Group Processes and their Impact on Individual Behavior

Personal Relationships, 3 (1996), 5-17. Printed in the United States of America. Copyright 0 1996 Cambridge University Press. 1350-4126/96 $7.50 + .OO

Cultural perspectives on romantic love

KAREN K. DION AND KENNETH L. DION University of Toronto

Abstract Culture-related dimensions contribute to a more complete understanding of romantic love. In particular, we suggest that the dimensions of individualism and collectivism, at both societal and psychological levels, offer insights into the nature of romantic love and its perceived importance for marriage. Changes in values pertaining to romantic love and its role in choosing a spouse are evident in several traditionally collectivistic societies and among persons from these societies emigrating to countries such as Canada, Australia, and the United States. Given these trends, we discuss the need to study individualism and collectivism at the psychological level and present findings from our own program of research.

A full understanding of romantic love must consider the contribution of cultural fac- tors. Within psychology, cross-cultural re- search has been a specialized research topic, separate from the “mainstream” of the discipline. The field of cross-cultural psychology has its own journals and reader- ship, and research appearing in these sources may be overlooked by researchers whose main identification is with other ar- eas. Moreover, because of its categorization as a separate subfield, issues of concern to cross-cultural psychologists are sometimes not seen as relevant to researchers who re- gard themselves as studying “basic” proc- esses in a subfield of psychology. As a result,

Preparation of this article was facilitated by a research grant to the authors from the Social Sciences and Hu- manities Research Council of Canada. The review process for this article was handled by Patricia Noller, Editor of Personal Relationships. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Requests for reprints can be sent to Karen K. Dion, Psychology, Life Sciences, Scarborough Campus, Uni- versity of Toronto, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada M1C 1A4, or Kenneth L. Dion, Dept. of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3. F A X (416) 978-4811. Email: (K.K.Dion) [email protected] (K.L.Dion) DIONKL@PSY CH.UTORONTO.CA

most socisl psychological theories and re- search on personal relationships, including those pertaining to love, have not consid- ered the contribution of cultural factors, whether at the societal level or the psycho- logical level.

We suggest that, rather than regarding a cross-cultural or ethnocultural perspective as a specialized topic, it should be an inte- gral part of “mainstream” theory and re- search on relationships. This suggestion does not imply that all researchers studying personal relationships and interpersonal processes should undertake cross-cultural research or research on ethnocultural vari- ables within a given society. It does imply that scholars studying these topics recog- nize that theory and research are them- selves cultural phenomena, emergent from particular traditions.

An explicit consideration of cultural per- spectives opens the possibility of greater discussion and debate among scholars inter- ested in macro-level variables (e.g., social institutions, demographic trends) and those interested in individual-level variables (e.g., beliefs, values). This perspective also en- courages dialogue among scholars from dif- ferent cultural traditions, with the potential for research collaboration. During the past

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6 K . K . Dion and K . L. Dion

few years, there has been growing interest in cross-cultural and ethnocultural research within the social psychology of personal re- lationships.

As much of this work, especially that on mate preferences, has been guided by a so- cial evolutionary framework (e.g., Buss, 1988), cultural dimensions per se have been of less interest to researchers working within this conceptual framework. Al- though culture is acknowledged as a proxi- mal influence on specific manifestations of characteristics valued in a potential mate, the main focus in the social evolutionary tradition is on hypothesized distal influ- ences in the evolution of the human species (Buss, 1988). Much as a social evolutionary perspective acknowledges the role of cul- ture, a cultural perspective must acknow- ledge the biological bases of sexual attrac- tion and sexual behavior. We believe, however, that understanding the social meanings assigned to these phenomena is the central issue. In this article we present a culturally oriented perspective on love, es- pecially heterosexual, romantic love.

Anthropological evidence in support of the cross-cultural universality of love was recently reported by Jankowiak and Fischer (1992), who undertook a content analysis of ethnographic material. They coded whether romantic love was mentioned in this mate- rial across 166 societies by the presence of at least one of the following indicators: de- scriptions of “personal anguish and long- ing”; presence of love songs or folklore re- lated to romantic involvement; elopement based on “mutual affection”; native inform- ants’ descriptions indicating the presence of love, or the ethnographer’s stating that ro- mantic love existed in that culture. One of the main challenges in coding this ethno- graphic material was to distinguish love from Lust. Jankowiak and Fischer noted that often it was not clear whether ethnogra- phers were simply using the term love to mean sexual attraction. Based on their analysis, they reported at least one indicator of romantic love (also referred to as passion- ate love by these researchers) in 88.5% of the diverse cultural groups in their sample.

