Thanks guys, 

tabstop did it. I read the help text on 
:tabstop, :softtabstop, :expandtab, :shiftwidth

I'll list a description of each according to how I understand it. Can you 
kindly correct my understanding where I'm mistaken?

:set tabstop=#
also known as a hard tab. Configuring this setting specifies the number of 
<space> characters per <tab> character inputted in insert mode.

:set softtabstop=#
also known as a soft tab (default is 0 which means it is a disabled setting). 
However if a nonzero number is set that is greater than :tabstop then <Tab>s 
and <Backspace>s in insert mode will be the equivalent to inserting a number of 
hard <Tab>s (as specified by :tabstop) as well as <space>s so that the total 
number of spaces is equivalent to what was specified in :softtabstop. Hence 
when softtabstop is 

:set expandtab 
boolean setting (default is off). 
In insert mode, this setting uses the appropriate number of spaces (as 
specified when ':set autoindent' as well as the ':set shiftwidth=#' option is 
set) to insert tabs. The number of spaces is specified by 'shiftwidth'.

:set shiftwidth
(default is 8)
# of spaces to use for each step of autoindent (i.e. 'cindent', '>>', and '<<')

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