Indian Political Conservatism Scale: Development and Psychometric Evaluation

Abstract

The present study describes the development and preliminary validation of a Political Conservatism Scale designed for the Indian socio-political context. Existing Western measures of conservatism often fail to capture culturally specific domains such as caste, reservation policies, religiosity, and nationalism. An initial 30-item pool was created, including both reverse-scored and filler items. Data were collected from 41 college students aged 18-25 years using a 5-point Likert-type scale. Exploratory factor analysis using principal component analysis with Varimax rotation revealed a multidimensional structure with 10 components explaining 76.95% of total variance, with the first four factors accounting for 49.21% of variance and demonstrating clear interpretability. Reliability analysis indicated acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .784). The findings suggest that the scale provides a culturally relevant tool for measuring political conservatism in India, with implications for political psychology and survey research.