Are men universally more dismissing than women? Gender differences in romantic attachment across 62...

Are men universally more dismissing than

women? Gender differences in romantic

attachment across 62 cultural regions

DAVID P. SCHMITT,a LIDIA ALCALAY,b MELISSA ALLENSWORTH,a JURIALLIK,c LARA AULT,d IVARS AUSTERS,e KEVIN L. BENNETT,f GABRIELBIANCHI,gFREDRICK BOHOLST,hMARY ANN BORG CUNEN,iJOHANBRAECKMAN,jEDWIN G. BRAINERD JR.,k LEO GERARD A. CARAL,l

GABRIELLE CARON,m MARIA MARTINA CASULLO,n MICHAELCUNNINGHAM,d IKUO DAIBO,o CHARLOTTE DE BACKER,j EROS DESOUZA,p ROLANDO DIAZ-LOVING,q GLAUCIA DINIZ,r KEVIN DURKIN,s

MARCELA ECHEGARAY,t EKIN EREMSOY,uHARALD A. EULER,v RUTHFALZON,i MARYANNE L. FISHER,w DOLORES FOLEY,x ROBERT FOWLER,a

DOUGLAS P. FRY,y SIRPA FRY,y M. ARIF GHAYUR,z VIJAI N. GIRI,aa

DEBRA L. GOLDEN,bb KARL GRAMMER,cc LIRIA GRIMALDI,dd JAMINHALBERSTADT,ee SHAMSUL HAQUE,ff DORA HERRERA,tJANINEHERTEL,ggAMANDA HITCHELL,aHEATHER HOFFMANN,hhDANICAHOOPER,xZUZANA HRADILEKOVA,iiJASNA HUDEK-KENE-EVI,jjALLENHUFFCUTT,aJAS JAAFAR,kkMARGARITA JANKAUSKAITE,llHEIDIKABANGU-STAHEL,mmIGOR KARDUM,jjBRIGITTE KHOURY,nnHAYRRANKWON,ooKAIA LAIDRA,cANTON-RUPERT LAIREITER,ppDUSTINLAKERVELD,qqADA LAMPERT,rrMARYANNE LAURI,iMARGEURITELAVALLEE,mSUK-JAE LEE,ssLUK CHUNG LEUNG,ttKENNETH D. LOCKE,uuVANCE LOCKE,sIVAN LUKSIK,vvISHMAEL MAGAISA,wwDALIAMARCINKEVICIENE,xxANDRE MATA,yyRUI MATA,yyBARRYMCCARTHY,zzMICHAEL E. MILLS,aaaNHLANHLA J. MKHIZE,bbbJOAOMOREIRA,yySERGIO MOREIRA,yyMIGUEL MOYA,cccM. MUNYAE,dddPATRICIA NOLLER,xHMOUD OLIMAT,eeeADRIANOPRE,fffALEXIA PANAYIOTOU,gggNEBOJSA PETROVIC,hhhKAROLIENPOELS,jMIROSLAV POPPER,vvMARIA POULIMENOU,iiiVOLODYMYRP’YATOKHA,jjjMICHEL RAYMOND,kkkULF-DIETRICH REIPS,lllSUSAN E.RENEAU,mmmSOFIA RIVERA-ARAGON,qWADE C. ROWATT,nnnWILLIBALDRUCH,oooVELKO S. RUS,pppMARILYN P. SAFIR,qqqSONIA SALAS,rrrFABIOSAMBATARO,ddKENNETH N. SANDNABBA,yRACHEL SCHLEETER,aMARIONK. SCHULMEYER,sssASTRID SCHUTZ,ggTULLIO SCRIMALI,ddTODD K.SHACKELFORD,tttMITHILA B. SHARAN,aaPHILLIP R. SHAVER,uuuFRANCISSICHONA,vvvFRANCO SIMONETTI,bTILAHUN SINESHAW,wwwR. SOOKDEW,bbbTOM SPEELMAN,jSPYROS SPYROU,xxxH. CANANSUMER,yyyNEBI SUMER,yyyMARIANNA SUPEKOVA,vvTOMASZSZLENDAK,zzzROBIN TAYLOR,aaaaBERT TIMMERMANS,bbbbWILLIAMTOOKE,ccccIOANNIS TSAOUSIS,ddddF.S.K. TUNGARAZA,eeeeASHLEYTURNER,aGRIET VANDERMASSEN,jTIM VANHOOMISSEN,ffffFRANK VANOVERWALLE,ffffINE VANWESENBEECK,gggg PAUL L. VASEY,hhhh JOAOVERISSIMO,yy MARTIN VORACEK,iiii WENDY W. N. WAN, jjjj

