The behavioural self-regulation strategies of Indian South African students as minority group on a university campus

Abstract

There seems to be a gap in the literature on the psychological experiences of Indian South African (ISA) students as a racial minority in South African university contexts. The aims of this study are therefore to: (a) identify the typical thoughts, emotions and actions of a sample of ISA students in response to their status as a racial minority group on a university campus; to (b) explore the self-regulation strategies they employ in response to these thoughts, emotions and actions; and to (c) determine the perceived cause-and-effect relationships between these thoughts, emotions, actions and the subsequent self-regulation strategies. This study employed interactive qualitative analysis (IQA: Northcutt & McCoy, 2004), a method based on the principles of action research, grounded theory, and concept mapping. The essential aim of IQA is to develop a hypothetical model to show the perceived cause-and-effect relationships of participants’ experiences. A non-probability sample of eight full-time ISA contact students on a historically White South African university campus was recruited by putting up an advertisement across the campus after ethical approval was received. Eight themes were identified, namely (1) unwanted emotions; (2) introspection; (3) engaging interpersonally; (4) managing the situation; (5) making friends with people from other races; (6) tolerance; (7) feeling overwhelmed; and (8) being judged for being different. A hypothetical cause-and-effect model was then developed according to IQA guidelines. The model shows that participants respond with unwanted emotions (e.g. anger and sadness) when they experience that they are being judged for being different. Participants then feel overwhelmed by these emotions and this is followed by attempts at introspection, engaging with trusted others, and results in a sense of having to manage the situation. Two feedback loops are involved in this process: the first includes tolerance of the experience of being judged, which eventually feeds back into introspection, and the second includes deliberate attempts to make friends with people from other racial groups, which feeds back into engagement with trusted others. This study supports previous research regarding the importance of race in South African university students’ experience of discrimination and socialisation, as well as the significance of social support as an adaptive strategy. The study also shows that IQA is a valuable method when exploring self-regulation in a social context as it contributed to a better understanding of the participants’ perceived relationship between being judged, their available resources and the different self-regulation strategies they used as a racial minority on a university campus. Limitations of the study pertain to the relatively small sample and lack of generalisability of the findings. However, the model provided new hypotheses that need further exploration. As such, further research has to explore among other things the validity of this model, the experiences of minorities other than ISAs, if ISAs cross-group interactions may lead to lower race-based sensitivity (RS) and how self-regulation influences perceptions of being judged