Interpersona (E-Journal - PsychOpen)
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321 research outputs found
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Sub-Saharan African Students’ Experiences, Perceptions, and Expectations with American Health Services: An Intercultural Challenge
No full textUnderstanding patients‟ cultural expectations could contribute to better health outcomes and decrease cultural health disparities. This qualitative pilot study objective was to explore experiences, perceptions, and expectations of males and females Angolan students as patients in America. Eighteen face-to-face interviews were conducted at a Midwestern university. Burgoon‟s expectancy violation theory (1991) was the theoretical background. Results revealed as positive expectation violations an advanced technology, quality of services, medicine availability, and emphasis on preventive care. Negative expectation violations included high service costs, complicated insurance system, short medical encounters, and difficulty in building relational history with providers. The study also revealed that culturally related communication barriers as well as negative violations of expectations hinder the quality of intercultural clinical encounters and can affect health outcomes. Participants emphasized the importance of these interpersonal relations and their connection with perceptions of caregivers‟ professional competence. International patients/students revealed that they believe friendliness on the part of the caregiver is a signal that they are dealing with a “good” doctor or nurse. Intercultural competence is an important asset of caregivers who work in multicultural clinics and in college health. Practical implications emerged in international advising and clinician‟s education
Sex Differences in Sexual Desires and Attitudes in Norwegian Samples
No full textDespite highly replicable predictable differences between the sexes on various sexual desires and attitudes, critics of evolutionary perspectives argue against the biological origins of such differences, highlighting cultural explanations. Critics suggest that there are no cross-cultural evolutionary predictable, systematic differences. Eagly and Wood (1999) suggest that in egalitarian cultures sex differences will be small or disappear. We tested whether Trivers’ (1972) Parental Investment Theory and Buss and Schmitt’s (1993) Sexual Strategies Theory predicted sex differences in sexuality within samples of students (N=1072) in egalitarian Norway. We expected similar interest in long-term relationships, but that females seek short-term partners less than males. Furthermore, males were expected to have less restricted sociosexuality, fantasize more, take more initiative to sex and be less satisfied with frequency of sex. The predictions were supported in the evolutionarily-predicted directions. Clinical consequences of claiming there are no sex differences in sexuality, when indeed they exist, are discusse
Do Finns Date? Cultural Interpretations of Romantic Relating
No full textDating, the stage in American romantic relationships, is a popular theme in interpersonal communication research. This article claims that dating is a cultural construct and concept. The claim is supported by two means: (1) by examining the perceptions of relationships, communication, and personhood that are embedded in American women‟s interviews, and (2) by comparing these perceptions with Finnish women‟s interviews about relationship initiation. The cultural meanings of dating should be acknowledged when making generalizations and building theoretical constructs on romantic relationships, as well as in applying American research results in describing Finnish romantic relationships
Looking for Love in so many Places: Characteristics of Online Daters and Speed Daters
No full textThis study examined the characteristics of individuals who are more likely to engage in speed dating and online dating, and the types of people who are more likely to prefer these forms of dating. Older individuals and those who scored high on shyness were more likely to have tried online dating. Older individuals, those who scored high on shyness, and those who had tried online dating were more likely to consider using it in the future. Younger individuals were more likely to have tried speed dating. Those who had already tried speed dating were more likely to consider using it in the future. We argue here that online dating offers some advantages for shy individuals
Validación de la Estimación Cognoscitiva de los Procesos de Regulación Emocional para la Emoción de Amor
No full textValidation of the Cognoscitive Estimation of the Processes of Emotional Regulation for the Emotion of LoveLove is an emotion able to produce pleasure, plenty and happiness as well as displeasures taking as examples: fear, uncertainty when there is a possibility to loss a love object (e.g. Hatfield & Waster, 1978; Retana, 2004). Based on this, the importance of emotional regulation (ER) is evident in the interpersonal harmony and the successful adjustment to the social environment (Valiente & Eisenberg, 2006). ER is seen as fivecognitive mechanisms (situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change and response modulation) which define the ways to respond particularly to each emotion (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Taking into account this, we evaluated those processes in love emotion in 201 Mexican adults. Findings show on one hand, the tendencies of particular ways to respond to love in the interpersonal context and on the other hand, the applicability, validity and reliability of the measure in this emotion