Jankowiak and Fischer’s (1992) study has been interpreted by its authors and others as providing strong evidence that romantic love is universal (or “near-universal”) across cultures. If this is so, why should social psychologists and other social scientists be interested in cultural perspectives on ro- mantic love? Our answer to this question is revealed by examining the nature of the evi- dence forming the basis of the claim that ro- mantic love is a “near-universal’’ occurrence across cultures. In Jankowiak and Fischer’s (1992) study, the folklore of various cultures was, according to these researchers, the “most fruitful means” (p. 151) documenting the presence of romantic love in a culture. Love stories and love songs probably occur in most, if not all, cultures. Stone (1988, p. 16), in his account of the history of romantic love in Western societies, noted that “cases of romantic love can be found at all times and places and have often been the subject of powerful poetic expression, from the Song of Solomon to Shakespeare.”

The important issue, however, is the meaning of this folklore for members of a given society. Western historical ev7dence suggests that romantic love is “culturally- conditioned” and “neither social approba- tion nor the actual experience of romantic love is at all common to all societies” (Stone, 1988, p. 16). Jankowiak and Fischer themselves acknowledged that cultural fac- tors may contribute to the likelihood that members of a given society will experience romantic love.

Folk tales can express cultural ideals, be outlets for suppressed emotions, or be cau- tionary moral tales (Brislin, 1980). Thus, accounts of passionate love in literature or songs in a given society do not per se pro- vide clear evidence that romantic love is valued and experienced by most members in that society. For example, Hsu (1981, p. 50) argued that, in traditional Chinese so- ciety, “when a man said that he loved a girl, the statement usually carried the im- plication that something irregular was afoot. If a woman told anyone she loved some man, it would be tantamount to her downfall.”

Culture and love 7

Recent findings are consistent with Hsu’s observation. For example, in an analysis of emotion-related conce ts found

Chinese, Shaver, Wu, and Schwartz (1992) found that love had distinctive “hedonically negative” connotations in the Chinese con- ception of love, which they labeled “sad or painful love.” Wu (1992) found differences between Chinese (Beijing, China) and American (western New York state) uni- versity students when they were asked to list freely the features of love. More nega- tive features were listed by the Chinese sample compared to the Americans (Wu, 1992, Study l), suggesting that this aspect of love was more spontaneously salient to the former group. Moreover, Wu (1992, Study 4) also found that Chinese students agreed more strongly than did students in her US. sample with the statement that “Love with- out pain is not true love.” According to Hsu (1981), the Chinese term lien ai was “a modern linguistic creation” to find an ex- pression that described the Western term romantic love.

Given the preceding discussion, the va- lidity of the claim that romantic love is uni- versal or almost universal depends on the level of analysis at which this assertion is made. A cultural perspective is necessary to identify the conditions under which simi- larities and differences in the meaning and the reported experience of romantic love might occur. What is needed is an evolu- tionary perspective on culture itself. Cul- tural differences are not simply variations reflecting a biological core. These vari- ations offer insights into qualitatively dif- ferent views about love that have devel- oped and evolved across different societies and in the same society at different phases of its history.

in American English compared t Lf modern

What Is Romantic Love?

Scholars from different theoretical perspec- tives seem to agree on several key features in the conceptual definition of romantic love. For example, Averill (1985), in his so- cial constructionist account, proposed the

following features: idealization of the ro- mantic partner, suddenness of onset, physi- ological arousal, and commitment to the well-being of the loved person. In their dis- cussion of an evolutionary account of ro- mantic love, Jankowiak and Fischer’s (1992) pointed out that, from this perspec- tive, romantic love emerged “from forces within the hominid brain that are inde- pendent of the socially-constructed mind” (p. 150). However, they similarly defined romantic love as “any intense attraction that involves the idealization of the other, within an erotic context, with the expecta- tion of enduring for some time into the fu- ture” (Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992, p. 150). In our view, both healization of the partner and idealization of the experience distin- guish the concept of romantic love from sexual attraction or infatuation. The part- ner is regarded as unique and special; the experience%$ romantic love is ex- pected to be all-consuming, fulfilling, and transcendent.

