email

sucharita.belavadi@jgu.edu.in

Research Interests

Group processes and intergroup relations, social identity uncertainty, leadership rhetoric, intergroup communication, group polarization, group extinction and social identity loss

Dr. Sucharita Belavadi

Assistant Professor

B.A., M.A. (University of Mumbai);
M.A. (Ball State University, USA);
Ph.D. (Claremont Graduate University, USA)

Training Experience

Dr. Sucharita Belavadi is an Assistant Professor at the Jindal Institute of Behavioral Sciences (JIBS). She received her PhD in psychology from Claremont Graduate University (CGU), Claremont, near Los Angeles, in the United States. She completed her doctoral studies within the social identity lab at CGU. Following her doctoral studies, she served as a Visiting Scholar with the Science for a Diverse Society Research Group at Texas A & M University, where she worked to gain an understanding of ostracism and its role in groups. She received a Master’s degree in Cognitive and Social Processes from Ball State University, Indiana, in the United States, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Mumbai. She has worked on the research staff at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences where she examined stigma and attitudes toward HIV/AIDS on two research projects. The central focus of her research is on human behavior in groups and she studies group processes and intergroup relations using the framework of social identity theory. More specifically, she examines the ways in which intergroup communication or information that flows within and between groups frames ingroup norms, social identity, and relations between and within groups. Of special interest is the rhetoric and communication used by leaders and the media and the role it plays in shaping identity, informing followers of who we (the ingroup) are in relation to who they (the outgroup) are.

Research Experience

Building on social identity processes, Sucharita’s research examines how individuals within groups manage identity-uncertainty produced by the possibility of group death or loss of social identity. She has examined how groups, especially high-status groups, use collective victimhood rhetoric to preserve status when uncertain about ingroup survival and continuity. She has examined identity-uncertainty associated with the perceived loss of language and religious identities and the related attractiveness of collective victimhood rhetoric in diverse contexts such as in India, the United States, and during the financial crisis in Greece. She has presented her research and chaired symposia at several international conference meetings such as the annual meetings of the International Communication Association, the International Society of Political Psychology, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology among others. Her research has been published in reputed, peer-reviewed journals and books such as the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Intergroup Communication, the Oxford Handbook of the Psychology of Competition, the Journal of Language and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

Teaching Experience

As a doctoral and Master’s student, Sucharita has taught and assisted on several undergraduate and postgraduate courses such as statistics, group processes and intergroup relations, attitudes and social influence, extremism in society, and prejudice and intergroup relations. As a teaching assistant and guest lecturer at CGU, Claremont McKenna College, and the University of Mumbai, she has delivered guest lectures on her research and topics of social psychology. She has received the Teaching Assistant of the year award at CGU.

Publications

Journal Publications

  1. Belavadi, S., & Hogg, M. A. (2019). Social categorization and identity processes in uncertainty management: The role of intragroup communication. Advances in Group Processes, 36, 61-77.
  2. Belavadi, S., & Hogg, M. A. (2018). We are victims! How observers evaluate a group’s claims of collective victimhood. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 48, 651-660.
  3. Belavadi, S., & Hogg, M. A. (2016). Conflict between ethnolinguistic groups: Language traitors, language loyalists, and the influence of uncertainty. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 35, 446-475.
  4. Wagoner, J., Belavadi, S., & Jung, J. (2016). Social identity uncertainty: Conceptualization, measurement, and construct validity. Self and Identity, 16, 505-530.

Book Chapters

  1. Belavadi, S., & Hogg, M. A. (in press). Social identity and intergroup competition. In S. M. Garcia, A. Tor, & A. Elliot (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the psychology of competition. Oxford University Press.
  2. Belavadi, S., Rinella, M., & Hogg, M. A. (2020). When social identity-defining groups become violent: Collective responses to identity uncertainty, status erosion, and resource threat. In C. A. Ireland, M. Lewis, A. C Lopez, & J. L. Ireland (Eds.), The handbook of collective violence: Current developments and understanding (pp. 17-30). Routledge.
  3. Belavadi, S. (2017). Norm talk and intergroup communication. In H. Giles & J. Harwood (Eds.), Oxford research encyclopedia of intergroup communication (Vol. 2, pp. 193-203). Oxford University Press.
  4. Belavadi, S. (2017). Uncertainty and extremism. In H. Giles & J. Harwood (Eds.), Oxford research encyclopedia of intergroup communication (Vol. 2, pp. 434-447). Oxford University Press.
  5. Hogg, M. A., & Belavadi, S. (2017). Uncertainty management theories. In H. Giles & J. Harwood (Eds.), Oxford research encyclopedia of intergroup communication (Vol. 2, pp. 447-461). Oxford University Press.