Undergraduate Thesis

Abstract : This paper aims at studying how people perceive sexual harassment in Bollywood Cinema. Bollywood Cinema has a huge impact on the audience and if as a mass media outlet available to almost anyone, the consumers need to be weary of what they watch. At the same time film makes, critiques and actors all need to be aware of the responsibility they have, towards the masses of the country. This study aimed at understanding if people could even recognize if there was sexual harassment present in the video and beyond that to see if people understood the nuances of consent. Because such topics are not even discussed or taught, so much so that there are no studies or paper available regarding it, whatever the results were, the findings would be interesting. There is a total of 86 participants from ages 18-70 years old. The analysis done was qualitative, as this is the first step in this direction. Using the descriptive responses collected, answers were analysed and compared. The first hypothesis was proven to be true, where more women than men recognized sexual harassment within the videos presented. Hypothesis II, which dealt with recognizing lack of consent, the hypothesis was disproven as in each case less than 30% did not recognize the idea. It is going to be interesting to see if further research gets done on this topic.

This paper examines the effect of gender stereotypes on the perception of humour for people in high power positions (managers, leaders, etc.). A recent study (Evans, Slaughter, Ellis, & Rivin, 2019) was conducted on the topic of Gender and Humour in the workplace but the results were based on the western population; hence, this paper adds on to the existing research in the field of workplace humour by taking into account the Indian context. The purpose of this study was to find out how gender stereotypes affect the way a leader’s humour is perceived at the workplace. To achieve this, an experiment was conducted where participants watched a video of an individual (presenter) giving a speech containing humour. Based on the video, they filled out a questionnaire that rated the presenter in terms of leadership, gender and cooperation. It was hypothesised that the participants will find the male presenter’s use of humour more appropriate than the female presenter’s, i.e., he will be ranked higher in terms of leadership, gender, and cooperation. The design followed was an independent measures design, with four conditions and 60 participants. The results indicated that there is no difference in the way subjects perceive a male or a female leader’s use of humour in the workplace. Certain limitations of the study were the culture and context of the participants, and the absence of a control group. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that, in India, gender stereotypes at workplace do affect the leadership skills of an individual in a high-power position, but humour is not one of the factors getting affected. More research in this field is required to have a more significant and concrete conclusion. 

Japan is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world where convenience is exemplified through digital means. It has also digitally capitalized upon a rather unexpected domain— Love. Within purview of its 5-billion dollar ‘Otaku’ industry, various types of media are produced. This includes a plethora of manga, anime and gemu (video games), particularly, interactive Dating Sims games, which were one of the first computer games that were sold in Japan. The premise of dating games is to win the affection of and build a relationship with characters that are within the game. Some factors of the games that will be explored are the animated rendering of these characters that is largely infantile. This paper will focus ‘hikikomori’ – Japanese people who socially withdraw from society in the context of an extremely competitive labour market; the psychological concepts of ‘Attachment Theory’ and ‘Locus of Control’ and how they are conceptualized in one’s upbringing and their behavior in romantic relationships. How these elements relate for a man’s preference for a relationship with a virtual character, owing to its predictability has also been expounded upon in this paper.