The Cultural Level
The majority of studies on conflict in romantic relationships has been conducted in North America. Most of the remaining research had been done in Western Europe, and this work is generally consistent with research that uses North American samples (e.g., Hahlweg, Kaiser, Christensen, Fehm- Wolfsdorf, & Groth, 2000).
Connolly and her colleagues (2010), for example, found that the level of conflict in adolescent dating relationships was significantly related to dating aggression in both Canada and Italy.Some studies done outside of North America and Western Europe complement the results of investigations done in North America. For instance, a study of married Blacks in South Africa revealed that satisfaction was related positively to reports of collaborative conflict and negatively associated with competitive conflict (Greeff & de Bruyne, 2000). Other investigations suggest that culture may shape couples’ conflict in subtle ways. In one study, undergraduate students in the United States and Japan were asked to describe recent interpersonal conflicts (Ohbuchi & Takahashi, 1994). Although Japanese individuals were more likely to avoid conflicts, both groups noted that more direct strategies (e.g., bargaining, compromise) were preferable to avoidance. Such findings highlight the importance of conceptualizing culture and conflict beyond simple binary comparisons because there may be both similarities and differences at the same time.
Moreover, even when results from a particular study appear to show similarities across cultures, researchers must be careful not to equate similar scores on measures to mean that there are not important differences. There is evidence, for example, that the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) demonstrates excellent psychometric properties across at least 17 different nations (Straus, 2004), but even if people across cultures respond to the items in the same way, it does not necessarily mean that the response has the same meaning. It is possible, for example, for two people from different cultures to report that they respected their partner’s feelings (which is one item on the CTS), but what it means to show such respect could nevertheless be very different in those cultures.