Some recent evidence indicates that young adults’ (specifically, university stu- dents in western Ganada) concept of ro- mantic love has these features, namely idealization of and preoccupation with one’s lover (e.g., want to be with the person all the time; think about the person all the time), physical attraction, and the belief that the experience of love itself has a spe- cial quality (e.g., problems seem to vanish, glowing feeling) (Fehr, 1994, Table 1, p. 312). Participants in another study con- ducted by Fehr (1994) were asked to iden- tify different types of love by matching lists of features previously generated for each type of love with the designated concept. Romantic love was easily identified from the list of features provided by almost the entire sample (92.31%). Other types of love were more difficult to distinguish from one another, at least given the labels included in this set. Moreover, prototype ratings of ro- mantic love were related both to measures of “romantic beliefs” and “passionate expe- rience” (Fehr, 1994, Table 6, p. 323), suggest- ing that the concept of romantic love in- cluded both these components.

8 K.K. Dion and K.L. Dion

Individualism, Collectivism, and Romantic Love: Cross-Cultural Comparisons

Cultural traditions

We turn now to consider culture and ro- mantic love. To study the relation between culture and social psychological variables, one approach has been to identify impor- tant dimensions of cultural variation that are of relevance across diverse societies (Triandis et al., 1986). A fundamental issue concerns the relation between the individ- ual and the group, specifically the relative priority accorded to personal versus group goals in different domains of social life. In- dividualism has been defined by Hui and Triandis (1986) as “the subordination of the goals of the collectivities to individual goals, and a sense of independence and lack of concern for others” (p. 245). Collectivism is defined by these authors as “a sense of har- mony, interdependence, and concern for others,” which at core reflects “the subordi- nation of individual goals to the goals of a collective” (Hui & Triandis, 1986, pp. 244-245). Hui and Triandis found that so- cial scientists from diverse cultural back- grounds showed high consensus on the meaning of collectivism/individualism, pro- viding support for the relevance of these constructs across different cultures and nations.

Based on his extensive survey research on cultural differences in work-related val- ues among employees of a large multina- tional corporation, Hofstede (1984) identi- fied individualism as one of four main dimensions on which societies can be ranked and compared. He characterized so- cieties in which individualism was valued as emphasizing rights over duties, self-realiza- tion, personal autonomy, personal initiative, and identity based on one’s personal attrib- utes. When these data were collected be- tween 1967 and 1973, societies scoring high- est on individualism (based on the importance assigned to different work-re- lated goals) included the United States, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, the Neth-

erlands, and New Zealand. In contrast, sev- eral Asian societies such as Taiwan, Thai- land, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Pakistan scored relatively low on individualism. In countries scoring low on individualism, Hofstede suggested that the priority of the collectivity prevails, such that loyalty to the group’s interests predominates; and in turn, in-groups provide for the well-being of their members. One’s place in the social sys- tem defines one’s identity, and there is greater dependence on social institutions.

We have proposed that both individual- ism and collectivism are dimensions of cul- tural variation, which contribute to under- standing romantic love (K.L.’-Qon & K.K. Dion, 1988; K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 1993). Moreover, we have stressed the need to dis- tinguish the societal as contrasted with the psychological level of these dimensions when studying their relation t romantic

Societal individualism and societal collec- tivism are revealed by cultural comparisons, whereas psychological individualism and psychological collectivism are manifested by individual differences within a g%en so- ciety. The ideology of romantic love centers on pursuing personal fulfillment and fol- lowing one’s personal wishes, even if they oppose those of one’s family and kin. This ideology is less likely to be encouraged in collectivistic as contrasted with individual- istic societies. Illustrating this point, tradi- tionally in India, love before marriage was thought to be “a disruptive element in up- setting the firmly established ties in the family, a transference of loyalty from the family of orientation to a person, and a loss of allegiance . . . leaving the family and kin group . . . for personal goals” (Gupta, 1976, p. 78).

In a previous paper we suggested that “romantic love is more likely to be consid- ered an important basis for marriage in so- cieties where individualism as contrasted with collectivism is a dominant cultural value” (K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 1993, p. 58). In that article we noted, however, that changes seemed to be occurring in beliefs about the relation between love and mar-

love (K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 19 % -1,1993).

Culture and love 9

riage among recent cohorts of young adults in traditionally collectivistic societies. What does the current cross-cultural evidence suggest?

Evidence of social change

In a recent cross-cultural study, Levine, Sato, Hashimoto, and Verma (1995) asked undergraduate university students from “secondary population centers” in 11 socie- ties-Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, England, and the United States-to respond to three questions origi- nally asked by Kephart (1967) and sub- sequently reexamined by Simpson, Camp- bell, and Berscheid (1986). The first question asked: “If a man (woman) had all the other qualities you desired, would you marry this person if you were not in love with him (her)?” In response to this ques- tion, there were three alternatives: yes, no, and undecided. As predicted by Levine and colleagues, young adults from three tradi- tionally collectivistic Asian countries were most likely to answer affirmatively to the above question, with the specific percent- ages of those replying “yes” as follows: young adults from India (49%), Pakistan (50.4%), and, to a lesser extent, Thailand (18.8%).

