صمیمیت، شور و شوق و تعهد در روابط عاشقانه چینی و آمریکا

The purpose of the study was to examine the triangular theory of love in China and the United States. It was predicted that intimacy, passion, and commitment would increase in both cultures as the relationship becomes more serious. It was also predicted that intimacy and passion would be higher in romantic relationships in the US than in China, and that commitment would be higher in China than in the US. Data were collected from 90 Chinese romantic couples in China and 77 American romantic couples in the United States. Multivariate analysis of variance using summation scores revealed that commitment, passion, and intimacy increased as a romantic relationship became more serious. Passion was significantly higher in US American couples than in Chinese couples, but the amount of intimacy and commitment did not vary cross-culturally (using both summation and dispersion scores).

Love characterizes romantic relationships across social, cultural, and national boundaries despite the fact that its meaning and function may vary from one relationship to another and from one culture to another. One theory of love that is sufficiently general and may be applicable across cultures is Lin and Rusbult (1995) and Marsella, DeVos (1985) triangular theory of love. This theory is viewed as “a significant advancement in the scientific study of love” (Tzeng & Gomez, 1992, p. 169). In the triangular theory of love, love consists of intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment components, and these components vary from one stage of relationship development to another (Lin and Rusbult (1995) and Marsella, DeVos (1985)). Sternberg’s theory is of interest to the present study because it not only provides a developmental approach to the study of love, but it also appears to delineate persons’ experiences of love that are applicable across cultures. Some of the theoretical assumptions outlined in the triangular theory of love have been tested in a study in the United States (Acker & Davis, 1992). Thus far, the triangular theory of love has not been tested in a cross-cultural context.

The present study supports the initial attempt to extend Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love to cross-cultural romantic relationship development. Even though the differences between the means were small, the significant effects of stage of relationship and culture on love should not be ignored. Results from MANOVA tests not only revealed a clear pattern of differences, but were consistent with Sternberg’s predictions and previous research. If we were to examine the numbers more closely, we would find that up to 12% of the variance in the three components of love was explained by stage of relationship and culture. As we know, research that occurs outside a laboratory setting seldom generates large effect sizes (Cohen, 1969). In general, cross-cultural studies also do not produce large effects. Before concluding, limitations of the present study and future directions will be addressed. In the present study, participants’ native culture was used to measure their individualistic vs. collectivistic tendencies. Future studies should include an individual-level measure of individualism–collectivism to make sure that respondents represent the culture-level tendencies. The level of passion was found to be significantly higher in US American couples than in Chinese couples. This finding needs to be further examined in terms of its implications in intimate relationships across cultures. In addition, more empirical tests are necessary to assure that intimacy is a universal dimension in relationship development (e.g., Gao, 1991; Gudykunst, Gao, Sudweeks, Ting-Toomey, & Nishida, 1991). Future research should also use derived etic measures in testing the triangular theory of love to increase the effect size. Finally, investigations of Chinese native concepts of love such as yuan (destiny) should be incorporated in future research. As Tzeng (1993) suggests, fate/faith should be considered as the supercomponent in the linkage between the folk and professional theories. In summary, the present study is encouraging in many respects despite its limitations. It provided a test of the triangular theory of love in a cross-cultural context. In addition, it utilized the dyad as the unit of analysis in testing the predictions of the theory. Finally, results in the study suggest that Sternberg’s conceptualization of love can be useful in understanding and explaining romantic relationships across cultures.