Personal Relationships, 10 (2003), 307–331. Printed in the United States of America.Copyright # 2003 ISSPR. 1350-4126/02

307

TA-WEI WANG,kkkkPETER WEISS,llllANDIK WIJAYA,mmmmLIESBETHWOERTMAN,nnnnGAHYUN YOUN,ooooAGATA ZUPANEIE,pppaBradley University, USA; bPontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile; cUniversity ofTartu, Estonia; dUniversity of Louisville, USA; eUniversity of Latvia, Latvia; fUniversity ofNew Mexico, USA; gSlovak Academy of Sciences, Slovak Republic; hUniversity of SanCarlos, Philippines; iUniversity of Malta, Malta; jGhent University, Belgium; kClemsonUniversity, USA; lUniversity of San Carlos, Philippines; mUniversite of Laval, Canada;nUniversity of Buenos Aires, Argentina; oOsaka University, Japan; pIllinois State University,USA; qNational Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico; rUniversity of Brasilia, Brazil;sThe University of Western Australia, Australia; tUniversity of Lima, Peru; uBogaziciUniversitesi, Turkey; vUniversity of Kassel, Germany; wYork University, Canada;xUniversity of Queensland, Australia; yAbo Akademi University, Finland; zAl-AkhawaynUniversity, Morocco; aaIndian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India; bbUniversity ofHawaii-Manoa, USA; ccLudwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Urban Ethology, Austria;ddUniversity of Catania, Italy; eeUniversity of Otago, New Zealand; ffUniversity of Dakah,Bangladesh ; ggTechnische Universitat Chemnitz, Germany; hhKnox College, USA;iiComenius University, Slovak Republic; jjUniversity of Rijeka, Croatia; kkUniversity ofMalaya, Malaysia; llVilnius University, Lithuania; mmCentre d’Enseignement les Gazelles,Democratic Republic of the Congo; nnAmerican University of Beirut, Lebanon; ooKwangjuHealth College, Republic of Korea; ppInstitute of Psychology, University of Salzburg,Austria; qqUniversity of Utrecht, Netherlands; rrThe Ruppin Institute, Israel; ssNationalComputerization Agency, Rep. of Korea; ttCity University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong;uuUniversity of Idaho, USA;vvSlovak Academy of Sciences, Slovak Republic; wwUniversity ofZimbabwe, Zimbabwe; xxVilnius Univeristy, Lithuania; yyUniversity of Lisbon, Portugal;zzUniversity of Central Lancashire, England; aaaLoyola Marymount University, USA;bbbUniversity of Natal, South Africa; cccUniversity of Granada, Spain; dddUniversity ofBotswana, Botswana; eeeUniversity of Jordan, Jordan; fffBabes Bolyai University, Romania;gggUniversity of Cyprus, Cyprus; hhhUniversity of Belgrade, Serbia; iiiKPMG KyriacouCounsultants SA, Greece; jjjVolyn Regional Hospital, Ukraine; kkkUniversite de MontpellierII, France; lllUniversitat Zurich, Switzerland; mmmUniversity of Alabama, USA; nnnBaylorUniversity, USA; oooQueens University Belfast, Northern Ireland; pppUniveristy ofLjubljana, Slovenia; qqqUniversity of Haifa, Israel; rrrUniversidad de La Serena, Chile;sssUniversidad Privada de Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia; tttFlorida Atlantic University,USA; uuuUniversity of California-Davis, USA; vvvUniversity of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania;wwwRamapo College of New Jersey, USA; xxxCyprus College, Cyprus; yyyMiddle EastTechnical University, Turkey; zzzNicholas Copernicus University, Poland; aaaaUniversity ofthe South Pacific, Fiji; bbbbVrije Universiteit, Belgium; ccccSUNY-Plattsburgh, USA;ddddUniversity of the Aegean, Greece; eeeeUniversity of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; ffffVrijeUniversiteit Brussel, Belgium; ggggNetherlands Inst. of Social Sexological Research,Netherlands;hhhhUniversity of Lethbridge, Canada; iiiiUniversity of Vienna Medical School,