However, young adults from other tradi- tionally collectivistic, Asian societies re- sponded in a manner similar to their coun- terparts from traditionally individualistic, Western societies. Very few of them stated that they were willing to marry without be- ing “in love” (5.8% in the Hong Kong sam- ple and 2.3% in the Japanese sample). Comparable percentages for the samples from three Western societies were: Austra- lia (4.8%), England (7.3%), and the United States (3.5%). Levine and colleagues (1995) found a positive relation between Hofstede’s ratings of societal individualism and the importance of love as a basis for marriage.

Sprecher, Aron, Hatfield, Cortese, Pota- pova, and Levitskaya (1994) compared uni- versity students’ responses from Japan,

Russia, and the United States on a diverse group of measures pertaining to love. They found culture-related differences on almost all of the measures they examined (see Ta- ble 4, Sprecher et al., 1994). One of the items included in their measures was the Kephart (1967) question concerning the importance of love as a basis for marriage. Respondents were given only two response options, yes or no; the undecided alterna- tive was not included. Sprecher and her col- leagues found that the proportion of re- spondents who regarded love as a basis for marriage was lower in the Russian sample than either the Japanese or the US. sam- ples, although it should be noted that the Japanese sample ma&y consisted of Eng- lish-language or American-studies majors. Respondents also completed Sprecher and Metts’ (1989) Romantic Beliefs Scale, which assesses the ideology of romantic love. On this measure, the Japanese sample scored lower than either the Russian or the US. samples.

The extensive cross-cultural study of mate preferences conducted by Buss and his colleagues (1990) is ako relevant to this discussion. This study involved samples from 37 different cultures (weighted mean age of 23.15 years). Participants both rated and ranked the desirability of a set of char- acteristics that they would want in a poten- tial spouse. Across all respondents, the most valued characteristic mentioned by both women and men was “mutual attrac- tion-love.” This combined term could have various meanings to respondents, such as being “in love” and/or love for one’s partner. As Berscheid and Meyers note elsewhere in this volume, love and i n love have different connotations to American respondents (university students). There is a potentially important difference between endorsing the necessity of romantic love (being in love) as a prerequisite for mar- riage and the desire for a caring relation- ship with one’s partner (love).

Interestingly, differences occurred in the importance of mutual attraction-love among respondents from different Asian societies in the study by Buss et al. (1990).

10 K . K . Dion and K.L. Dion

In the sample from mainland China, “mu- tual attraction-love” was neither the first, nor the second, most highly valued charac- teristic in a potential spouse for either men or women, as assessed by the rank order of the mean ratings. By contrast, it was at the top of the list for samples from Taiwan and Japan. Of the Asian samples, only those from Japan and Taiwan were student sam- ples; the Chinese sample, obtained from several different locations in mainland China, did not consist of university students (Buss, personal communication, April 21, 1995). It is possible, therefore, that the above findings are partly attributable to sample differences, as university students in Japan and Taiwan would be more likely to encounter Western literature and media compared to adults from mainland China who were not university students.

Implications of social change

Consistent with our conceptual analysis (K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 1993), in the U.S., British, and Australian samples of Levine et al. (1995), the importance of a love-based marriage was strongly endorsed. Also, feel- ings of “mutual attraction-love” for one’s potential spouse were rated as highly im- portant by young adults from these socie- ties and from several Western European so- cieties. Moreover, the relation between Hofstede’s ratings of societal individualism and the importance of love as a basis for marriage found by Levine and his col- leagues clearly supports our hypothesis that romantic love is more important as a basis for marriage in individualistic societies than in collectivistic ones.

The pattern of findings among tradition- ally collectivistic societies, especially Asian societies, indicated considerable diversity. We suggest that this diversity is consistent with changes in value orientations occur- ring among recent cohorts of young adults in several traditionally collectivistic, Asian societies-notably, Taiwan and Hong Kong. These changes appear to be in the direction of greater psychological individualism. Based on several studies involving student

samples from Taiwan and Hong Kong, Yang (1986) concluded that young adults there were, in fact, now individualistic rather than collectivistic, contrary to the traditional im- age of Chinese culture. He suggested that research on value orientations indicated a “drastic movement away from the tradi- tional Chinese pattern . . . by Chinese young people in Taiwan and Hong Kong. . . . Chinese students now tend to have value orientation patterns fairly simi- lar to those of American students” (Yang, 1986, p. 116). According to Yang, this change has been from a “social orientation” to an “individual orientation7’-that is, to- ward greater emphasis on seltexpression and personal gratification. Compared to previous cohorts of Japanese adults, a simi- lar change toward a more “individual ori- entation” also may characterize recent Japanese samples of university students. At the very least, we would expeb greater variability in value orientations such as in- dividualism and collectivism among recent and current cohorts of university students in Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan.

