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Chapter 5
Love & Marriage Introduction 275 5.1 Evolution of Attraction
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Why are we attracted to some people more than others? (a) (b) (c)
Evolution and Behaviour Testosterone and Attraction Evolution and Attraction
5.2 Pheromones and Behaviour
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How might pheromones influence attraction? (a) Pheromones: An Introduction (b) Androstadienone (c) Androstadienone and Attraction
5.3 Culture and Attraction
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How might cultural values affect attraction? (a) (b) (c)
Cultural Values Mate Preference For Love or …?
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5.4 Communication and Relationships
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Why are some couples happier than others? (a) (b) (c)
Positive Communication Negative Communication Biology and Communication
5.5 Culture and Relationships
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How can cultural factors influence divorce? (a) (b)
Culture and Relationships Attitudes Towards Divorce
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Conclusion 307
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Introduction
They met on the set of a Hollywood film, although he was still married at the time and she had kids from a previous marriage. Nevertheless, they got married, adopted 3 children and had three more of their own. In all, they shared their love and their lives with six children and were married for ten years. And then it was over. We’re not going to analyze Brangelina. I introduce their relationship here because it contains many elements that we are going to look at in this chapter on love and marriage. Firstly, Brad Pitt is widely regarded as an incredibly attractive man, and has been for the past 30 years. What makes him so attractive? Perhaps Pitt’s facial features and physique signify that he has good genes and this is why he is attractive. Angelina Jolie is rather beautiful as well, and although we won’t have time to investigate the feminine characteristics that males typically find attractive, it does make for interesting extended research if you’re interested. Sadly, like many married couples, Brangelina’s love did not last. The significant increases in divorce rates in the US and many other countries has prompted extensive research into marriages in order to understand why some succeed and others fail. We are going to investigate some of this research to get an insight as to why some marriages might end in divorce, while others last a lifetime. As with other units, one of the important concepts we are investigating is the fact that if we can understand underlying origins, perhaps we can implement better treatment and prevention strategies. But attraction and the prevalence of divorce are different from culture to culture. Would Bollywood experience rates of divorce as high as Hollywood? Also in this chapter we’ll be looking at how cultural values might be relevant in the study of the formation and dissolution of marriages. Romantic relationships are fundamental to the human experience and so they’re worth exploring. In this chapter you’ll be exposed to a tiny selection of possible answers to some important questions surrounding love and marriage. As always, it’s important that you are basing your psycholog- The role of attraction in relationships is just one topic we're going to explore in this chapter. ical understanding on the empirical evidence provided, and that you are thinking critically about your own understanding based on that evidence.
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5.1 Evolution of Attraction
Why are we attracted to some people more than others? (a) To procreate is a biological way of saying to have babies.
An evolutionary explanation of behaviour is one that explains how a particular behaviour can help us to survive and/or pass on our genes. A deeper explanation would include how the biological traits that are likely to be passed on facilitate a behaviour that enables survival and/or procreation.
Evolution and Behaviour
The biological purpose of life is to procreate. In other words, living organisms need to produce offspring so genetic material can be passed on from generation to generation. If you think about it, if organisms didn’t reproduce then their species would become extinct. This biological purpose in life is not to be confused with the meaning of life; these are separate concepts altogether. In the study of criminology we focused on understanding the biological factors that influence aggression and how these might be explained from an evolutionary point of view. That is to say, those biological factors increase our chances of survival, which increases our chances of being able to procreate, so these biological traits are more likely to be passed on. When small mutations in our genes result in behavioural changes that increase our chances of procreation they increase the likelihood of the new (mutated) genes being passed on to offspring. Over thousands of years these small mutations add up to significant developments. Thus, the process of evolution takes hundreds of generations as biological changes are a result of slight mutations in genetic material that compound over time. Much like other biological aspects in our psychology course, evolution is another one we have to skim over. To recap from earlier topics, the key concept for you to understand is that genes will be passed on if they affect our biology in a way that influences our behaviour and increases our chances of survival. In terms of evolutionary explanations of behaviour we need to identify a particular behaviour that we can examine from an evolutionary standpoint. That is to say, we need to be able to explain how and why one particular behaviour could increase our chances of survival (i.e. passing on our genes). The fact that this behaviour has enabled survival is why it would be observable today. You could do this with many behaviours, but what’s important in psychology is that you have the research to support your explanation. Fear, fear conditioning and aggression are three such behaviours that could be explained from an evolutionary standpoint. The behaviour we are going to focus on in this section is attraction, and more specifically, physical attraction.
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"Masculine" facial features include a square jawline and a low brow.
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Attraction to particular facial characteristics might increase our chances of having strong and healthy babies because they signal who has “good” genetic material. It’s important to remember that in human procreation, 50% of the genetic material comes from either parent, so we want to make sure we select our mate carefully. There’s an evolutionary advantage in procreating with someone who is going to increase the likelihood of producing healthy offspring. This is the key to attraction: we may find ourselves physically attracted to someone who shows particular characteristics that suggest they would be a good person to have babies with. Attraction to particular individuals may be a result of biological processes influencing our perception and judgement of characteristics that signify a beneficial mate who has the genes we want for our offspring.
A mate in a human biological sense is someone we want to procreate with.
Sex hormones like testosterone can influence physical development and appearance and in the next section we’re going to investigate female attraction to facial characteristics that signify varying levels of testosterone.
Guiding Question: How might evolutionary processes influence attraction?
Abstraction Extension:
Hypothesizing Missing Links: Many students make the mistake of trying to say how evolution can explain the behaviour without first explaining how evolution could explain the existence of the biological factor that is influencing behaviour. By this stage in the course you should have a sound understanding of how biological factors can influence our behaviour. So the chain of effect is that if we behave in a way that increases chances of survival, the biological factor that facilitates that behaviour will be passed on through our genes. And then the biological factor that was passed on will increase the likelihood of offspring behaving in the same way, and so on. This is quite complex to understand, but could you apply this explanation to one particular behaviour and its biological correlates?
If you’re interested… The BBC released a four episode series called “Human Instinct.” Episode 2/4 is called “Deepest Desires” and includes an exploration of sexual attraction and behaviours.
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(b)
You may be bored with testosterone and if you want a different hormone to study, make sure you study the role of cortisol in the stress response and its effect on memory and the hippocampus in the PTSD chapter.
As an alternative to testosterone, you could do some research on how estrogen may influence female characteristics and the effect this has on attraction in males. There is considerable research in this area.
