1. To study the relationship of self esteem, social stereotypes and Perceived discrimination among different social categories. 2. To explore the relationship between self esteem and different strategies adopted by people to protect themselves from social stereotypes and discrimination behavior among different social categories. 3. To know the relationship between social categories and victimization by social stereotypes and discrimination behavior. 4. To examine the effect of social categories on explicit and implicit self esteem. 5. To know the effect of social categories on social stereotypes and discrimination behavior. 6. To study the effect of social categories on self protecting strategies. 7. To explore the effect of social categories and self esteem on the self protecting strategies.

1. The three social categories taking into consideration in the present study will differ on the level of explicit self esteem. 2. The categories will also differ on the level of implicit self esteem. 3. The responses of the members of different category will vary on the level of negative stereotypes. 4. The responses will also vary on the level of positive stereotypes. 5. The members of different category will responded in a varied manner for perceived discrimination. 6. The interaction of category and self esteem is expected to have an effect on negative stereotypes. 7. The interaction of category and self esteem will also have an effect on positive stereotypes.

Sample consisted of 300 male subjects (100 from General categories, 100 from Other Backward Categories, 100 from Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe Categories). All the subject were students of undergraduate and post graduate courses of Gorakhpur University and its affiliated colleges from different district of Gorakhpur and Basti commissionery namely Gorakhpur, Deoria, Sant kabir Nagar, Siddharth Nagar, Maharajganj and Kushinagar district. The largest portion of the subjects was selected from Deoria district. The subjects were taken from five colleges of this district and from these five colleges, total 105 subjects were sampled. After that the largest numbers of sample were from Gorakhpur district. Total four colleges were selected from this district and total 97 subjects were sampled. From the rest four district one college was selected from each district. Thus Total six districts were covered and 13 institutions were sampled from there, (Table 2.1). The age range of subjects was 17 to 23 year. Mean age of total participants was found to be 19.77. In each of the category subjects were selected from various castes. General category subjects were selected from Brahmin, Kshatriya, Kayasth, Bhumihar and Business community. From Other Backward Category subjects were selected from Ahir, Kurmee, Teli, Kuhar, Lohar, Kalwar, Mallah, Saithwar, and Gadheriya. And Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe Category comprised of Harijan, Khatik, Pasee, Dhobi, Kamkar, and Gond castes. Gorakhpur and Basti commissionery is situated in North East Uttar Pradesh. It is a backward and under developed area. Gorakhpur commissionery has four districts namely Goarakhpur, Deoria, Maharajganj, Kushinagar. Basti commissionery comprises three districts namely Basti, Sant kabir Nagar and Siddharth Nagar. Major source of economy is agriculture particularly depend on sugar ken and wheat. In some area, the farming of banana is developing and it is the recent trend. Production of pulses and vegetables are very low. The production of paddy is very low. In this area, a large number of laborers are migrating to other states of India. In Gorakhpur and Basti commissionery, the industrial area is only Gorakhpur in GIDA (Gorakhpur Industrial Development Area). GIDA connected with national highway (NH28), it is also a part of Swarnim Chaturbhuj Yojana of India. It has an airport and air force station and an international airport is proposed in Kushinagar and ambitious project of Buddhist importance namely Mitrey Project is going on. Gorakhpur.

Four measures were used in present study. Explicit self esteem was measured by a self esteem inventory developed by Cooper Smith (1982). To assess implicit self esteem, a Name Letter Task was developed by present researcher. The other two measures were developed by present researcher. They are stereotype questionnaire and perceived discrimination questionnaire.

Social Categories, Self esteem, Implicit self esteem, Social Stereotypes and Perceived Discrimination.

The present study was planned to explore the relationship among self-esteem, social stereotypes and perceived discrimination in different social categories. An effort has been also made to know the effect of category and self esteem on social stereotypes and perceived discrimination. To know the difference between three social categories on self esteem, social stereotypes and perceived discrimination, various one way analyses of variances have calculated. Two types of self esteem namely explicit and implicit has been utilized and there were two dimensions of social stereotypes namely positive and negative stereotypes. The positive and negative stereotypes have measured for each social category taken into this study. Thus, there are six dimensions for social stereotypes, i.e., General positive, OBC positive, SC/ST positive; General negative, OBC negative, SC/ST negative. For perceived discrimination a total score has utilized in the analyses. The obtained data has also been subjected to a 3 (Category: General, OBC and SC/ST) x 2 (Self esteem: High and Low) ANOVA, to know the effect of category and self esteem on social stereotypes. To know the relationship among self esteem, social stereotypes and perceived discrimination, Product moment correlations have been utilized. To predict a group membership from the predictors of the study, a discriminant function analysis was conducted. Perceived discrimination, explicit self esteem and implicit self esteem were taken as the predictors to make a differential diagnosis between the social categories on the dimension explored .

1. Members of General category have high explicit self esteem. 2. Members of Other Backward Category possess high implicit self esteem. 3. Members of SC/ST category and OBC have manifested out-group favoritism. 4. SC/ST category members have adopted different self protection strategies i.e. negative in-group stereotyping and out-group favoritism. 5. SC/ST category has reported high perceived discrimination. 6. General category members have manifested in-group favoritism. 7. Tendency to evaluate self and others category is that, high explicit self esteem is highly correlated to positive stereotypes and negative stereotypes both. And low explicit self esteem is highly predicted to positive and negative stereotypes. 8. Implicit self esteem is not correlated to as much explicit self esteem and positive, negative stereotypes.

The study reveals that the members of OBC and SC/ST category have a diminished level of explicit self esteem in comparison to General category. Secondly, members of SC/ST category are quite apprehensive to the discrimination behavior manifested by the upper class members and they have also vulnerable to receive negative stereotypes and this stereotypes threat situation has triggered some coping strategies to protect their self esteem and self regard. It has been manifested clearly by the manifestation of negative in group stereotyping and out group favoritism. The situation indicate that, although they have been protected by law and some other regularities and effort have been constantly made to develop their social and economical status and merge in main stream of society respectfully but the findings of the study shows that, at the psychological level they are feeling insecure and there is situation of stereotype threat and also they are using some strategies to cope with this threat to maintain their self esteem. The findings have significant implication for the present context in the frame work of inter-group behavior and inter-group relation.