The proportion of young adults choosing the “undecided” option to the Kephart question about love as a basis for marriage also was substantial in samples from several Asian societies, namely Thailand (47.5%), Japan (35.7%), India (26.9%), and the Phil- ippines (25%) (Levine et al., 1995). It is important to retain the “undecided” re- sponse option to this and other similar questions. A high proportion of “unde- cided” responses can be interpreted as indi- cators of changing values, resulting in greater indecision and/or ambivalence on the part of some young adults in societies where views about relationships-in par- ticular, marriage-may diverge from those of previous cohorts.

t

Individualism, Collectivism, and Romantic Love: Ethnocultural Comparisons

In this section we focus on the relation be- tween ethnocultural factors and romantic love within a given society. In societies

Culture and love 11

characterized by ethnocultural diversity, the potential for different beliefs and styles of love exists, and such differences may partly be attributable to respondents’ eth- nocultural background. In a recent study (K.L. Dion & K.K. Dion, 1993), we investi- gated the relation between ethnocultural background in an ethnically heterogeneous sample of university undergraduates in Toronto, Canada, to individual differences in styles of love, as assessed by the Love Attitudes Scale (Headrick, Hendrick, Foote & Slapion-Foote, 1984). Participants were asked to indicate the ethnocultural back- ground of both their parents. Considerable ethnocultural diversity existed in this Cana- dian sample, including participants from traditionally collectivistic (Chinese, East Indian, and Pakistani) and traditionally in- dividualistic (e.g., English, Scottish) back- grounds. Moreover, as the official Canadian government policy has been one of mul- ticulturalism, there is societal support and encouragement for maintaining different ethnocultural traditions, particularly in large urban areas, such as Toronto.

These analyses concerned those indi- viduals who indicated the same ethnocultu- ral ancestries for both parents. We found that young adults (university students) from Chinese and from other Asian back- grounds endorsed a “love as friendship” style more strongly than did those from An- glo-Celtic or European ethnocultural back- grounds. Items illustrative of this love style included the following: “You cannot love unless you have first had caring for a while”; “Love is really a deep friendship, not a mysterious, mystical emotion.”

We also found an interaction between gender and ethnocultural background on the altruistic style of love (agape). Pairwise comparisons indicated that Asian women from ethnocultural backgrounds other than Chinese (predominantly East Indian and Pakistani in this sample) endorsed this view of the nature of love more than did women from Anglo-Celtic backgrounds (English, Scottish, Irish). This finding was intriguing because in the literature on styles of love, gender differences in agape have not typi-

cally occurred in samples from the United States. We suggested that a belief in “love as altruism” may reflect the influences of both cultural and gender-related factors. A view of love as agape is consistent with an em- phasis on interconnectedness in self-other relationships.

The role of immigration

Research on beliefs about love and mar- riage among immigrants from diverse eth- nocultural backgrounds is also relevant here: in particular, individuals who emi- grate from traditionally collectivistic socie- ties (e.g., different Auan societies) to tradi- tionally individualistic societies (e.g., Canada, the United States, Australia). We would expect that to the extent that they possess and retain collectivistic values, adult immigrants f r q traditionally collec- tivistic societies would not value the more individualistic approach to opposite-sex re- lationships, including dating, free associa- tion with the opposite sex, and the ideology of romantic love found in the host society. These beliefs and behaviors reflect valuing the freedom of the individual to seek his or her own personal development and gratifi- cation in close relationships beyond the family and to pursue these relationships without parental interference. In many non-Western societies, however, socializa- tion is not directed toward the develop- ment of personal autonomy (LeVine, 1990). Instead, interconnected and interdepend- ent social relationships are stressed; and it is assumed that family members will be in- volved in influencing each other’s lives (Shweder & Bourne, 1984). From this per- spective, parental influence in the lives of adult children, including arranged mar- riages, is completely understandable. A “love match,’’ especially marrying for love despite strong family opposition, under- mines the assumption of interconnected- ness in the family.