Austria; jjjjUniversity of Hong Kong, HongKong; kkkkNational Changhua University ofEducation, Taiwan; llllCharles University,Czech Republic; mmmmCouple ClinicIndonesia, Surabaya, Indonesia; nnnnUtrechtUniversity, Netherlands; ooooChonnamNational University, Republic of Korea

The authors thank Susan Sprecher (USA), DelPaulhus (Canada), Glenn D. Wilson (England), QaziRahman (England), Alois Angleitner (Germany),Angelika Hofhansl (Austria), Tamio Imagawa(Japan), Minoru Wada (Japan), Junichi Taniguchi(Japan), and Yuji Kanemasa (Japan) for helping withdata collection and contributing significantly to thesamples used in this study.Correspondence should be sent to David P. Schmitt,

Department of Psychology, Bradley University,Peoria, IL 61625; e-mail: [email protected].

308 D. P. Schmitt et al.

AbstractGender differences in the dismissing form of adult romantic attachment were investigated as part of the Interna-

tional Sexuality Description Project—a survey study of 17,804 people from 62 cultural regions. Contrary to

research findings previously reported in Western cultures, we found that men were not significantly more dismissing

than women across all cultural regions. Gender differences in dismissing romantic attachment were evident in most

cultures, but were typically only small to moderate in magnitude. Looking across cultures, the degree of gender

differentiation in dismissing romantic attachment was predictably associated with sociocultural indicators.

Generally, these associations supported evolutionary theories of romantic attachment, with smaller gender differ-

ences evident in cultures with high-stress and high-fertility reproductive environments. Social role theories of human

sexuality received less support in that more progressive sex-role ideologies and national gender equity indexes were

not cross-culturally linked as expected to smaller gender differences in dismissing romantic attachment.

In this article, we report findings from theInternational Sexuality Description Project(ISDP), a research collaboration involvingmore than 100 social, behavioral, and bio-logical scientists from62 cultural regions repre-senting 56 separate nations. The focus of thisarticle is on adult romantic attachment,specifically gender differences in the ‘‘dis-missing’’ form of adult romantic attachment.Dismissing romantic attachment orienta-tions are indicated by an avoidance of closepersonal relationships and the tendency toprevent romantic disappointment by main-taining a sense of relational independenceand emotional distance (Bartholomew,1990; Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). It isa common stereotype inWestern culture thatmen are more emotionally distant and dis-missing than women (Bem, 1993), andempirical studies have tended to substantiatethis socioemotional portrayal of men,especially in the context of romantic relation-ships (e.g., Scharfe & Bartholomew, 1994).In the current study, we critically evaluatedwhether men are universally more dismissingthan women by testing for gender differencesin dismissing romantic attachment across awide spectrum of cultural regions. We alsoexplored possible sociocultural moderatorsof gender differences in dismissing attach-ment, and addressed how well social roleand evolutionary psychological theories ofhuman sexuality explained gender-differentiated patterns of dismissing romanticattachment across cultures.

