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Love: American style, Russian style, and Japanese style
Author(s) -
SPRECHER SUSAN,
ARON ARTHUR,
HATFIELD ELAINE,
CORTESE ANTHONY,
POTAPOVA ELENA,
LEVITSKAYA ANNA
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
personal relationships
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.81
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1475-6811
pISSN - 1350-4126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6811.1994.tb00070.x
Subject(s) - romance , falling in love , style (visual arts) , psychology , social psychology , developmental psychology , gender studies , sociology , psychoanalysis , literature , art
This study was undertaken to examine young women's and men's orientations toward love in three very different cultures: Japan (N = 223), Russia (N = 401), and the United States (N = 1,043). The love variables examined were: frequency of lore experiences, attachment types, love styles, love as a basis for marriage, romantic attitudes, and predictors of falling in love. Many cultural differences were found in the love variables, but the effect of culture was not always in the expected direction. We also examined how the pattern of gender differences in love variables differed across the three societies. Some of the gender differences and similarities found in previous love research and also in the U.S. sample of this study were not replicated in the Japanese and/or Russian samples. We discuss the importance of studying love and other aspects of close relationships with data collected from more than one culture.