Given space limitations, we focus here on research undertaken with Asian immi- grant families residing in Canada. Based on interviews with a small sample of Indo-Ca-

12 K.K. Dion and K.L. Dion

nadian families about different aspects of family tradition, Filteau (1980) suggested that respondents perceived a conflict be- tween the concept of love valued in the traditional Hindu family and what they be- lieved to be the North American (in this case, Canadian) ideal. For the former, the themes mentioned included “respect, toler- ance, obligation, duty, sacrifice, compromise and marriage”; for the latter, the themes focused on “individualism, materialism, in- dependence, dating, divorce, selfishness and romance” (Filteau, 1980, p. 294). The differ- ence in perspective was well captured by the comment of one respondent who sug- gested that “no clear obligation towards others grows out of the dating pattern in Canada” (Filteau, 1980, p. 295).

Given this contrast in orientation toward others, it is understandable that among Western practices, the most controversial one for Indo-Canadian parents, regardless of their language or religion, was dating and the free association of their adolescent or young adult children with opposite-sex peers (Kurian & Ghosh, 1983). Similarly, Naidoo and Davis (1988) found that, on items pertaining to family relationships, women of South Asian ethnicity in Canada rejected what they perceived to be “main- stream Canadian” values, such as dating among adolescents and free choice, love- based marriage for their daughters. When asked about areas of stress in their lives in Canada, over a third reported stress sur- rounding “adolescent boy-girl dating cus- toms”; and nearly a fifth were concerned about “free choice marriage based on ro- mantic love.”

Within immigrant families, generational differences in the perceived desirability of dating and the importance of love as a basis for marriage can and do occur. In their sam- ples of Indo-Canadian respondents, Vaidy- anathan and Naidoo (1991) found that 80% of second-generation, unmarried young adults had a favorable attitude toward dat- ing, as contrasted with only 27.3% of first- generation, predominantly immigrant re- spondents (parents of young adults). For the latter group, dating only became ac-

ceptable once the couple were “committed to a permanent relationship” (68.2%). Among the older, first-generation group, the sample was fairly evenly divided be- tween endorsing the view that “marriage precedes love” (54.5%) and “love precedes marriage” (45.5%). Among the second gen- eration, the overwhelming preference (75%) was the alternative of marrying for love.

Lee and Cochran (1988) identified issues of concern to a small sample of young Chi- nese women from Hong Kong who had emigrated to Canada. These women fre- quently commented on their desire to con- front their fears of separation from the group to “become one’s own person.” One area mentioned was close relationships, specifically the extent to which they should develop intimacy with individuals outside the family group.

The kinds of stresses reportea by both parents and young adult children in these studies of immigrants to Canada may re- flect the latter’s desire for greater auton- omy and self-reliance, consistent with greater emphasis on individualistic values such as personal choice and personal fulfill- ment stressed in the host society. Interest- ingly, differences between first- and second- generation immigrants, when they occur, seem to be most pronounced on issues per- taining to personal relationships and family functioning (Vaidyanathan & Naidoo, 1991; K.L. Dion & K.K. Dion, 1996). In domains such as educational or occupational goals, the issue of greater personal choice seems less likely to be a source of potential con- flict between immigrant parents and their teenage or young adult children compared to the domain of dating and marriage (e.g., Kurian & Ghosh, 1983). Thus, attitudes to- ward free association with opposite-sex peers, romantic love, and the importance of love as a basis for marriage can be viewed as key indicators of different modes of ac- culturation. Finally, ethnocultural differ- ences on attitudes and values pertaining to close relationships may be more likely to occur in societies such as Canada where there has been structural support (e.g., an

Culture and love 13

official policy of multiculturalism) for eth- nocultural diversity than in societies such as the United States with traditionally stronger assimilationist pressures (see K.L. Dion, 1990, for further discussion of this issue).

Psychological Individualism, Psychological Collectivism, and Romantic Love

In the preceding sections, we discussed cross-cultural and ethnocultural research concerning beliefs about romantic love and its perceived importance as a basis for mar- riage. The evidence we reviewed supports our contention that societal individualism and collectivism are dimensions of cultural variation offering a useful theoretical framework for interpreting these findings. In most of this cross-cultural and ethnocul- tural research, however, individualism and collectivism have not been independently assessed but rather inferred or assumed.

We have used the terms “psychological individualism” and “psychological collec- tivism” to refer to individualism and collec- tivism at the personal level, as contrasted with the societal one. This differentiation recognizes that regardless of societal levels of individualism and collectivism, there are differences within a given society concern- ing the extent to which individuals person- ally endorse prevailing cultural ideals or different ones (Triandis, Leung, Villareal, & Clack, 1985). Thus, psychological individu- alists can be found in collectivistic societies, and psychological collectivists can be found in individualistic societies. Given the likeli- hood of diversity on these dimensions in changing and/or ethnically heterogeneous societies, it is necessary to measure indi- vidualism and collectivism at the psycho- logical level rather than to assume it on the basis of societal levels.