Attachment theory and romantic relationships

According to Bowlby’s (1969/1982) etho-logical theory of attachment, humans possess

a behavioral-motivational system thatemerges in infancy and is designed to pro-tect children as they pass through severalphases of development. It is generallyassumed that successful navigation throughthe universal stages of attachment provideschildren with a secure emotional base fromwhich they can competently lead the rest oftheir relational lives (Bowlby, 1988). Begin-ning with the work of Ainsworth and hercolleagues (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, &Wall, 1978), developmental psychologistshave consistently found that supportivecaregiving environments provide childrenwith the healthiest and most secure attach-ment experiences, whereas insensitive andinconsistent caregiving lead to insecureattachment styles and unhealthy interper-sonal functioning (Dozier, Stovall, & Albus,1999; Greenberg, 1999). Evidence also sug-gests that these early attachment stylesaffect our ability to relate to others inclose personal relationships well into adult-hood (Simpson & Rholes, 1998; Waters,Merrick, Treboux, Crowell, & Albertstein,2000). For example, attachment styles—both secure and insecure—seem to have anenduring influence on parent-child relations(George & Solomon, 1999; Rholes, Simpson,& Blakely, 1995), peer relationships andfriendships (Allen & Land, 1999; Feeney,Noller, & Patty, 1993), teacher-studentdynamics (Sroufe, 1983), therapeutic inter-actions (Slade, 1999), and even the waypeople form close relationships with God(Kirkpatrick, 1999).

In the mid-1980s, researchers beganto investigate how attachment styles andorientations might apply to people’s

Gender and attachment across 62 cultures 309

cognitive-emotional attitudes towardromantic love and sexual relationships(Hazan & Shaver, 1987). Over the past dec-ade and a half, a growing body of evidencehas shown that attachment orientationsdeeply influence the way people think andfeel about their romantic relationships (Col-lins & Read, 1994; Feeney & Noller, 1996;Klohnen & John, 1998). Variation in adultattachment orientation has been linked topatterns of romantic relationship conflictand stress (Rholes, Simpson, & Stevens,1998; Simpson, 1990) and romantic satisfac-tion and harmony (Brennan & Shaver,1995; Collins & Read, 1990), as well as thetemporal duration of romantic relation-ships (Kirkpatrick, 1998; Simpson, 1999).In general, people with secure attachmentstyles tend to experience less conflict, moresatisfaction, greater stability, and longerduration in their romantic relationships(Belsky, 1999; Kirkpatrick & Hazan, 1994).People with insecure attachment styles tendto experience more conflict, less satisfaction,lower stability, and shorter durations in theirromantic relationships (Brennan & Shaver,1995; Hazan & Zeifman, 1999).

Gender differences in dismissing romanticattachment

According to the early studies of adultromantic attachment (e.g., Hazan & Shaver,1987), no gender differences were thought toexist in romantic attachment styles. Men andwomen were equally likely to be secure orinsecure, a finding in line with the lack ofobserved gender differences in childhoodattachment (Ainsworth et al., 1978). How-ever, subsequent researchusingmore continu-ousmeasures of adult romantic attachmentand employing the four-category model ofattachment (Bartholomew & Horowitz,1991) found men to be significantly moredismissing in romantic attachment orienta-tion thanwomen (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver,1998; Scharfe & Bartholomew, 1994). In areview by Kirkpatrick (1998), gender differ-ences in dismissing attachment were docu-mented across numerous unpublishedstudies as well. Generally, the dismissing

form of insecure romantic attachment isassociated with an avoidance of interper-sonal closeness, a discomfort with emotionaldisclosure, and a desire for relationalindependence (Bartholomew, 1990).

The finding of gender differences in dis-missing romantic attachment seems to fitwith common beliefs about social andemotional differences between the sexes,with men usually seen as less emotional,less nurturing, and less willing to connectwith others (Bem, 1974, 1993; Spence &Helmreich, 1978). Men’s greater dismissive-ness is likewise consistent with self-reportsurveys of emotional distance and socialrestrictiveness. In a review of literature ongender and emotion, Brody and Hall (1993)concluded that men are much less likelythan women to express emotions associatedwith affiliation and social bonding (see alsoGeary, 1998). Men are also less likely thanwomen to seek emotional support whencoping with stress (Tamres, Janicki, &Helgeson, 2002; Taylor et al., 2000). In alarge meta-analysis of gender differences inpersonality traits (Feingold, 1994), menwere shown to be less nurturing, trusting,and gregarious than women—a trait profileclosely aligned with the dismissing form ofromantic attachment. Research on roman-tic couples has revealed that men report lesscomfort with emotional closeness in theirrelationships (Feeney, 1994), whereas womenmore often complain of men’s lack of close-ness (Buss, 1989a) and find more satisfyingthose men who show fewer indications ofdismissing romantic attachment (Collins &Read, 1990; Kirkpatrick & Davis, 1994;Simpson, 1990). Even thoughwithin-sex vari-ation in dismissing romantic attachment canbe considerable (Bartholomew & Horowitz,1991), several sources of evidence—socialstereotypes, self-perception differences, cop-ing responses, and romantic partner-reportedreactions—all seem to converge on thenotion that men, on average, are significantlymore dismissing in romantic attachmentorientation than women.