Testosterone and Attraction
Testosterone is a sex hormone that is produced primarily in the testes of men, which is why it’s considered the male sex hormone. It is responsible for the physical changes during puberty that help a boy become a man. Some of the effects of testosterone are the growth of body hair, broadening of the shoulders, deepening of the voice, and lowering of the brow and squaring of the jaw – essentially, the development of “masculine” features. As you can see in the criminology chapter, high levels of testosterone may influence aggression, particularly in response to social threat. A male with high levels of testosterone may be more physically capable of maintaining social status by facilitating aggressive actions and being competitive. A female might be attracted to high levels of testosterone as they signal an ability to protect and provide for her and her offspring. If a male can maintain high social status he will have access to more resources, which would be able to support the female as she carries and raises the babies. Remember, we are talking from an evolutionary point of view, so we have to think about what “social status” might mean over the past centuries. Other studies also correlate secondary sex characteristics with good health and strong immune systems. A secondary sex characteristic is a visible physical trait that enables gender differences between males and females to be identified, without being directly related to sexual reproduction. Masculine facial features and other signs of masculinity that begin to occur at puberty are examples of secondary sex characteristics. One explanation for why masculine features signify good health is that they require high levels of testosterone. One explanation for this is that high levels of testosterone suppress the function of the immune system, so only healthy males with strong immune systems would be able to cope with the release of high levels of testosterone that would be needed to develop strong secondary sex characteristics, like a masculine face (Little et al., 2011). There is a lot of research investigating attraction. Specific research focuses on comparing how a female’s menstrual cycle may influence what she finds attractive. Several different studies have all shown that females tend to have a stronger preference for masculine faces around the time of ovulation, when they are most likely to become pregnant. Johnston et al. (2001) tested this by gathering 42 female participants from New Mexico State University in the lab and asking them to view male and female faces on a computer. The researchers created computer images that could be manipulated by the participants, so they could drag a cursor and make the faces more masculine or feminine. The researchers asked the participants to choose different faces that met different “targets.” For example, one of these targets was “an attractive male face,” so participants were asked to manipulate the face until it best met that description.
Women are most fertile at the ovulation stage of their menstrual cycle.
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The results showed that when females were at the stage in their menstrual cycle with the highest chance of conception, they had a stronger preference for masculine faces. Of all the different targets (e.g. attractive female face, healthy looking male/ female face, etc.) the stage of their cycle only significantly changed their opinion on the “attractive male face.” This suggests that the attraction to a masculine face was higher around ovulation and less at other times, and it was the only preference that was affected by the changes in hormones that occur during the menstrual cycle. These results corroborate other similar findings that suggest hormones play a key role in attraction in two ways. Levels of testosterone can influence a male’s attractiveness by signifying his suitability as a mate. Also, the hormonal changes in a female during the menstrual cycle may also affect what type of male face she is more attracted
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to, and might increase the chances that during the fertile stage of her cycle she will be more attracted to signs of good genes for procreation.
Guiding Question: How might hormones influence attraction?
Testosterone was chosen for this section as it has good connections other topics, including pheromones that you’ll learn about later in this chapter.
Abstraction Extension:
Gender Bias: What do males find attractive? While this study deliberately has a limited gender perspective because it’s focusing on what females find attractive, it nevertheless limits our understanding of attraction in all humans by focusing on only one gender. It’s not a methodological limitation of the study because the aim of the study was specifically to focus on females, but it is a limitation of the applications of the study in understanding attraction across humans. One way of demonstrating abstract thinking skills is to raise these kinds of questions in your answers. Moreover, you could do some additional research into studies that investigate the types of faces that males find attractive.
If you’re interested… The US Documentary Channel released a 45 minute documentary called “The Science of Sex Appeal.” In this video you can see an interview with Lisa Debruine discussing studies similar to the one above. She is one of the researchers who worked with Jones in the above study and has conducted a lot of research in this field. This is one of many resources that explore the plethora of factors involved in attraction and sexual behaviour.
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(c)
Evolution and Attraction
Johnston et al.’s study from the previous section may be criticized on the grounds that it was conducted in one particular culture. Just because these results were obtained in New Mexico, USA, does this mean they would be consistent across cultures?
If behaviour is consistent across cultures it may suggest a biological basis for that behaviour, as humans are biologically similar around the world.
While David Buss’ study (1989) doesn’t investigate the same specific variables as Johnston et al., it does provide some insight into cross-cultural similarities in attraction. By gathering data from 10,047 participants across 37 cultures, Buss was able to see if men and women around the world desired the same qualities in a mate. He also hypothesized that gender consistency in attraction to particular characteristics across cultures would suggest an evolutionary explanation for this attraction. This is because if humans from many different parts of the world value the same traits in a mate of the opposite gender, it suggests that this attraction is not being influenced by cultural factors. It is far more probable that this attraction is operating at a biological level.
Buss' study did find a cross-cultural similarity in gender preferences when it comes to age
Social status is important for many reasons. It’s important that you can understand how social status might be important for survival, including across different cultures and time periods.
One of the first aims of the study was to compare the differences in preferences between men and women. Buss hypothesized that due to evolutionary pressures, males and females would prefer different traits and that this would be consistent across cultures. That is to say, males from all cultures would desire similar characteristics. One of his hypotheses was that males would prefer a female who was younger. The results showed that this was the case and across all 37 cultures males preferred mates who were younger. This can be explained from an evolutionary perspective as females are most fertile in their early 20s, and fertility decreases after this age (Buss, ibid). From an evolutionary standpoint, males wouldn’t want to exert effort and resources into trying to procreate with a female who lacked fertility. The health risks of carrying a baby to full-term also increase with age, so from a male’s point of view it would be an advantage to have a youthful mate who has a higher probability of being able to take care of the offspring and ensure the successful passing on of genes.
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Even though Buss didn’t specifically predict it, the results also showed that across all culture females preferred a mate who was older. This could also be explained from an evolutionary perspective: having a higher social status would enable a male to provide better protection and resources for a female and her offspring. As there is a lot of physical investment in carrying a baby to full-term and raising a baby, a female would be at an advantage if she had a male who could provide and support her and her baby. An older male would have a higher probability of being higher in social status and rank, which might explain why females showed preference for older males. There were some other interesting cross-cultural differences that were found in the study, and these will explored in the next topic. However, you may want to try to apply an evolutionary explanation to the following results: • Females placed higher value on financial prospects than males • Males placed a higher emphasis on “good looks” • Males from 23 of the 37 cultures placed higher emphasis on chastity than females
Buss’ study provides more evidence for the role of evolution in attraction.
Attraction is often a key factor in forming a romantic relationship. But is this the same across cultures? We'll explore this idea later in the chapter.
Guiding Question: How does Buss’ study suggest that evolution can explain attraction?
Abstraction Extension:
Area of Uncertainty/Alternative Explanation: While Buss’ study does provide some evidence to suggest that there is an evolutionary basis for mate preference and attraction, are there other possible factors that could explain these gender differences in preferences?
If you’re interested… The complete study of Buss’ is available online and the language is accessible for most IB students.
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Relevant Topics • Evolution and behaviour • Hormones and behaviour • Formation of relationships
Practice Exam Questions • • • •
Discuss one or more evolutionary explanations of behaviour. Explain how one hormone may affect one behaviour. Discuss the formation of personal relationships. Discuss research related to the formation of personal relationships.
Research Methods Johnston et al.’s study could be classed as a quasi-experiment as the variable that is having an effect is the female’s time of the menstrual cycle. The assumption is that physiological changes during this time influence what the women find attractive. While the effects of this variable are investigated, the participants cannot be randomly allocated to conditions and it is not the researcher who is manipulating the IV. This is why this study could be considered a quasi-experiment. This type of study can be useful in understanding the correlation between menstrual cycle and attraction to masculine faces as it can provide valuable data that supports evolutionary explanations of behaviour.
Ethical Considerations Anonymity would be an important characteristic in any study where an individual is offering information about preferences to something as personal as what they find attractive. Imagine if they had a partner who was opposite to what they rated as being attractive. This could cause harm to an existing relationship. Confidentiality (e.g. not telling people who participated in the study) might also be important as those in existing relationships may become jealous at knowing their partner was participating in a study about attraction.
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5.2 Pheromones and Behaviour How might pheromones influence attraction?