We previously have proposed the follow- ing paradox. In individualistic societies, ro- mantic love is valued as an important basis for marriage; and the ideology of romantic love contributes to expecting a high degree of personal fulfillment in marriage. How-

ever, some aspects (or types of) psychologi- cal individualism make it more difficult to realize these goals. By contrast, in collec- tivistic societies, romantic love is less likely to be valued as a basis for marriage. At the psychological level, however, collectivism facilitates intimacy within the in-group, but this intimacy is likely to be expressed in a complex system of family relationships (K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 1993).

We have found some support for these hypotheses. One source of supportive find- ings is from our research on personality and romantic love: in particular, self-actualiza- tion and love (K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 1985). Self-actualization& a personality di- mension that reflects individualism (Water- man, 1984). In many respects, self-actualiza- tion is a prototypically individualistic construct, as apparent from the term itself and from the underlyiq assumptions of self-actualization and related theories (e.g., Maslow, 1970). In our research, self-actuali- zation was measured by Shostrom’s (1964) Personal Orientation Inventory, which is still considered the best available measure of this construct (Hattie, Hancock, & Bre- reton, 1984). We also distinguished among the ideology of love, the subjective experi- ence of love, and feelings about a particular partner. Accordingly, we included attitude items to assess beliefs about love, a series of bipolar ratings of one’s love experiences, as well as Wessman and Ricks’s (1966) Love and Sex Scale to assess the reported experi- ence of romantic love, and the Rubin (1970) Love Scale to assess reported love and re- lated affect toward a particular partner.

Our findings confirmed the importance of making these distinctions. Individuals scoring high in self-actualization reported a more gratifying love experience than did those scoring low on this measure. They also tended to report their experience of love as being less guarded and more in- tense. However, self-actualized individuals reported less love for their partner; in par- ticular, they scored lower on the caring and need subscales of the Rubin Love Scale identified by Steck, Levitan, McLane, and Kelley (1982). In other words, “self-actual-

14 K.K. Dion and K.L. Dion

ized” people seemed to enjoy the experi- ence of being in love more than did their less self-actualized peers, but the latter seemed to care more for their partner.

A similar pattern of findings emerged in a recent study in which we directly exam- ined the relation between psychological in- dividualism and love (K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 1991). In that study, psychological in- dividualism and psychological collectivism were measured by 24 items developed by Breer and Locke (1965) to assess these con- structs. The items were multidimensional, with additional analyses yielding two fac- tors for individualism and collectivism, re- spectively. The items in one of these factors, which we labeled as “self-contained indi- vidualism,” reflected valuing freedom and self-reliance. Psychological individualism, especially this “self-contained” component, was negatively related to affective involve- ment with one’s partner, as measured by Rubin’s Love Scale and its three compo- nents (caring, need, and trust). These find- ings were obtained after controlling for the effects of psychological collectivism, as well as age and sex of respondent. Psychological individualists were more likely to view “love as a game.” Moreover, in this sample, “self-contained7’ individualism was associ- ated with a lower likelihood of ever having been in love; and among those who had been in love, this type of individualism was negatively related to characterizing one’s experience of romantic love as being ten- der, deep, and rewarding.

We have extended the above paradigm to study the relation between psychologi- cal individualism and collectivism, using a more extensive set of items, and atti- tudes toward marriage and toward divorce (K.L. Dion & K.K. Dion, 1994). Psychologi- cal individualism, specifically “self-con- tained individualism,” was related to a less positive attitude toward marriage. By con- trast, psychological collectivism was associ- ated with a less favorable attitude toward divorce.

In a recent study, Doherty, Hatfield, Thompson, and Choo (1994) found a nega- tive relation between a 12-item measure of

individualism and collectivism (Triandis, 1992) and Hatfield and Sprecher’s (1986) measure of Passionate Love, which assesses intensity of attraction to, and affective in- volvement with, one’s romantic partner. Al- though small in magnitude, this negative re- lation found by Doherty and his colleagues is consistent with our previous finding (K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 1991) of a nega- tive relation between self-contained indi- vidualism and reported love for one’s ro- mantic partner, as measured by the Rubin Love Scale. Interestingly, Hatfield and Sprecher’s (1986) Passionate Love Scale has been found to be highly related to the Rubin Love Scale in a,sampk of U.S. uni- versity students (Y = .86 for men; Y = .83 for women). Thus, two independent studies, one conducted in Canada and one in the United States, using different measures of psychological individualism and different measures of romanticlpassionafe love have found a negative relation between psycho- logical individualism and reported love for one’s partner.

