. However, the Muslim and Christian intra group perception was significantly more positive than the Hindu Intra group perception: in the context of Intra-vis-à-vis intergroup perception, the Muslim and Christian intra-group perception was significantly more positive than their perception of Hindus, while the Hindus Intra-group  perception was at par with their perception of Christian and significantly more positive than their perception of Muslims.