Still, it may be premature to concludethat human males, as a group, are uni-versally more dismissing in romantic


attachment than human females. One rea-son for skepticism is that the preponderanceof studies that have profiled men as themore dismissing gender have been con-ducted in Western cultures, limited primar-ily to North America, Western Europe, andAustralasia (Brennan et al., 1998). Recently,a large cross-cultural study by Schmitt andmore than 100 colleagues (Schmitt, Alcalay,Allensworth, Allik, Ault et al., in press)found that dismissing romantic attachmentlevels vary widely across non-Western cul-tures. Cultures from South America, South-ern Europe, and East Asia displayed muchlower levels of dismissing attachment thanother parts of the world. Cultures fromAfrica, Oceania, and South/Southeast Asiatended to display heightened levels ofdismissing romantic attachment (Schmittet al., in press). This cross-cultural variabil-ity in romantic attachment seems to mirrorthe results from previous studies of parent-child attachment (Van IJzendoorn & Sagi,1999). Furthermore, Costa, Terracciano,and McCrae (2001) have found that genderdifferences in many personality traits,including those linked to dismissivenesssuch as disagreeableness and introversion,are ‘‘most marked among European andAmerican cultures and most attenuatedamong African and Asian cultures’’(p. 327). With substantive variation indismissing romantic attachment acrossnon-Western cultures, and with inconsistentgender differences in traits linked to dis-missing attachment, it remains unclearwhether gender differences in dismissingromantic attachment fully generalize to allcultural regions of the world. On the otherhand, there are compelling theoreticalreasons to expect pancultural gender differ-ences in dismissing romantic attachment.

Evolutionary psychology and genderdifferences across cultures

Many evolutionary psychological theoriesof romantic attachment would predict thatgender differences in dismissing romanticattachment should generalize across mostcultures. For example, Kirkpatrick (1998)

has suggested that the psychology ofdismissing romantic attachment is concep-tually similar to the psychology of short-term mating, perhaps even synonymouswith it (see also Belsky, 1999; Simpson,1999). Adults who report higher levels ofdismissing romantic attachment tend tohave more accepting attitudes towardcasual sex, and engage in more promiscuousand indiscriminate sex, than people withmore secure attachment styles (Bogaert &Sadava, 2002; Brennan & Shaver, 1995;Feeney, Noller, & Patty, 1993; Schmitt,2003a; Stephan & Bachman, 1999). In arecent cross-cultural study involving morethan 50 nations, Schmitt (2003b) docu-mented that short-term mating tendenciesare linked with higher levels of dismissingattachment, more so than with any otherform of romantic attachment. When com-bined with the evolutionary premise thatmen are designed to follow short-term mat-ing strategies and desire indiscriminate sexmore than women are (Buss & Schmitt,1993; Schmitt, 2003c; Symons, 1979), thiswould imply that men may be designed insome ways to exhibit more dismissingromantic attachment orientations thanwomen. Evolutionary psychologists havealso argued that men’s natural dismissive-ness serves an evolved function once theyare in in romantic relationships, a functionin which withholding emotions protectsmen against women’s probes into malecommitment and fidelity (Buss, 1994).Based on these evolutionary perspectives,men may be more dismissing in romanticattachment than women across most cul-tures because of the evolved design featuresof men’s mating psychology.