Developing a Test Battery to assess Determinants of Marital Relationship Satisfaction in Saudi Arabia
No full textA sample of 50 wives and 50 husbands from Saudi Arabia completed a battery of scales assessing different aspects of couple relationship functioning which had been translated from English to Arabic. The selection of measures was based on the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model (VSA, Karney & Bradbury, 1995) and included measures of partner attachment, conflict behaviour, and relationship with members of the family-in-law as predictors and marital satisfaction as criterion variable. All scales of the test battery showed acceptable reliability. The newly developed conflict behaviour scale consisted of three theoretically meaningful factors (Positive behaviour, Negative behaviour, and Abuse). All instruments showed evidence for convergent validity and contributed significantly to the prediction of relationship satisfaction. The results showed in general a similar pattern of correlations in Saudi Arabia as previous studies in Western countries
Enhancing Mate Selection through the Internet: A Comparison of Relationship Quality between Marriages arising from an Online Matchmaking System and Marriages arising from Unfettered Selection
No full textThe current work investigates the effects of a broadly adopted online matchmaking site on the nature and quality of married couples formed. Measures of personality, emotion, interests, values and marital adjustment were collected from a sample of married couples who had been introduced by an online matchmaking service, and from a sample of married couples who had met through unfettered choice. Results showed that couples introduced by the online matchmaking site were more similar, and that such similarity in general using the current measures was a strong predictor of marital adjustment in both online matched and comparison couples. Marriages resulting from the online matchmaking service were observed to have significantly higher scores for marital adjustment. We conclude that online matchmaking services based on predictive inference and proscribed selection can be observed to have a significant and meaningful impact on marital qualit
Cultural and gender-related differences of concepts of love between Iranian and Swiss adults based on Hafez’ poetry of love
No full textFalling and being in love is a cross-cultural universal. The poet Khwaja Šams ud-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Širazi, or simply Hafez (14thcentury D.C.), an important influence for both Persian and European culture, is noted for his love poetry. The first aim of the present study was to check to what extent items of a current questionnaire of love matchthemes of love found in Hafez‘ poetry. Then, we explored gender- and cultural differences in the importance of these themes. First, themes of Hafez‘s poems were compared with the items of Fisher‘s ―Being in Love Inventory‖. Second, a set of items was presented to Iranian and Swiss female and male adult participants (N=325; age (years): M =31.29; SD =16.28; 161 Iranian; 164 Swiss). Generally, cultural differences were weak. Female participants agreed more with the assumption of love as taking one away from reality. Swiss male participants reported an increased ambivalence towards the partner, and Iranian female participants reported an increased fear of being betrayed. Our results seem to confirm that Hafez‘s themes of love are still up-to-date, and thatfalling and being in love is a cross-cultural universal, though with some subtle cultural and gender-related differences
If not negotiation, then what? Gender equality and the organization of everyday life in Swedish couples
No full textFreed from the bonds of traditional gendered norms, responsibilities and obligations, it has been argued that negotiation is a key concept for understanding how modern couples organize their common life together. Interviews with Swedish couples cause us to question this assumption. In this article we argue that negotiations are relatively unusual in couple relationships. We found that couples seldom experience the reason, room space or need to negotiate. This can in part be understood from the perspective of seeing everyday life as a matter of practical coordination, i.e. as something we strive to master rather than something we try to change or critically reflect upon. We found that routines and rituals were a guiding force in how couples organize their everyday lives. “Doing gender”, “doing couple”, external circumstances and agreement were all central aspects in making the everyday lives of the couples we interviewed work
The Role of the Internet in Reconfiguring Marriages: A Cross-national Study
No full textThis study explores the role of the Internet in reconfiguring marriages, introducing couples that meet in person and later marry, through a set of online surveys of married couples in Britain, Australia, and Spain. The study found that a sizeable proportion of online married couples in each country first met their spouse online, usually through an online dating service, chat room or on instant messaging (IM). This was more the case for younger couples. Moreover, the study indicates that meeting online is likely to introduce people to others whom they would not be as likely to meet through other means. The Internet might well open people to more diversity in their choice of a partner, such as by introducing individuals with greater differences in age or education, but with more similar interests and values. These findings are preliminary, but suggestive of significant social trends and indirect implications of social networking in the digital age