Cultural variation in relationship maintenance

Abstract

Copyright © Lora Adair and Nelli Ferenczi, 2023. Romantic love appears to be a part of the shared human experience—with nearly all studied cultures evidencing intimate and romantic pair-bonding. This work focuses on a growing area of research on romantic relationship maintenance, employing an evolutionary perspective and positioning the maintenance and longevity of romantic relationships as important for survival and reproduction throughout human history. This chapter explores which evolved psychological mechanisms help to preserve our relationships, how individuals from various cultures maintain relationship satisfaction and longevity, and how local environments interact with our evolved psychologies to produce unique relationship maintenance behaviors and cognitions. We use sociocultural and socioecological perspectives contextualize research findings on relationship maintenance behaviors and cognitions across cultures—investigating the relationships among ecology, culture, and romantic relationship behaviors and outcomes. Specifically, we use factors like historical subsistence type and residential mobility to explain sources of cultural variability in relationship maintenance mechanisms. For example, historical rice subsistence creates ecological demands for coordinated and collaborative efforts among social group members, which in turn favor the development of specific cultural practices and norms, such as the interdependent self. In these contexts, families become sources of romantic advice, and familial approval is situated as an essential criterion for relationship persistence. We acknowledge the dynamic relationship between ecologies, cultures, and romantic relationships as we review contemporary literature about motivational processes. We discuss future research directions with an emphasis on critically evaluating the Euro-American, heteronormative, and patriarchal biases present in relationship research and theory.