It is important to note, however, thatevolutionary psychology perspectives donot expect that all cultures should have pre-cisely the same level of gender difference indismissing romantic attachment, nor thatgender differences must be large in magni-tude across all cultures if the differences aredue, in part, to evolved sexual differenti-ation. This is sometimes how evolutionarytheories are portrayed but it is a distortedpicture of the evolutionary perspective on


sexual differentiation (Mealey, 2000). If apsychological gender difference does notalways appear in every culture, or is some-what diminished across some cultures, thisis not prima facie evidence that the genderdifference is largely unrelated to evolvedbiology (Cronk, 1999; Lonner, 1980).Instead, there are sometimes adaptive rea-sons why, even though men and women arebiologically designed with a propensity todiffer in certain ways, they sometimes fail todisplay the exact same amount of differenceacross all cultures. For example, evolvedgender differences may require certaindevelopmental inputs that sometimes varywith local ecological conditions (Alexander,1990; Low, 2000).

Evolutionary psychology and genderdifferences in dismissing romanticattachment across cultures

An ecological condition that may have aspecial impact on gender differences in dis-missing romantic attachment is the amountof stress in local reproductive environments.Some cultures possess high-stress reproduct-ive environments (Chisholm, 1999; Keller,1990). Cultures with high levels of patho-gens and disease, for example, are thoughtto present high-stress reproductive environ-ments because raising offspring in disease-prone environments is often associated withhigher childhoodmortality (see Gangestad&Buss, 1993; Low, 1990). Indeed, mortalityrate (or low life expectancy) itself is a strongindicator of environmental or ecologicalstress load. Reproductive environmentswith high fertility rates and scarce resourcescan also be considered stressful becausehuman children, relative to other primatespecies, require heavy parental investmentand raising multiple offspring makes itmore difficult to invest the necessaryamounts of care in each child (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989; Harvey & Clutton-Brock,1985; Trivers, 1972).

According to Belsky, Steinberg, andDraper (1991), when reproductive environ-ments are particularly stressful women maybe designed to shift away from their

primary long-term mating strategy withits accompanying low levels of dismissingromantic attachment (Belsky, 1999;Kirkpatrick, 1998), and instead develop amore short-term mating strategy withhigher levels of dismissing attachment (seealso Chisholm, 1996). In women, this adap-tive shift to a dismissing/short-term strategymay be based in part on several factors: onearly reproduction that allows their familymembers to help raise offspring (Burton,1990; Lancaster, 1989), on mating with mul-tiple men in order to garner resources orprotection from more than one putativefather (Hrdy, 1981; Smuts, 1985), and onobtaining access via short-term mating tovaluable men possessing ‘‘good genes,’’genes that are better able to withstand thepathogens and developmental stressors ofharsh environments (Gangestad, 2001;Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). Thus,women’s dismissing romantic attachmentlevels may be culturally contingent, adap-tively shifting in accord with the harsh phys-ical environments (Belsky et al., 1991) andhigh fertility trends (Chisholm, 1996) oftheir local ecologies (see also Greiling &Buss, 2000).

Men may also be driven toward short-term mating and dismissing attachment inhigh-stress reproductive environments, butthe effect appears to be more pronounced inwomen (Draper & Harpending, 1982; Ellis,McFadyen-Ketchum, Dodge, Pettit, &Bates, 1999). Perhaps this is due to menhaving evolved to preferentially followmore of an unrestricted or short-term repro-ductive strategy (Kenrick, Sadalla, Groth, &Trost, 1990; Schmitt, 2002c; Simpson &Gangestad, 1991), at least when doing so isunlikely to have strong negative conse-quences on survival (Schmitt & Buss,2001). Therefore, men’s culturally contin-gent movement to short-term mating anddismissing romantic attachment in high-stress reproductive environments may beless conspicuous or severe than women’sshift.

This evolutionary perspective on roman-tic attachment leads to the following seriesof predictions concerning the magnitude of


gender differences in dismissing romanticattachment across cultures.

Evolutionary Hypothesis 1:Gender differences in the dismissing formof romantic attachment should exist acrossmost cultures.