Findings from a very different cultural context also suggest that some aspects of individualism may work against developing intimacy with a romantic partner. Goodwin (1995) examined the reported willingness to engage in intimate self-disclosure by in- dividuals from three different social groups (manual workers, entrepreneurs, and stu- dents) in Russia shortly after the dissolu- tion of the Soviet Union. The entrepreneurs as a group were characterized as being very individualistic, especially in highly valuing self-reliance. Respondents were asked to list “off limits” topics in relationships of dif- fering degrees of intimacy. In Study 2, topics related to “sex and love’’ were the most frequently mentioned category of taboo topics. The entrepreneurs and the students reported difficulty when discussing love and sex, particularly in the context of inti- mate relationships (Goodwin, 1995). Al- though Goodwin’s research was conducted to test a different conceptual model, one of his major findings is consistent with our prediction of a negative relation between “self-contained individualism” and inti-

Culture and love 15

macy with a romantic partner-in this case, intimate self-disclosure.

Concluding Remarks

In summary, the empirical findings pre- sented in this article clearly support our contention that the dimensions of individu- alism and collectivism, respectively-both at the societal and the psychological lev- els-provide a heuristic framework for better understanding romantic love. The constructs of individualism and collectiv- ism are, of course, not the only relevant cultural dimensions. They do, however, provide one starting point. As emphasized above, it is important to distinguish be- tween individualism and collectivism at the societal and at the personal level, respec- tively, when studying their relation to romantic love. Given cultural change, im- migration, and ethnocultural diversity, in- creasingly there is likely to be heteroge- neity in the prevalence of psychological individualism and psychological collectiv- ism within specific, traditionally individu- alistic and collectivistic societies. There- fore, it is important to measure these and other related constructs in a particular sample rather than to assume their uni- form presence among individuals within a given society. Thus, for example, re- searchers studying personal relationships in some Asian societies should not assume that those taking part in their study, espe- cially if they are university students, are psychologically collectivistic. As Yang (1986) suggested, many of these students may now endorse individualistic values as strongly as their Western counterparts in individualistic countries.

The constructs of individualism and col- lectivism typically have been conceptual- ized as contrasting poles of a continuum. The distinction between the relative em- phasis on the priority of the individual, as contrasted with the priority of the group, highlights important differences that are important for understanding personal rela- tionships. At the psychological level, how- ever, it may be of heuristic value to con-

ceptualize individualism and collectivism as different facets of self, rather than con- trasting attributes, when studying their im- plications for different forms of personal relationships. In our research, we have found that each of these constructs is mul- tidimensional. Our findings suggest that one component of individualism in particu- lar-namely self-contained individual- ism-is related to variations in reported love experiences as well as beliefs about love and about marriage, which may be problematic for fostering intimacy in ro- mantic relationships (K.K. Dion & K.L. Dion, 1991; K.L. Dion & K.K. Dion, 1994).

Research on romantic love from a cul- tural perspective has relevance for under- standing changing norms surrounding insti- tutions, such as marriage. The search for personal growth/fulfillment through mar- riage based-gn romantic love assumes that marriage primarily should function to pro- mote self-development. Given this assump- tion, if both members of a couple are not “growing together” (or at least not hinder- ing each other’s personal growth), the basis for the marriage may be questioned by one or both parties. It is this view of marriage that some individuals from traditionally collectivistic societies find distasteful, for it conflicts with core assumptions about the relation between self and family. We and other scholars have contended that height- ened individualism has contributed to in- creasing rates of marriage failure and di- vorce in the United States and Canada in recent decades (Brehm, 1992; Cherlin, 1981; K.L. Dion & K.K. Dion, 1988; Schwartz, 1988). Furstenberg (1990) commented that current ideals of marriage in the United States “virtually demanded divorce” if the couple were no longer in love with each other.

Recent research indicates increasing di- versity in views of the relation between love and marriage among young adults from several different and traditionally col- lectivistic societies (Levine et al., 1995; Sprecher et al., 1994). This diversity may reflect change in the direction of greater psychological individualism, notably “self-

16 K.K. Dion and K.L. Dion

contained” individualism, characterized by valuing personal freedom. If so, it remains to be seen whether young adults in these societies (e.g., Japan, Taiwan) and young adults whose parents emigrated from tra- ditionally collectivistic societies to Canada, Australia, or the United States show in- creasingly high rates of divorce and remar- riage. On the other hand, it is possible that in traditionally collectivistic societies psy-

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