(a)
Pheromones: An Introduction
We have looked at numerous examples of how chemical messengers may affect our behaviour. Hormones like adrenaline and testosterone are transmitted through our blood while neurotransmitters like serotonin are transmitted through the process of neurotransmission. There is also evidence to suggest that there is another type of chemical messenger that is transported in a different way. A pheromone is a type of chemical messenger that is transmitted from one individual to another through the air and is detected through the sense of smell in the receiving individual. Their technical definition is: “substances which are secreted to the outside by an individual and received by a second individual of the same species, in which they release a specific reaction, for example, a definite behavior or a developmental process…” (Verhaeghe et al., 2013).
The olfactory system is the name given to the parts of our sensory system that enables us to smell things.
Pheromones have been studied extensively in animal research and there is considerable evidence to suggest that they do influence animal behaviour. But there is much debate as to whether or not they affect human behaviour. Animals have a specific part of their olfactory system that detects most pheromones and this is called the vomeronasal organ. Part of the reason why there is much debate as to whether or not pheromones influence human behaviour is that there is no evidence that the vomeronasal organ functions in the human olfactory system. We have this tissue in our bodies up until birth, but most of the evidence suggests it doesn’t function after birth. However, many animals detect pheromones through their sense of smell, so it is possible that humans may still detect pheromones through smell (Verhaeghe, ibid).
During mating season many animals give off signals that try to increase the likelihood of procreation. Stags "roar" and spread their scent to attract females.
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There is evidence that suggests pheromones may play a role in the mating process of animals. For instance, studies as far back as the 1960s show that presenting a female pig with the scent of a boar (male pig) will result in the female adopting a mating readiness stance (Cutler, 1999). The specific pheromone that might have this effect has been identified as androstenone.
Even though humans’ vomeronasal organ apparently doesn’t function anymore, we may still detect pheromones through our sense of smell.
To see if vomeronasal organ tissue was required to detect androstenone, Dorries et al. (1997) blocked the vomeronasal organ in one group of domestic pigs. They administered androstenone to this group, as well as to another group of control pigs. The results showed that there was no difference in the behaviours of the two groups of pigs as a result. This provides some evidence for the fact that the vomeronasal organ is not needed to detect pheromones. If this is the case, it could mean that pheromones might be able to be detected by humans through their regular sense of smell. Remember that humans and animals have very similar biological processes, which is why animals are often used in psychological research. This section is designed to give you a general overview of what pheromones are and how they might work. The following sections provide you with more detailed information about how another pheromone, androstadienone, might work alongside secondary sex characteristics to signify good quality genes.
Guiding Question: How does the study on domestic pigs suggest pheromones may be capable of affecting human behaviour?
Abstraction Extension:
Hypothesizing: You have probably learned by now that detailed explanations of variables and behaviour include providing explanations of how the variable influences the behaviour. Can you hypothesize how the detection of pheromones through the olfactory system may result in an observable action?
If you’re interested… If you like newts, livescience.com has an interesting article called “Newt Pheromones Put Females into Mating Frenzy.”
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(b)
Androstadienone
In the previous section you were introduced to a new kind of chemical messenger that is only recently being studied in some detail in regard to its effect on human behaviour. While the study on female boars might suggest that the pheromone androstenone may affect behaviour, it didn’t provide much insight into how it may affect behaviour in humans. The following study introduces a new pheromone that has been studied in humans and provides some insight into its role in the sexual behaviour of humans. Androstadienone is found in male sweat and may help females in the process of selecting a suitable mate. Whereas testosterone may influence mate selection by providing visual signs of health and fertility, androstadienone may send signals through the sense of smell. Studies have tested the relationship between smell and attraction by having males wear a t-shirt for a few days and then place them in a bag for females to smell. The results of this research suggest that humans may give off signals through smell that suggest if one is a good match to procreate with (e.g. Wedekind, 1995). But studies like this only show that smell might facilitate attraction and appropriate mate selection and they don’t necessarily investigate pheromones. I mention this study here because it simply provides some evidence that smell can affect attraction by providing a signal of good quality genes. One study that did investigate androstadienone specifically was by Saxton et al. (2008) who conducted a study using androstadienone during speed dating tests. The researchers placed cotton wool under the nose of female participants. There were three conditions as the cotton wool either contained androstadiAndrostadienone is released under the arms of men and has the strongest impact on females. enone mixed with 1% clove oil, 1% clove oil only, or just water. The clove oil was used to make the control and the pheromone smell the same. This was hoped to isolate the chemical reaction as the factor affecting the behaviour, not the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the smell of the pheromone. The results of two out of three of the studies showed that the females who were exposed to the androstadienone rated males as being more attractive than those that had just water or clove oil. This suggests that the pheromone androstadienone that is given off in male sweat may act as a chemical messenger to increase feelings of attraction in a female. But yet again we are faced with the issue that we’ve seen before: this research doesn’t fully explain how pheromones may affect our behaviour. In the next section you will see how androstadienone may work together with visual signals to send signals that facilitate mate preference.
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Even though humans’ vomeronasal organ apparently doesn’t function anymore, we may still detect pheromones through our sense of smell.
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Guiding Question: How does the above evidence suggest that pheromones may influence human behaviour?
Abstraction Extension:
Hypothesizing: From an evolutionary stand-point, could you provide plausible reasons why a sense of smell might be important for attraction? Hint: electricity.
If you’re interested… The New York Times has an article that explores the sweaty t-shirt study further called “Studies Explore Love and the Sweaty T-shirt.” While this study isn’t about pheromones, it could still be used in other parts of the course, including the formation of relationships, the role of genetics in behaviour and evolutionary explanations of behaviour.
(c) Mate quality is another scientific term used to describe how suitable someone might be to mate with. Remember that “quality” refers to the suitability in being able to produce healthy babies that are likely to survive and be able to keep passing on genetic material.
Androstadienone and Attraction
In the previous section you were introduced to the idea that attraction might be influenced by smell. Being attracted to particular smells might help us choose a quality mate. Androstadienone may affect the attraction of females through their role of signaling mate quality. This male pheromone has been shown to have a stronger effect than androstenone on female vomeronasal organs (Jennings-White, 1995 as cited in Cornwell). It also activates different parts of the hypothalamus in men and women (Savic, 2001), which could affect gender responses to this androstadienone. Cornwell et al. (2004) exposed participants to male and female pheromones, including androstadienone, and compared the results. Their participants were 56 male and 56 female participants between the ages of 17 – 26 who were recruited from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. While the study also measured male preferences in females, to be consistent, we will only focus on the female side of this study. Participants were shown faces from a range of ethnicities and the faces ranged in appearance from 50% feminized to 50% masculinized. The women were asked to rate which face they would prefer for a short-term or long-term relationship. After they were shown the photos, they were asked to smell five different vials. In these were androstadienone, androstenone, a female pheromone, and two control oils (one was clove oil and the other was oil of cade). The results showed that there was a positive correlation between the female’s preference of masculine facial characteristics and their preference for the smell of the androstadienone (the masculine pheromone). This suggests that preference for masculine facial characteristics corresponds with a greater liking for masculine smells.
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The researchers conclude that pheromones and facial characteristics might work together by revealing an individuals mate quality. For instance, if a male has high concentrations of androstadienone and a masculine face it could provide two indicators for a female that he has high testosterone levels. This could be an indicator of dominance and/or good overall health (Cornwell et al., op cit.). From this study, we start to get a better understanding of how androstadienone might influence attraction. It could work like other signs of mate quality in that it shows potential female mates that the male giving off the scent of the androstadienone would make for a good mate because he has desirable genetic material (e.g. high levels of testosterone). So while facial characteristics can send a visual signal, pheromones may work by sending signals through the sense of smell.
