Self-Expansion in Intercultural Relationships: Cultural Integration as a Mechanism for the Association with Relationship Quality
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Intercultural romantic relationships, in which partners have different cultural backgrounds, are increasingly common. Intercultural marriages, however, remain relatively rare, accounting for only 5% of all unions in Canada. Intercultural couples may face additional barriers in maintaining their relationships over time, including reconciling their cultural and couple identities (identity integration) and communicating effectively about cultural differences (cultural inclusion). Despite these challenges, intercultural relationships may also provide opportunities for self-expansion – novelty or growth as a result of the relationship or a partner’s culture. Across three studies we tested the prediction that self-expansion in intercultural relationships would be associated with higher relationship satisfaction and lower conflict through cultural integration processes. In Studies 1 and 2—a cross-sectional study of people in intercultural relationships (N=242) and a dyadic study of intercultural couples (N=312)—we found that self-expansion (both in general, and specific to partners’ cultures) was associated with higher relationship quality through greater integration and cultural inclusion. In Study 3—a pre-registered experimental study (N=342)–we found that although people in a cultural self-expansion group reported higher relationship satisfaction compared to a control group, cultural integration processes did not mediate this relationship. Our findings reveal that sharing cultural differences and novel experiences can be beneficial for intercultural couples, extending self-expansion theory to intercultural relationships and providing insight into the maintenance of satisfaction over time.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".