The influence of familial involvement and cultural values on mate preferences and romantic relationships: what do today’s emerging adults in India and America want?

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonWith increasing globalization, researchers are beginning to document the changing patterns of family life in collectivistic societies undergoing rapid economic development, such as India. With these changes, expectations of romantic relationships are also shifting as individuals re-calibrate their gender roles and attitudes towards romantic relationships to meet the challenges of modern society. Yet, not enough is known about the younger generation of collectivist youth and their evolving romantic habits and preferences. Therefore, the overarching goal of this thesis was to gain a more comprehensive understanding of cultural and familial influences in selecting a marital partner, maintaining a relationship, endorsing romantic beliefs, and anticipating future difficulties in marital life. In collectivist cultures, families tend to be characterized by respect for parental authority and strong, interdependent ties. Do these aspects of collectivism exert countervailing pressures on mate choices and relationship quality? In Study 1, I tested my predictions on a British sample by dividing participants into high or low collectivist groups based on their heritage cultural background, whereas in Study 2 I recruited participants from India and the United States. In both studies, I found that collectivism was associated with greater acceptance of parental influence over mate choice, thereby driving relationship commitment down, but collectivism was also associated with stronger family ties (referred to as family allocentrism), which drove commitment up (Study 2). Along similar lines, Study 1 found that collectivists’ greater acceptance of parental influence on mate choice contributed to their reduced relationship passion, whereas Study 2 found that their greater family allocentrism may have enhanced their passion. Study 2 also revealed that collectivists may have reported a smaller discrepancy between their own preferences for mates high in warmth and trustworthiness and their perception of their parents’ preferences for these qualities because of their stronger family allocentrism. However, their higher tolerance of parental V influence may have also contributed to a smaller discrepancy in their mate preferences versus their perceptions of their parents’ preferences for qualities signifying status and resources. Studies 3 and 4 moved away from familial dynamics and took a closer look at the cultural values of collectivism and gender role ideology. Previous studies have established that Indians tend to be greater in collectivism and gender role traditionalism than Americans. The purpose of Studies 3 and 4 was to examine whether these differences explained further cultural differences in romantic beliefs, traditional mate preferences, and anticipation of future difficulties in marital life. Results for both studies revealed that Indians reported greater collectivism than Americans and, in turn, held stronger romantic beliefs. Additionally, Indians’ greater collectivism, endorsement of more traditional gender roles and benevolent sexism in part predicted their preferences for a marital partner possessing traditional characteristics. Collectivism and gender role traditionalism accounted for Indians’ heightened concerns about encountering future difficulties in marital life in Study 3, while in Study 4 only collectivism explained these concerns. Overall, the results from these four studies shed light on the processes underlying cultural differences in relationship attitudes and preferences, and point to the need for greater cultural awareness and sensitivity to the diversity that exists in relationship functioning across societies

Social support, social control and health behavior change in spouses

Our work on support processes in intimate relationships has focused on how partners in committed relationships help one another contend with personal difficulties, and how partners elicit and provide support in their day-to-day interactions. We are particularly interested in how these support skills relate to marital outcomes (Pasch & Bradbury, 1998; Pasch, Harris, Sullivan, & Bradbury, 2004; Sullivan, Pasch, Eldridge, & Bradbury, 1998) and how they relate to behavior change in spouses (Sullivan, Pasch, Johnson, & Bradbury, 2006), especially health behavior changes. In this chapter, we review research examining the effects of social support and social control on spouses\u27 health behaviors, propose a theory to account for discrepancies in these findings, and report initial data examining the usefulness of this theory in understanding the relationship between social support, social control, and partner health behavior

Attachment styles and personal growth following romantic breakups: The mediating roles of distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound

© 2013 Marshall et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The purpose of this research was to examine the associations of attachment anxiety and avoidance with personal growth following relationship dissolution, and to test breakup distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound with new partners as mediators of these associations. Study 1 (N = 411) and Study 2 (N = 465) measured attachment style, breakup distress, and personal growth; Study 2 additionally measured ruminative reflection, brooding, and proclivity to rebound with new partners. Structural equation modelling revealed in both studies that anxiety was indirectly associated with greater personal growth through heightened breakup distress, whereas avoidance was indirectly associated with lower personal growth through inhibited breakup distress. Study 2 further showed that the positive association of breakup distress with personal growth was accounted for by enhanced reflection and brooding, and that anxious individuals’ greater personal growth was also explained by their proclivity to rebound. These findings suggest that anxious individuals’ hyperactivated breakup distress may act as a catalyst for personal growth by promoting the cognitive processing of breakup-related thoughts and emotions, whereas avoidant individuals’ deactivated distress may inhibit personal growth by suppressing this cognitive work

Study 1: Pearson’s correlations, descriptive statistics, and reliability coefficients.

<p><i>Note.</i>^†<i>p</i><.10. *<i>p</i><.05. **<i>p</i><.01. Bolded figures were significant at <i>p</i><.0001. Weeks since breakup = how much time (in weeks) has elapsed since the breakup. Partner initiated = partner initiated the breakup. Relationship length = length (in weeks) of former relationship. Currently involved = currently involved in a relationship. Current distress = current distress felt about the breakup. Breakup distress = distress felt immediately after the breakup occurred.</p

Study 2: Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlations and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients.

†<p><i>p</i><.10.</p>*<p><i>p</i><.05.</p>**<p><i>p</i><.01. Bolded figures were significant at <i>p</i><.0001. Num. of new partners = number of new dating partners since the breakup.</p

Demographic Statistics for Study 2.

<p>*Responses were measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = <i>My parents do not know I am in a relationship</i>, 3 = <i>My parents know I am in a relationship</i>, <i>but do not know many details</i>, 5 = <i>My parents have full knowledge that I am in a romantic relationship</i>).</p><p>Demographic Statistics for Study 2.</p

Study 2: Indirect effect of collectivism on parent-child discrepancy in mate selection for qualities signifying warmth-loyalty through parental influence and family allocentrism.

<p>The value in parentheses represents the direct effect, and the value directly above is the total effect. * p <. 05, ** p <. 01, ***p <. 001.</p

Study 1: Indirect effect of collectivism on relationship passion through parental influence and family allocentrism.

<p>The value in parentheses represents the direct effect, and the value directly above is the total effect. * p <. 05, ** p <. 01, ***p <. 001.</p

Study 2: Final model.

<p>The values within parentheses are the path coefficients for people whose breakup occurred longer ago (left side) and more recently (right side). Bolded values represent a significant group difference in the path coefficients.^†p<.10,*p<.05, **p<.01.</p