MONTAJE/ DESMONTAJE DE LA PLATAFORMA NIVELANTE

The interview study had been carried out in order to have more knowledge of Chinese interethnic couples, which would help design the following quantitative study. Rusbult’s investment model has been widely used in several cultures (e.g. Van Lange et al., 1997; Davis & Strube, 1993; Lin & Rusbult, 1995), so this model was supposed to apply to the current sample, which was 10 Chinese/non-Chinese married couples (18 participants). According to Rusbult’s (1980; Cox et al., 1997) investment model, greater satisfaction level, lower quality of alternatives, greater investment size, and greater social prescriptive support contributed to greater commitment level. However, it was found in the interview study that investment model did not fully apply to Chinese interethnic married couples. Specifically, the term investment was described as inappropriate and was different from Rusbult’s (1980) definition and explanation of investment, and social prescriptive support and quality of alternatives seemed unable to make individuals more or less committed, but some additional factors, such as love and moral aspects, contributed to commitment beyond satisfaction.

The investment model was originated from reward/cost from the interdependent theory (Rusbult, 1983). However Murstein (1970) looked at interdependence theory as understanding behaviours through economics. Murstein (1971a) noted that reward and cost were not considered by the couples who greatly committed to each other, and exchange theory was too much like business and was self-focused (p. 18-19). It seems that exchange theory may be useful in the initial attraction and the formation of

relationships, but according to the findings of the interview study, exchange theory may not be very useful in maintaining relationships.

Foster (2008) argued that Rusbult’s investment model scale was “highly self- focused” (p. 214) (i.e. all the items were about self-feelings instead of considering the partner, and commitment was considered as individuals’ direct reward and cost) and he found that the level of narcissism, which means feeling of superiority and less intimacy, moderated between satisfaction level, quality of alternatives, investment size, and commitment – low satisfaction, high quality of alternatives, and low investment size predicted more significantly on low commitment for high narcissists (i.e. high in “superiority, entitlement, exhibitionism, exploitativeness, authority, vanity, and self- sufficiency” (p. 213)) than low narcissists, but high satisfaction, low quality of alternatives, and high investment size did not show any difference in predicting

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commitment between high and low narcissists. He stated that weighing reward and cost, which was the main theme of the investment model, was more likely to influence commitment level for high narcissists, whereas “interpersonal factors” (p. 220) (i.e. considering the partner) were more likely to influence commitment level for low narcissists. High narcissism reflects the characteristic of hierarchical individualism, so people who are low in hierarchical individualism could have a different opinion of the investment model.

From a collectivistic point of view, individuals in a relationship are willing to make sacrifice for the relationship no matter how much it would cost, as they are

focusing on the need of the relationship (Triandis, 1996), however the investment model emphasises individual’s reward and cost in a relationship, which may reflect an

individualistic point of view. For this reason, investment model may be not suitable for interethnic couples, especially with one partner from a relatively collectivistic culture.

In the interview study, moral aspects were frequently mentioned as one of the reasons for commitment. Lund (1985) also found this from her open-ended

questionnaire survey on 30 female students and 30 male students about the meaning of commitment. Most of the students thought that commitment meant long-lasting and exclusive relationships, and with obligations of carrying on (Lund, 1985). The long- lasting and exclusiveness aspects showed the nature of a committed relationship and the obligation aspect showed the moral aspects. However investment model did not include moral aspects as a factor for commitment.

Although the research by Rusbult et al.’s (1986) on dating and married

relationship showed the generalizability of the investment model regardless of gender, marital status, age, educational level, income, or duration of relationship, there were two limitations. Firstly, the investment size questions were only included the general amount of investment that the participants have put into the relationship, in which the

participants were taught that the meaning of investment was “shared friends”, “self- disclosures”, “financial security”, “material possessions” (ibid. p. 84) and so on without mentioning that these investment would be lost if the relationship were to end. So, the meaning of investment size may be understood as the efforts that people put into the relationship, and if the relationship were to end the investments may not necessarily be thought as lost. Secondly, although investment size showed significant correlations with commitment for married people and the whole sample in their research, it did not show significant correlations with commitment for unmarried people, married/unmarried

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people less than 35 years old, and married/unmarried people who had been in the relationship for more than 10 years. So, the inconsistency of the correlations between investment size and commitment for different groups might reflect the different opinions toward investment size.

