Relationships in Different Cultures

We've spent the last two lessons looking at research into relationships in different cultures, which really means collectivist cultures.

You should be able to describe the differences between relationships in individualist and collectivist cultures (the 'obligatory, permanent and collectivist (between families) idea is useful here) - including a brief outline of how marriages are arranged, and outline and evaluate research into relationships in collectivist cultures. This mainly involves comparisons of levels of satisfaction between couples in arranged marriages and 'love marriages'. The results are inconclusive - some studies find that those in arranged marriages are happier in the long term, but not all - there are many issues with the reliability and validity with this research, the big one being culture bias (caused by the use of Western research tools e.g. questionnaires).

For homework you need to make notes on the studies comparing satisfaction in arranged and 'love' marriages in India and China.

Here is the presentation.

We will spend some time next lesson answering this question:
"Discuss research into relationships in different cultures." 4 marks AO1 + 8 marks AO2
Notes will be allowed but not textbooks!