Dominance in this context is another way of saying the ability to maintain a high social status. It’s closely connected with aggression and competitiveness, which are also correlated with testosterone. For instance, the ability to display aggression might help maintain dominance.
It is important to note that there are numerous factors that influence attraction and we are only looking at a very select sample. Also, there are many individual differences in preference between males and females in attraction. We’ve looked at this from a biological view, but haven’t properly considered how other variables like cognition and culture may affect relationships. This will be the subject of the next topic.
Guiding Question: How might androstadienone influence behaviour?
Abstraction Extension:
Ethics: Men and women have dreamed for centuries of a “love potion.” What are the possible practical and ethical implications of the findings from studies like Cornwell et al.’s?
If you’re interested… These sections have addressed how pheromones may increase feelings of attractiveness. One study measured male responses to the smell of female tears. You can find a summary of the article online. It’s called “Woman’s tears contain chemical cues.”
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Relevant Topics • Pheromones and behaviour • Hormones and behaviour
Practice Exam Questions • • • •
Discuss evolutionary explanations of behaviour. Explain one study related to pheromones and behaviour. To what extent do genetics influence behaviour? Explain how one pheromone may influence human behaviour.
Research Methods Cornwell et al.’s study is a good example of a field experiment. A speed-dating situation is a naturally occurring event and the researchers manipulated the variable of detecting pheromones during participation in this event. By showing that pheromones might affect attraction in a real life setting, the study can add to the growing body of evidence that suggests pheromones affect human behaviour.
Ethical Considerations When conducting field experiments debriefing becomes incredibly important. The speed-dating study is a great one for discussing the role of debriefing. On the one hand, if a female’s perception of a male was altered because of the pheromone it might be beneficial to inform her of this. However, in doing so a potential future relationship might be jeopardized as she may disregard initial feelings of attraction as just being a result of the pheromones. Would it be more ethical to inform the participants which group they were in, or simply say there were three different groups?
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5.3 Culture and Attraction
How might cultural values affect attraction?
(a)
Cultural Values
The previous topics were designed to show you how biological factors may influence attraction. But only looking at personal relationships from a biological perspective is reductionist. Here you’ll see how cultural values may influence attraction and this section is designed to recap the concept of cultural values and Hofstede’s descriptions of cultural dimensions. What we think is important might be affected by our cultural environment. In the previous section we examined biological origins of attraction and how hormones, face shape and genetics could influence attraction. But it is important that we don’t overlook the role of attraction in deciding to ask someone on a date, because after all, the formation of a romantic relationship most probably begins with the first stages of attraction. It makes sense if you think about it, but this is not always the case, like in cultures that have arranged marriages and we’ll look at those later. Let’s first look at romantic relationships where people do get to choose whom they take on a date. It probably begins with attraction. When you hear the word attraction you might be thinking about physical attraction. But attraction is more than just physical. Have you ever been physically attracted to someone you’ve just met and then after getting to know them you thought that you would never want to date them… ever? Or has the opposite happened? You thought, “well they’re not much to look at…” … but then you become good friends and you start hanging out and then you realise, “Hey, I think I'm in love.”
A cultural dimension is a term used to describe two opposing sets of cultural values. Cultures may vary along the continuum of which set of values they most embody.
We can see in this section another example of how psychology is about understanding relationships: how we think may be affected by our cultural background, and this might affect our behaviour.
Again we are seeing in psychology and in relationships that it’s not just biology; getting to know someone could also affect our desire to form a romantic relationship with them. As we’ve seen in previous sections an influential factor in our thought processes can be our cultural background. Depending on the culture we’re from we may have different values and these values may affect our judgement. We’re going to look again at how cultural values could affect the way we think about a potential mate. To recap, according to Hofstede’s descriptions of cultural dimensions there is a tendency in individualistic cultures to place higher value on independence and stress the importance of individuals taking care of themselves and their immediate family (e.g. husband, wife, kids, and parents). Having the power and the right to be an individual and to make your own decisions (individual autonomy) and self-expression are also highly valued. On the other hand, in collectivist cultures people may be defined by their relationships and their obligations more than by their personal achievements. Individual autonomy and self-expression are not encouraged and group harmony is more important than individual achievement. Individuals in collectivist cultures can expect their relatives or in-group members to look after them in exchange for loyalty to the group. Basically, a society's point on this continuum is reflected in what has more emphasis – “I” or “We”.
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When you use the term group harmony, make sure you think carefully about what you mean. What group are you referring to? What does “harmony” look like in that group? Many students love to use this term, without fully considering what it means.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to remember that these are very broad generalizations and you need to remember that when describing these cultures and cultural values. Think about which cultural dimension you most identify with and how would you feel if someone said, “You’re from a collectivist culture so you don’t value self-expression”, or, “You’re from an individualistic culture so you don’t think about keeping harmonious relationships in your family.” We can and do make generalizations in psychology – but we always have to make sure we remember they are in fact generalizations.
Guiding Question: How might cultural values influence attraction?
Abstraction Extension:
Economics and Culture: Part of understanding psychology is also connected to understanding other subjects. Economic factors can affect cultural values. Can you think about how and why economic factors may affect cultural values?
If you’re interested… You can view interviews with Hofstede on YouTube or visit his website at geert-hofstede.com to learn more about cultural dimensions.
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(b)
Mate Preference
In this topic we are going to revisit a concept closely associated with attraction, mate preference. In biological terms to “mate” means to procreate and so a “mate” in that sense means a person you would like to have babies with. In Buss’ study he investigated mate preference by gathering data on what types of characteristics were preferred when choosing a mate. From this study you were shown the cross-cultural similarities in mate preference, which provide evidence for evolutionary explanations for the gender differences in mate preference. However, Buss also gathered data on cross-cultural differences. Buss measured mate preference by having participants fill out a questionnaire asking participants questions about how desirable particular traits were (such a good looks, chastity, ambition, social status, financial prospects, etc.) They also gave them a list of certain characteristics and they asked the participants to rank them in order of how important they are when considering whom to marry. Examples of these characteristics were attractiveness, good earning capacity, and ambition. The data were analyzed and correlations between cultural dimensions and mate preference identified. One of the correlations found was that females from collectivist cultures placed a higher value on traits like social status and ambition, when compared with females from individualistic cultures (Buss, 1989). There are multiple possible explanations for the correlations Buss found and I will provide you with only one and do so on the proviso that you remember that this is just one interpretation. You are encouraged to challenge, disregard or elaborate on it. The key is that you understand from these results just how cultural values may affect the formation of relationships.
When identifying research methods there are often grey areas. For example, is Buss’ study an example of a correlational study or a natural experiment?
Our cultural values may influence how we think. This could affect how we view potential mates.
One possible explanation for the fact that females from collectivist cultures might place a higher value on social status and ambition could be based on the increased value placed on the thoughts, feelings and opinions of members of the extended family, which is valued more in collectivist societies. Because in modern society social status is obtained by wealth, in order to bring pride to the extended family it might
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be important to raise social status. For this reason if a man already has social status it might make him more attractive. Similarly, if he has ambition it might not matter if he doesn’t have status and wealth now, the ambition will increase the chances he will have in the future. Through being successful in terms of status and wealth a man may have a higher chance of bringing pride to the female’s family and/or raising the status of the entire family if a union is formed, thus making him more desirable. This would be considered important to the wider family. So this isn’t to say that status and ambition are not valued in individualistic cultures (remember that females across cultures valued these traits), but that it’s one possible reason why it’s more valued in collectivist cultures. But this was only one explanation of one of the results. Could you come up with your own explanation of the results? And there were other results as well. The table below shows other results from the study.
