Culture and self-construal as predictors of relational responses to emotional infidelity: China and the United States

Abstract

This research examined how American and Chinese participants differ when they respond to situations involving the emotional infidelity of their dating partners. It also assessed how different self-construal types influence relational response strategies. Four of the six culture-level hypotheses were supported. Overall, US respondents tend to prefer exit and anger voice responses more so than Chinese respondents. Comparatively, Chinese respondents tend to prefer loyalty, passive neglect, and third-party help responses. Both cultural groups, however, tend to use integrative voice responses to a high degree. This research marks a first attempt to modify and extend the existing Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect (EVLN) relationship typology.

Keywords:

• Relational self-construal
• independent self-construal
• cross-cultural emotional infidelity
• relational transgression responses
• Chinese and US communication patterns
• online emotional infidelity