Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology - Employees Csbsju

Lucas et al. / MARITAL SATISFACTION INVARIANCE 119between religion and marriage, as religion has been discouraged politically for most of thepast century. Marital satisfaction may vary in other less formal ways as well. For example,Campos, Keltner, Beck, Gonzaga, and John (2007) recently suggested that teasing, a socialinteraction that benefits relational bonds at the expense of the self, may be viewed morepositively by Eastern than Western cultures. Thus, playful teasing within the context ofmarriage may be viewed differently by couples from different cultures. Perhaps mostimportantly, our results suggest that romantic love and partnership, which compose twoseemingly universal qualities of a satisfying marriage, may also reflect cultural criteria.LIMITATIONSThere are several methodological limitations of our research. Foremost, our results arelimited by the nature of our samples. Samples from all four cultures were nonrepresentativeand predominantly urban, and thus, they do not reflect the entirety of each culture. Inaddition, although they were selected to provide diversity in geography, economic development,religion, and political system, our samples do not reflect the entirety of cultureacross the globe. It is entirely possible that the invariance of marital satisfaction would presentitself differently not only across a broader range of cultures but also if more representativesamples were available from within each culture. In addition, our results arecharacterized by uneven sample sizes. Although our use of relative fit indices minimizesany potential influence, this characteristic nevertheless confounds the fit indices that weobtained for each test of invariance.A second set of limitations concerns the use of marital satisfaction indices that weredeveloped in a Western culture. Undoubtedly, our assessments of marital satisfaction wereoperationalized using at least some culturally specific perceptions and benchmarks, and thiscould differentially affect the fit of these measures in non-Western cultures. In addition, maritalsatisfaction may be defined beyond considering only romantic love and partnership.Thus, researchers might consider replicating our results using alternative and additional measuresof marital satisfaction. Such an undertaking should additionally consider better knownand more commonly used marital satisfaction measures. However, as noted previously, webelieve that the use of the MARQ in the present study was advantageous at least to the extentthat it defines marital satisfaction in a highly multidimensional manner, and this affordedboth evolutionary and cultural considerations of spousal satisfaction.A final set of limitations concerns our interpretation of invariance results. Specifically,we interpreted invariance characteristics as strictly supportive of either evolutionary or culturallydefined criteria of marital satisfaction. However, these perspectives are not mutuallyexclusive. The existence of cross-culturally diverse marital values certainly does notpreclude the influence of evolutionary forces in this domain, nor does the homogeneity ofsatisfaction preclude the importance of culture. In addition, tests of invariance do not offerunequivocal support for either cultural or evolutionary interpretations of marriage. Forexample, although spousal invariance of romantic love does not rule out the possibility ofan evolutionary interpretation, there are many other equally viable explanations that alsoremain. Similarly, noninvariance could merely indicate cultural differences in ways ofanswering survey items, such as unique use of scale midpoints (e.g., Cheung & Rensvold,2000). Invariance testing is also limited in that it requires an imposed-epic approach todefining marital satisfaction, which may promote the potential for cross-cultural standardizationat the expense of measurement misspecification.Downloaded from http://jcc.sagepub.com at College of St. Benedict/St. John's University on April 10, 2008© 2008 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.