Males
Females
Males from individualistic cultures tended to place less emphasis on domestic skills.
Females from individualistic cultures tended to place less emphasis on ambition and financial prospects.
You’ll notice that these results can be examined from either viewpoint. That is to say, you could begin by thinking “Why might collectivist values place higher emphasis on social status.” Or, “why might individualistic cultures place less emphasis on social status?” An excellent explanation is one that could do both!
Guiding Question: How might cultural values influence mate preference?
Abstraction Extension:
Tolerating Uncertainty: Many students want to make concrete statements and generalizations. Critical thinkers realize that the world is not black and white and that explanations of correlations are not always definitive answers. What are some reasons why we cannot make definitive claims about cultural values and mate preference based on Buss’ study alone?
If you’re interested… Buss’ whole article is available online for free (“Sex Differences in Human Mate Preferences”) and the language is mostly accessible for DP students.
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(c)
For Love or …?
As you saw in the previous section, cultural values may affect the way we think about prospective partners for mating and marrying. Another important factor that culture may affect is how we think about the role of love in a relationship. Before we explore this idea, it might be worth taking some time to think about your own interpretation of the word “love.” Throughout history and in many modern societies marriage is not about the love between two individuals, it’s about the union of whole families. Will you consider marrying someone you don't love, but who is chosen for you by your family?
When discussing concepts like love, it’s important to actually think about what the word means. There’s no point offering a definition here, as it’s one of those concepts that is better understood through reflection rather than explanation.
In this section we’re going to continue our investigation into the extent to which cultural values may influence the formation of a marriage. We’re going to look at the varying importance placed on love by some cultures over others. This also becomes important when we try to understand why marriages might be more likely in some cultures to dissolve (e.g. end in separation or divorce). In cultures like Pakistan and India, divorce rates are incredibly low when compared to places like the United States. There are multiple possible reasons for the differences in these divorce rates and once again it’s important to remember that we are only looking at a very limited scope of possible explanations. Levine et al. (1995) conducted a cross-cultural study on college students from eleven different cultures that compared the importance people from different cultures placed on love when deciding whom to marry. The researchers measured attitudes towards the importance of love in a marriage by asking the following question:
Would you marry someone who had everything you wanted in a mate, but you didn't love?
• “If a person had all the qualities you desired, would you marry them if you weren’t in love with them?” The participants answered “Yes”, “No” or “Neutral” and the data were analyzed. This question is assessing the extent to which love is a key ingredient in the decision to choose a marriage partner. What would your answer be? If you could “build” your dream life-partner that had everything, but for whatever reason you didn’t love them, would you marry them? Levine et al. hypothesized that attitudes towards the importance of love in getting married would be different in collectivist and individualistic cultures. The results did in fact find that participants from India, Pakistan and Thailand were the most likely to answer “Yes”, they would marry someone they didn’t love if they had all the right qualities. They also found a very strong correlation for love being a pre-requisite for marriage in individualistic countries like the USA, the UK and Australia. That is to say, participants from these countries were more likely to require being in love with someone in order to marry them. These results suggest that there is a correlation
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between the culture someone comes from and the value they place on love when getting married.
A common saying is that in individualistic countries people marry the person they love, in collectivist countries people love the person they marry.
One possible explanation for these results is based on earlier work by Triandis (2001), who has investigated Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. He proposes that in collectivist cultures, social norms and duty are more important than personal pleasure (Triandis, as cited in Levine et al.). This might explain why love is not as important to forming a marriage in cultures such as India and Pakistan: in these collectivist cultures other factors need to be taken into consideration when deciding whom to marry. Social norms such as the practice of arranged marriages and having parents and extended family members heavily involved in the match-making process mean that the individual’s choice in their partner is limited. They also might feel that it’s their duty to follow their parents’ wishes and agree to marry the person who has been chosen for them. And since love is a really about individual choice, we can see that love might not be such a factor when forming marriages in these cultures. From this section it’s hoped that you have been able to see how cultural factors might also affect feelings of attraction and the formation of a marriage. These same variables will become important later in this chapter when we think about cultural factors that add to explanations of why marriages might end in divorce.
Guiding Question: How might cultural values influence the formation of a marriage?
Abstraction Extension:
Population Validity: Like many other studies, Levine et al.’s 1985 study compared the preferences of college students. Could you explain why the results from this demographic might not be generalizable to older age groups? What variables might influence a change in perception as people get older?
If you’re interested… The issue of arranged marriages is an important and often controversial one. There are many documentaries available online about this practice that you may be interested in watching. For example, there are at least two TED Talks that deal with this topic. One is for the case of arranged marriages ("Ira Travedi: The Case for Arranged Marriages") and the other is opposed ("Sabitina James: My Flight From an Arranged Marriage".)
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Relevant Topics • Culture and behaviour • The formation of relationships • Interpersonal relationships
Practice Exam Questions • To what extent do sociocultural factors affect the formation of relationships? • Discuss one or more influences of culture on behaviour. • To what extent do cultural dimensions affect one behaviour?
Research Methods As with Buss’ research, Levine et al.’s study is another example of the value of using correlational studies when investigating behaviour across cultures. It’s impossible to isolate cultural values as an independent variable to be manipulated in the laboratory, so correlational methods must be used. By gathering data across cultures and using questionnaires to quantify behaviour, the researchers can draw conclusions about cultural differences in approaches to relationships.
Ethical Considerations An important part of informed consent is providing participants with the knowledge that their results will be anonymous and their participation confidential. This is important from a methodological validity viewpoint, as it will increase the probability that participants will give honest answers. Participants from cultures that practice arranged marriages, for instance, may not feel comfortable expressing opinions that may go against this practice (e.g. in a study like Levine et al.’s). Assuring them before the study that their results will be anonymous and their participation confidential will improve the validity of the data and will reduce their psychological stress during the study.
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5.4 Communication and Relationships
Why are some couples happier than others? (a)
Positive Communication
Have you ever seen an elderly couple walking and holding hands? It’s just one of the sweetest things to see. Perhaps this is because a long-lasting marriage seems to becoming rarer, especially in developed countries with very high divorce rates. But what makes the difference between a happy and successful marriage and an unsuccessful one? Dr. John Gottman has been researching married couples for over thirty years trying to understand patterns of communication between couples and the effect this has on marriages. In his research he has tried to uncover correlations that might explain how and why some couples remain happily married, while others end their marriage in divorce. How does a couple go from the happiest day of their life (presumably) on their wedding day and being madly in love, to sitting across from one another in the divorce-lawyer’s round table office arguing over who gets the TV/kids/dog? He summarizes his findings as follows: "In great relationships people seem to have the motto: ‘Baby, when you're upset, the world stops and I listen.’ In unhappy relationships the motto seems to be: ‘I don't want to be with you when you're so negative. Go away.’”
Gottman's studies and others have shown that positive communication can increase the happiness in a marriage.
Marital satisfaction refers to how happy someone is in their marriage. Low marriage satisfaction is a strong indicator of future divorce.