Thus Rusbult’s investment model seems not appropriate for Chinese interethnic couples, but what model can be applied to Chinese interethnic couples? In chapter three, literatures on relationship stability and three models on commitment, namely Levinger’s marital cohesiveness, Rusbult’s investment model, and Johnson’s commitment

framework, have been reviewed. According to the literature on the factors leading to commitment, love, satisfaction, intimacy, a rewarding relationship, similarity, consensus, affection expression, respect, and perceived good social support were important factors. Among these factors, similarity can be reflected in couple cultural identity; satisfaction, intimacy, consensus and affection expression can be reflected in Spanier’s dyadic adjustment; a rewarding relationship and respect can be reflected in love. However, the significance of perceived good social support was not found in the interview study. Considering the importance of love and moral aspects in the interview study and the literature on relationship stability, Johnson’s (1991) commitment

framework may be suitable for Chinese interethnic couples. In Johnson’s framework, love, satisfaction, and couple identity were included in personal commitment; moral values, obligations, and value of consistency were included in moral commitment; “Alternatives”, “Social pressure”, “Termination procedures”, and “Irretrievable investments” were included in structural commitment (Johnson et al., 1999, p. 162). Among the three types of commitment, structural commitment can be only influential when personal or moral commitment is low (Johnson et al., 1999).

Personal commitment emphasised love and satisfaction (Johnson et al., 1999), which had been found not only in the literature on relationship stability but also in the interview study. Love was also found different from satisfaction in the interview study, as a high degree of love towards the spouse was found in an unsatisfied marriage. Besides, Ting-Toomey (1994) suggested that love could reduce cultural conflicts in interethnic couples. Couple identity, another component of personal commitment, means the degree to which one puts the relationship into one’s own identity (Johnson, 1991). Couple culture identity could be treated as the extent to which one includes the partner’s cultural concept into one’s own cultural concept. Since the salient cultural differences were found in the interethnic couples in the interview study, cultural identity

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could be the most salient identity in couple identity for interethnic couples. Besides, couple cultural identity was also found important for commitment in the interview study and the literature on relationship stability. So, couple cultural identity may be one of the components of personal commitment, in the place of couple identity, for Chinese interethnic couples (see also section 2.4 in chapter two). Personal commitment, other than moral commitment, had significantly stronger association with Rusbult et al.’s (1998) commitment scale (Adams & Jones, 1997; Johnson et al., 1999). Moral commitment has also been found important for commitment in the interview study, especially when individual’s personal commitment was low.

The explanation of structural commitment (i.e. according to Johnson et al. (1999), structural commitment can be only influential when personal or moral commitment is low) was very much similar to what has been found in the interview study, which is, when the participants were personally or morally committed, investment and social prescriptive support were not treated as important factors for commitment, and these participants were not thinking about alternatives either. Investment, social prescriptive support, and alternatives can be reflected in Johnson et al. (1999, p. 162) “Irretrievable investments”, “Social pressure”, and “Alternatives” in structural commitment.

According to Johnson’s (1973) study on 19 married couples and 19 cohabiting couples, married couples were significantly higher in personal commitment than cohabiting couples. So, this might explain why married individuals in the interview study did not treat investment, alternatives, and social prescriptive support as important factors for their commitment, whereas unmarried individuals in Rusbult’s samples (e.g. Rusbult et al, 1998) did treat these as important factors.

Johnson’s commitment framework combined all the elements in the investment model and the cohesiveness model, clearly pointed out the aspects for three different types of commitment, and well explained all the possible elements of commitment. This framework also explained some of the results of the interview study: 1) why most couples in the interview study were not thinking of investment as something that would be lost if the marriages were to end and were not looking for alternatives. This is because investment and alternatives are both structural commitment, which are not prominent when people have strong personal or moral commitment. 2) Why moral aspect was not a strong predictor to Rusbult’s commitment (e.g. Lin & Rusbult, 1995; Cox et al., 1997) but was a strong factor for the couples’ commitment in the interview study. This is because Rusbult’s commitment scale, which was used in Lin & Rusbult’s

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(1995) and Cox et al.’s (1997) study, is a measure of personal commitment (Adams & Jones, 1997; Johnson et al., 1999), so moral aspect could not show much correlation with such measurement for personal commitment. Thus, Johnson’s (1991; Johnson et al., 1999) commitment framework best fit the results of the interview study, which may fit more Chinese interethnic couples.

The following quantitative study will be focused on personal commitment. The reasons are as follows. 1) Investment was one of components in structural commitment, however it was treated with different understandings and it was thought to be

inappropriate in long-term relationships. Most married couples in the interview study tended to have less structural commitment, so structural commitment may not be found as significant as personal commitment and moral commitment. 2) In Johnson et al.’s (1999) personal commitment, love and satisfaction were two components that had also been thought as important factors for commitment in the interview study. So the associations between love and personal commitment, satisfaction and personal

commitment are likely to be strong. 3) One of the focuses of the current research is to investigate the role of culture in commitment. Couple cultural identity, a component of personal commitment for the current research, was treated as an important factor for commitment in the interview study. So the associations between couple cultural identity and personal commitment are likely to be strong. 4) Although moral commitment is an important aspect of overall commitment, the focus of this current research is not on moral commitment. The following quantitative study in the next chapter will be focusing on how love, satisfaction, couple cultural identity interact with personal commitment among Chinese interethnic couples.

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