Dating attitudes and behaviors of American and Chinese college students: A partial replication

ABSTRACT

Research reveals a vibrant courtship process during adolescence in the United States. Fewer studies exist, however, on the courtship process in China, a country which is undergoing tremendous economic change, and even fewer studies employ a cross-cultural approach to examine dating during adolescence. One such study from nearly two decades ago found more liberal attitudes and behavior regarding dating among American college students compared to their relatively conservative Chinese counterparts. In the same spirit, the present study investigates similarities and differences in the dating process between American and Chinese college students and changes over time. The Chinese sample (N = 240) was collected at convenience from three Chinese universities located in two large cities in central China. The American sample (N = 405) was gathered from a 4-year public university located in the Mid-Atlantic. The findings reveal that considerable differences in courtship processes continue to persist despite unprecedented economic development in China. The American students continue to use a dating script that is far more liberal. They also initiate the dating stage at much younger ages. Although not exhibiting norms similar to the American students, the Chinese students were not strongly shackled to conservative Chinese traditions either. Cultural differences in approaches to dating, family and education are likely responsible for the persistent gaps.

KEYWORDS:

• Dating
• courtship
• globalization
• cultural differentialism

Notes

¹ We realize that randomly drawing samples of universities and then students within them in both countries would be the ideal way to obtain data. A lack of resources and feasibility issues prevent us from taking such an approach. Thus, our results need to be interpreted with appropriate caution.

² T-tests were utilized to test for differences between means in Tables 1-4.

Table 1. Mean levels of demographic characteristics among college students, by country.

Table 2. Mean levels of dating behaviors among college students, by country.

Table 3. Mean levels of liberal attitudes and heterogamy among college students, by country.

Table 4. Mean levels of social pressure and approval among college students, by country.

³ This age is nearly the same as the average age of first sex in the USA (Guttmacher Institute, 2017)

⁴ This number approximates the combined median number of sexual partners found among college-educated males (4.8) and females (2.9) in a recent large-scale, representative survey of sexual behaviors of 25-44 year-olds in the United States (Chandra et al., 2011).

⁵ Other researchers find that some young adults in the United States are very active sexually: among unmarried 18-23 year olds, 10% of women and 14% of men report having had over 10 sexual partners in their lifetime (Harris et al., 2009).

⁶ T-tests for differences between men and women indeed reveal that Chinese men feel more pressure than women. However, American men also feel more pressure than women. In both cultures men seem to be expected to be more aggressive than women at initiating and pursuing intimate relationships, a difference alluded to throughout the dating literature.

⁷ A test for differences across samples was conducted using the combined data and a dummy variable representing China. The results: B=32.33, s.e.=2.5, T=12.92 and P=.000. Model R² was.27, indicating that country explains twenty-seven percent of the variation in this variable.