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From this idea we can see that communication is vitally important in a marriage. This is what the research suggests: the difference between happy marriages and unhappy ones is how couples communicate. Interestingly, Gottman suggests that it’s not the frequency or the intensity of arguments in a relationship that dictate marital satisfaction - it’s the patterns of communication (Gottman, 1985).
Gottman’s research began in the 1970s and he has been conducting longitudinal research on married couples for decades since. This means that over many years the same couples are interviewed and data is gathered to see how their marriage is going. Much of this research has been conducted through observations in what Gottman calls “The Love Lab”. This is an apartment that is designed to be as realistic as possible, and just like a normal apartment. Couples are invited to spend a weekend in the “lab” and there are cameras situated throughout the apartment that record the couple’s discussions, body language and general behaviour. They also measure things like their blood pressure and heart rate, to see the physiological effects of their interactions. For obvious reasons they don’t, however, film them in the bathroom (Gottman and Silver, 1999).
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One of these studies took place between 1983 and 1987 and followed 73 couples over this four year period (Gottman and Levenson, 1992). The mean ages of the participants were 30 years old (husbands) and 28 years old (wives). This was one of Gottman’s earliest studies where coding strategies were used to observe patterns of communication between married couples. They originally gathered data on 200 couples but narrowed this down to 73 based on results from initial questionnaires: they wanted to get couples that had a range in marital satisfaction from not very satisfied to very satisfied. Gottman and Levenson observed the couples in their lab for short periods of time. The procedure involved the couples coming to the lab and engaging in discussions while being filmed. The couples had not spoken to each other for at least eight hours that day (e.g. they would have been interviewed after both couples had been at work) and they were asked to discuss three topics: (a) What they did during that day (b) A source of conflict in the marriage (c) A mutually agreed “pleasant” topic The couples were observed and their patterns of behaviour and communication were analyzed. One coding technique used by Gottman and Levenson was the Rapid Couples Interaction Scoring System (RCISS). This helped quantify interactions between the couples. From the observation data they categorized the couples into one of two groups: regulated and non-regulated couples. A regulated couple was defined as a couple whose ratio of positive to negative interactions gradually increased throughout the observed discussions. There were 42 regulated and 31 non-regulated couples identified in this study. We’ll discuss the outcomes of the non-regulated couples in the next section.
Regulated and non-regulated was an operational definition used by Gottman and Levenson.
One correlation found was that the regulated couples reported higher marital satisfaction, more positive ratings of their interactions and more positive emotional expressions towards each other. The ratio of positive to negative communication in the regulated couples was 5:1, which means there were 5 positive interactions to every one negative interaction. Examples of “interactions” include what was said, how it was said and other non-verbal body language gestures. From this early research Gottman and Levenson proposed that a stable marriage requires positive communication to regulate the interactions of the couples. If the ratio is at least 5:1, then the couple will experience increased marital satisfaction. Gottman candidly refers to the regulated couples as “the masters.” In the next section, we’ll look at “the disasters.”
Guiding Question: How might positive communication increase marital satisfaction?
Abstraction Extension:
Generalizability: There are two obvious characteristics of this study that require scrutiny in terms of its validity: the time and culture. This study was conducted in Indiana, in the US. What cultural factors may limit the extent to which these results could be generalized to marriages across cultures? The second factor is the year in which this was conducted. This study was conducted over 30 years ago. What might have changed since then that could limit the validity of applying these results to modern marriages?
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If you’re interested… Because of the immense importance and popularity of his subject of research, Gottman has become rather famous. There are numerous interviews with him that you can watch online. In one of these (with Anderson Cooper on Youtube) he discusses what he calls “The Four Horsemen of the Marriage Apocalypse.” These are four patterns of communication that he believes can predict divorce.
(b) In your exam you may be asked about why relationships change or end. Change could mean an increase or decrease in marital satisfaction and divorce could be the end.
Negative Communication
In the previous section you were introduced to the role that positive communication can play in a marriage. Gottman and Levenson found that if couples are arguing over something but are able to gradually focus on the positives and have positive verbal and non-verbal interactions, they will have higher levels of marital satisfaction and will be less likely to consider marriage dissolution (i.e. separation or divorce). These results can help us explain one of the roles of communication in a marriage. But it can also help explain why a marriage might end. Gottman has stated that he can predict divorce with over 90% accuracy using mathematical models that he has devised after decades of research. He can do this within five minutes of observing a couple discussing a point of conflict in a marriage (Gottman, 1994). There is a large body of research that draws a similar conclusion: negative patterns of communication in a marriage can decrease marriage satisfaction and may lead to divorce. Over the four year period of Gottman’s original study, 36 out of the 73 couples contemplated ending their marriage (49%). When comparing the regulated and non-regulated couples, 7% of the regulated couples divorced during the four year period and 19% of the non-regulated couples did. This shows that increased negative to positive ratios of communication may increase the chances of divorce. The researchers also concluded that non-regulated couples were: “…more conflict engaging, more defensive, more stubborn, more angry, more whining, more withdrawn as listeners, less affectionate, less interested in their partners, and less joyful than regulated couples” (Gottman and Levenson, 1992). This is pretty strong evidence that a high negative to positive ratio of communication may affect a marriage.
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A large body of research says that negative communication patterns in a relationship can have damaging effects. The man here is stonewalling.
Another phenomenon in marriage research is something called the demand/withdraw communication pattern (Holley et al., 2013). This is also known as wife demand/ husband withdraw pattern because studies have shown there is a typical pattern of behaviour associated with each gender. This pattern involves a wife placing demands on her husband to discuss or deal with a particular issue, but to avoid conflict the husband withdraws from the situation and avoids discussing the matter. The effect of this is an increased desire from the wife to deal with the issue, placing more demands on the husband, but the husband still doesn’t want to discuss the matter so withdraws even further. The conflict is never resolved and the end result is marriage dissatisfaction and a desire from both parties to terminate the marriage (Bradbury,
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2000). Gottman calls the withdrawal or shutting down of communication stonewalling and it is one of the patterns of communication that he uses to predict divorce. Other researchers have also found that the demand/withdraw pattern of communication is one of the strongest predictors of divorce and this pattern has been observed in studies since the 1970s (Holley et al., 2013). There’s a strong body of research that suggests this pattern of communication will lead to marital dissatisfaction and will have negative consequences for a marriage. This could help explain Gottman’s regulated vs. non-regulated couples findings. If one partner has an issue that they want to discuss and the other is open and receptive to the idea, they can engage in communication about it and perhaps resolve the issue. This may explain the increased positive to negative ratio found in happy couples. However, if there is avoidance and withdrawal this might only increase the negative communication from one partner which could make the communication pattern increasingly negative, which may explain the correlation between non-regulated couples and marital dissatisfaction. Gottman and Krokoff (1989) also found a correlation between husband withdrawal and a decline in marital satisfaction, which provides further evidence for the negative effects stonewalling and the demand/withdrawal communication pattern can have on a relationship. Interestingly, their three year longitudinal study also found that disagreement and having angry arguments was a sign of unhappiness in the marriage. Surprisingly, however, they were also a good predictor that in the long-run the marriage would get better and marital satisfaction would increase. This suggests that it’s not the nature of arguing that matters. Instead, arguing and dealing with problems could be beneficial for the long-term health of a marriage. From these studies we can conclude that if couples argue and fight it might not necessarily be a bad thing, provided they can work and communicate to overcome their sources of conflict. What is worse than arguing and fighting, it appears, is one partner withdrawing from the conflict and the issue never being resolved.
