Intercultural Relationships: Entry, Adjustment, and Cultural Negotiations

Abstract

Globalization, technological advances, and increasingly flexible social norms have contributed to more widespread intercultural relationships, particularly in multicultural societies such as the United States. In this paper, the authors use Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems framework (i.e., the macrosystem, exosystem, microsystem, chronosystem) to review the factors involved with entry and adjustment in intercultural relationships. Relationship entry is discussed in terms of how people of different cultural backgrounds meet, interact, and intimately relate. Factors that impact the likelihood of entering an intercultural relationship are outlined. Adjustment refers to the manner in which partners cope with the dyadic tensions that impact their relationship satisfaction and functioning. Compared to intracultural couples, intercultural couples are at a higher risk of experiencing adjustment problems over the course of the relationship. Therefore, suggestions are provided to help these couples minimize conflict and optimize satisfaction. Factors relating to relationship identity and cultural negotiation also are discussed. A summary of the most important clinical ideas to emerge from the literature on intercultural couples in the United States, as well as clinical suggestions for therapists working with these couples, are provided at the end of the paper.