Social pressure and impulsive decisions: behavioral responses to marginalization in awais khan's in the company of strangers
Abstract
This article examines the relationship between social marginalization and impulsive decision-making in Awais Khan's contemporary Pakistani novel In the Company of Strangers (2011). Drawing on Kimberlé Crenshaw's intersectionality theory (1989) and Louis Althusser's concept of Ideological State Apparatuses (1971), this study analyzes how overlapping forms of oppression—including class inequality, gender discrimination, and ideological pressure—limit characters' agency and compel hasty, often destructive choices. Through close textual analysis of three central characters—Mona, Ali, and Mir Rabiullah—the research demonstrates that impulsive decisions emerge not from individual moral failings but from systemic pressures that constrain rational deliberation. The findings reveal that marginalized individuals face intersecting constraints that reduce their decision-making autonomy, while those in positions of power use manipulation and violence to maintain control. This study contributes to understanding how contemporary South Asian literature represents the psychological costs of social exclusion and the ways marginalization shapes human behavior under duress.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The neurocircuitry of addiction: an overview
- Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
- Stratified medicine for mental disorders
- The neurobiology of drug addiction: cross-species insights into the dysfunction and recovery of the prefrontal cortex
- Annual Research Review: DNA methylation as a mediator in the association between risk exposure and child and adolescent psychopathology
- Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.