Imagine a wall made of stone: it’s cold, doesn’t move and doesn’t respond when you shout at it. This is why Gottman uses this metaphor to describe someone avoiding communication by shutting themselves down and blocking their partner out.
The demand/withdraw communication pattern might be applied to either spouse (husband or wife). However, Gottman claims that over 80% of stonewallers are males.
In the next section, we’ll look at possible physiological explanations for the gender differences in stonewalling behaviour.
Guiding Question: How might negative communication patterns affect a marriage?
Abstraction Extension:
Applications: In the exam you may be asked about the role of communication in marriages or explanations for why marriages may change or end. The research in this topic provides you with material to address both of these questions. How could you apply research into the demand/withdraw pattern of communication to address both topics?
If you’re interested… John Gottman co-authored a very popular book called The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work. One of the reasons researchers investigate why relationships end is so they can develop more effective marriage therapy interventions. Gottman’s book provides seven strategies that help couples make their marriage work.
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(c)
Researchers often measure levels of emotion in individuals by obtaining measures of physiological responses, such as heart rate and skin temperature. This may be triangulated with self-reported feelings of emotion.
Biology and Communication
In the previous two sections you’ve seen the importance of having healthy communication strategies in a relationship. If couples don’t have enough positive communication or one partner withdraws from dealing with problem areas in the relationship then the research shows that their marriage will suffer as a result. On the other hand, dealing with problems head on and maintaining a high ratio of positive to negative communication strategies can be the key to maintaining a happy relationship. But what are the physiological factors involved in communication and its effect on a marriage? A lot of research has been conducted on the physiological correlates of the demand/withdraw pattern of behaviour. Emotion is an important aspect of relationships for many reasons. This is why Gottman and other researchers measure the physiological effects of communication on couples and Gottman and Levenson have conducted other studies that have correlated the long-term effects of physiological arousal on marital satisfaction.
In correlational studies, the strongest positive correlation is 1.0. The closer the correlation gets to 1.0, the stronger the correlation.
In one study of 21 couples over a three year period they found a strong correlation between high levels of physiological arousal and a decline in marital satisfaction. There was also a very strong correlation (0.91) between the husband’s heart rate (a measure of physiological arousal) and the decline in marital satisfaction. Their research has also shown that during arguments, husbands demonstrate higher levels of physiological arousal than females and it takes males longer to reduce their arousal (Gottman and Levenson, 1985). This might explain why males tend to be the ones who withdraw from communication and stonewall: they experience higher levels of physiological arousal and so their withdrawal and stonewalling is an attempt to reduce their high levels of emotion. So the stonewalling and withdrawal might be a strategy employed by males to reduce their high levels of arousal and emotion. But the problem still exists because it doesn’t lead to resolving the conflict that generated the high level of emotion in the first place. The withdrawal might be a behaviour by the husband to reduce his feelings of emotion. There could be a bidirectional relationship between the physiological arousal and the communication. The demands from the wife to deal with a problem might increase a husband’s physiological arousal. This leads to stonewalling and/or withdrawal to decrease their emotional state. But this increases the wife’s frustration and anger, increasing her negative emotion and demands of the husband. And so the cycle may continue until both couples agree that it’s best if they dissolve the relationship.
Guiding Question: How might physiological arousal and communication have a bidirectional relationship?
Abstraction Extension:
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Making Connections: Based on research you investigated in the chapter on criminology, can you provide an explanation as to why husbands may demonstrate higher levels of physiological arousal? You may also be able to connect what you learn in this chapter to cognitive appraisals and reappraisals, if you study PTSD as well.
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If you’re interested… Jenna McCarthy has an interesting and very light-hearted TED Talk called “What you don’t know about marriage.” In this talk she summarizes a wide range of interesting findings from research on factors that affect marital satisfaction, including the perils of winning an Oscar for best actress.
Relevant Topics • Personal relationships • The role of communication in personal relationships • Explanations for why relationships may change or end
Practice Exam Questions • To what extent do biological factors explain why relationships may change or end? • Evaluate one or more studies related to personal relationships. • Discuss the role of communication in personal relationships.
Research Methods Gottman’s “Love Lab” is another example of how differentiating between research methods can often be a grey area. On the one hand, it could be classed as a naturalistic observation because in Gottman’s new lab in Seattle, Washington, every attempt is made to make it like a real-life retreat to allow couples to interact naturally. On the other hand, it is a controlled environment where they measure behaviour carefully. Regardless, it does highlight the benefits of observations over self-report data forms. As Raush (1974) puts it, ‘‘Studying what people say about themselves is no substitute for studying how they behave.... Questionnaires and scales of marital satisfaction and dissatisfaction have yielded very little. We need to look at what people do with one another’’ (as cited in Bradbudy et al., 2000).
Ethical Considerations Ethical considerations abound in research investigating such a personal issue like marriage. One major consideration would be informed consent. Many studies on married couples involve asking them to discuss something that may lead to conflict and arguing. The participants would need to be told that this would be part of the study, as couples whose relationship is fragile and unstable may not be willing to put themselves through the psychological stress of arguing in front of cameras and researchers.
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5.5 Culture and Relationships How can cultural factors influence divorce?
(a)
Culture and Relationships
In the previous topic we investigated the effects that various types of communication strategies can have on a marriage. We also looked at how biological factors may influence, and be influenced by, patterns of communication in a relationship. Cultural factors are important to consider when discussing findings from research that has come from one particular culture.
In this topic we’re going to further our understanding of how cultural factors may influence the formation of a relationship, and how these same cultural factors may affect the probability of a divorce. It seems plausible that communication might affect marital satisfaction and this could be consistent across cultures. But would this necessarily lead to the ending of a marriage? This topic is designed to provide possible cultural explanations for differences in divorce rates across cultures. Research like Gottman’s that looks into communication and marriage is based very much in the US. Could these results be generalized? One study compared 50 US couples with 52 Pakistani couples to see if the correlations between communication and marital satisfaction would be consistent across these two cultures. They also compared these groups with a third group of 48 Pakistani immigrant couples living in the United States. They did find in fact that similar correlations existed across the culture groups - couples who had more positive communication had higher levels of marital satisfaction. However, the correlation was stronger in the US group than the Pakistani group (and to a lesser extent the immigrant group) (Rehman and Holtzworth-Munro, 2007). What this suggests is that communication can affect a marriage across different cultures, but it may be more influential in Western cultures.
Communication might not have the same effect across cultures. The outcome of negative communication might not be the same, either.
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Levine et al.’s study (1985) had another aim that wasn’t shared earlier. The results showed a correlation between divorce rates and the importance of love in marriages. Moreover, those cultures that placed a higher importance on love also had higher rates of divorce. This is where cultural values and the reasons for getting married in the first place might influence divorce rates. If a marriage was formed on the basis of love then this is an individual choice. No-one can tell you whom to love and so in individualistic cultures where personal autonomy is valued, the freedom to marry whomever you like may make it easier to also dissolve that marriage.
Moreover, individualistic values including freedom of individual choice over family relationships and obligations may result in divorce, as divorce might be a more commonly accepted practice (i.e. it’s a social norm). For example, it would be much easier to get divorced if you didn’t have to worry about offending families or keeping the family together and could make your own decision to dissolve the marriage. If you were faced with the fear of being a social outcast because
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divorce was not a social norm, this might also affect an individual’s decision to stay married. People may not feel the same pressures to stay married if they are no longer in love with the person. On the other hand, if the marriage was formed with many factors taken into consideration and the impact of the extended family on the marriage was considered, and/or extended families were involved in the process of forming the marriage, this may increase the personal responsibility of keeping the marriage together. It might also influence the ease in which the marriage could be dissolved.
It’s important that you think carefully about how this research might be applied to explanations for why relationships may change or end. This may be more difficult than you first think.
The correlation found in Levine et al.’s research between the value of love in relationships and the divorce rates could help us understand the role of culture in explaining why some marriages are more likely to end in divorce compared to others. This could add to the already discussed communication and biological factors that might have negative effects on a relationship and help explain why a marriage may decrease in satisfaction, but not necessarily end.
Guiding Question: How might cultural values explain why ending a relationship might be easier in individualistic cultures?
Abstraction Extension:
Could there be other factors that may explain some countries like India and Pakistan’s low divorce rate? For instance, Levine’s study also investigated economic factors. One possible way of exploring this topic further is to hypothesize how economic factors may influence attitudes towards divorce and conduct some research to test your hypotheses.
If you’re interested… Alex Gendler has an interested animated TED Ed video called “The history of marriage.” The history of same-sex and arranged marriages are also explained in this brief yet very interesting video.
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(b)
Cultural factors may affect attitudes towards divorce. This could be a factor in explaining why some cultures have much lower divorce rates than others.
Attitudes Towards Divorce
What we can see from looking at studies on cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards love is that they provide plausible explanations for the role that cultural values may play in explaining why relationships might end. That is to say, in a culture that considers multiple factors in forming a relationship, a divorce might not be an easy option. Just because negative communication patterns emerge and a couple is unhappy, it doesn’t mean that there is an equal probability across cultures that divorce will result. But these explanations are, as Levine and his colleagues suggest, speculative. This means we can’t know for sure and we need to be wary of making speculations that aren’t based on really solid empirical evidence. A more direct correlational relationship between cultural values and divorce rates could be explained through an investigation into attitudes towards divorce and what happens when the love leaves a relationship. This was a further element in Levine’s investigation that wasn’t mentioned earlier, but will be explored here. Along with the question stated earlier about marrying for love, the researchers also asked participants to consider these statements…. • If love has completely disappeared from a marriage, I think it’s probably best for the couple to make a clean break. • In my opinion, the disappearance of love from a marriage is not a sufficient reason for ending a marriage and should be viewed as such. The participants were asked to circle “Agree”, “Disagree” or “Neutral”. In these questions the researchers are directly investigating the relationships between attitudes about love and marriage and how this might affect divorce rates in those cultures. The results showed a positive correlation between divorce rates in countries where participants felt that when love has disappeared from a marriage making a break is the best option (e.g. Brazil, UK). Participants from the Philippines and Pakistan, on the other hand, were most likely to disagree that an absence of love was reason for ending a marriage. Other studies have also found similar results that suggest a correlation between individualistic and collectivist values and attitudes towards divorce, meaning that individualistic cultures were more open to the idea of divorce. Other studies have shown that even within the United States there are correlations between divorce rates and individualist/collectivist attitudes. That is to say, states that have more individualistic attitudes (e.g. states in the Mountain West and Great Plains) have higher divorce rates than those with more collectivist attitudes (states in the Deep South) (Toth and Kemmelmeier, 2009). This aspect of Levine et al.’s research simply provides more evidence for the role that cultural variables may play in explaining why marriage might be more common in some places over others. While communication may have an adverse effect on a relationship and could lead to the disappearance of love from a marriage, not everyone will feel that this is grounds to get a divorce.
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Guiding Question: How might cultural factors explain why relationships may change or end?
Abstraction Extension:
Reflecting on Generalizations: It is important that you are always careful when making generalizations. Many students draw conclusions from this data to say “Collectivist cultures will have less divorce because they don’t value love.” You have to remember that these results are statistical averages from around 1,000 participants across countries – to make such a claim shows that you haven’t thought about individual differences or how individuals within cultures may have different values. It’s essential that you reflect on your thinking because it is this self-reflection about your own knowledge and understanding of the world that will enable you to be a more informed citizen.
If you’re interested… Levine et al. (1985) is available online and the language is accessible for most DP students if you wanted to read the entire report.
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Relevant Topics • Personal Relationships • Role of communication in a relationship • Explanations for why relationships may change or end
Practice Exam Questions • To what extent can sociocultural factors explain why relationships may change or end? • Discuss sociocultural factors relevant to personal relationships. • Evaluate one study related to personal relationships.
Research Methods Levine et al.’s study highlights the benefits of the use of questionnaires in cross-cultural studies that investigate correlations between variables. By using questionnaires a lot of data can be gathered and behaviours can be quantified. Making cross-cultural comparisons and comparing correlations enables researchers to draw conclusions about cultural variables and their influence on behaviour.
Ethical Considerations Cultural sensitivity needs to be considered and demonstrated when conducting cross-cultural research, especially if instruments used to gather data are created in one culture. For instance, questions about attitudes towards personal matters like relationships might be acceptable in some cultures but inappropriate to others. Researchers need to carefully consider the effects of their procedures when conducting cross-cultural research.
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Conclusion
Early in the chapter we saw how attraction could be the result of primal instincts as we’re driven by thousands of years of evolution and physiological forces. We might find ourselves drawn to someone because of the sound of their voice, the structure of their face or even how they smell. But as with all behaviours, we can’t overlook the role of culture and cognition. While humans are animals, we’re not always animalistic. To focus solely on the biology of attraction and the formation of relationships would limit our understanding. Our cultural environment affects our values, too, and this can influence our thoughts and actions, including whom we want to choose and keep as a marriage partner. What we can learn from the research about healthy marriages is similar to other units: we seek to understand origins of behaviour so we can implement effective treatments. If we know why people are likely to get divorced, we can develop strategies to stop the problem before it begins. Failing that, we may be able to develop better marriage counselling strategies that seek to restore a couples’ sense of commitment and marital satisfaction.
This chapter aimed to spark an interest in the study of interpersonal human relationships, as it’s a popular area of study and one that has many applications.
As with other units, this chapter has provided you with more than enough material to prepare you for exam success. For the biological approach, for instance, you now have more choices of topics to apply to questions regarding evolution, hormones, and pheromones. In the socio-cultural approach, you could use the research in this chapter to address questions about cultural dimensions and cultural origins of behaviour. This is in addition to the obvious connections to the interpersonal relationships section of the Human Relationships option. As with all units in this textbook, the hardest part was leaving out all the fascinating research that we could investigate. There’s a plethora of research on the factors that influence human attraction, including the role of the female sex hormone estrogen. This could make for an interesting additional research project, if time in the course permits. Similarly, Gottman’s popularized notion of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” proved too difficult to manage with the existing content, but it makes for an interesting extra investigation. Human interaction and relationships are an integral part of the human experience. Knowing how to develop and maintain healthy ones, therefore, is a pretty relevant topic to study. Learning about how communication between people can affect relationships is valuable knowledge and maybe you’ll even can start to consider some of the concepts we’ve explored in this chapter in your own relationships, both platonic and romantic.
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Becoming an expert in Interpersonal Relationships (i.e. Love and Marriage) could be a good strategy to prepare for Human Relationships questions in Paper Two, as you will get one essay question from this topic.
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