This hypothesis is based on the pre-sumption that men are generally moreoriented toward short-term mating viaindiscriminate sex than women are (Buss &Schmitt, 1993; Schmitt, Shackelford,Duntley, Tooke, & Buss, 2001), and dis-missing romantic attachment in adults isindicative of short-term mating tendencies(Kirkpatrick, 1998; Simpson, 1999).

Evolutionary Hypothesis 2:Gender differences in dismissing romanticattachment should be smaller in cultureswith high-stress environments.

This hypothesis is based, in part, on thenotion that reproductively stressful envir-onments trigger women’s tendency towardshort-term mating (Belsky et al., 1991; Elliset al., 1999), including the adaptive desirefor briefly mating with men who possess‘‘good genes’’ (Gangestad, 2001; Gangestad& Simpson, 2000). Because high levels ofdismissing romantic attachment are indica-tive of short-term mating tendencies(Kirkpatrick, 1998; Simpson, 1999), andbecause men are typically more orientedtoward short-term mating via indiscrim-inate sex than women are (Schmitt et al.,2001), women’s levels of dismissing roman-tic attachment should become more similarto men’s in cultures with high-stressenvironments.

Evolutionary Hypothesis 3:Gender differences in dismissing romanticattachment should be smaller in cultureswith higher fertility rates.

Higher fertility levels are associated withless emotional investment in children, atrend that is linked across cultures with thedevelopment of dismissing forms of attach-ment (Chisholm, 1996). High fertility levels

are also associated with short-term matingtendencies (Keller, 1990). Because highlevels of dismissing romantic attachmentare indicative of short-term mating tenden-cies (Kirkpatrick, 1998; Simpson, 1999),and because men are typically moreoriented toward short-term mating viaindiscriminate sex than women are (Schmittet al., 2001), women’s levels of dismissingromantic attachment should become moresimilar to men’s in cultures with higherfertility rates.

Social role theory and variation in genderdifferences across cultures

Social role theories typically suggest thatmen and women may sometimes differ inmanifest behavior, but not because theyhave innate sex-differentiated psychologies.Instead, when men and women appear todiffer it is because they inhabit differentsocial or gender roles and have receiveddissimilar socialization experiencesthroughout development (Eagly, 1987;Wood & Eagly, 2002). In this view, cross-cultural gender differences in dismissingromantic attachment likely stem frommen’s pancultural socialization to be lesscomfortable with close emotional relation-ships than women, and conversely fromwomen’s universal socialization to be morenurturing and attendant to the emotions ofothers (Low, 1989; Munroe & Munroe,1997; Quinn, 1977). Moreover, once thesemen and women have been socialized intodiscrete gender roles, cognitive expectationsconcerning gender differences in emotionalcloseness would tend to pervade theactivities of men and women throughoutsocial life (Bem, 1993; Wood, Christensen,Hebl, & Rothgerber, 1997). Of course, aproximate social role explanation such asthis leaves open the question of why menand women would be socialized differentlyacross all cultures to begin with.

Eagly and Wood (1999) presented a ver-sion of social role theory in which they pro-vided an evolutionary rationale for whymen and women are socialized differentlyacross all cultures, and they did so while


maintaining an emphasis on socialization asthe primary causal agent of genderdifferences in sexual behavior. Eagly andWood reasoned that physical differencesbetween men and women, and the accom-panying division of labor that those differ-ences necessitated throughout humanevolution, led to a long and consistent his-tory of men and women filling differentsocial roles or structures. Once in thosesocial structures, men and women areassumed to make rational decisions that‘‘maximize their outcomes within the con-straints that societies establish for people oftheir sex’’ (Eagly &Wood, 1999, p. 413). So,although biological differences betweenmen and women initially create differentsocial roles, it is the developmental experi-ence of inhabiting different social roles andstructures that directly causes most psych-ological gender differences. Importantly, thedegree to which men and women are forcedto inhabit bifurcated gender roles, and even-tually develop some degree of psychologicaldifference, is something that can presum-ably vary across cultures (Williams & Best,1990).

Using this social structure approach,Eagly and Wood (1999) went on to arguethat many of the gender differencespreviously portrayed by evolutionists asbiological adaptations, such as women’suniversal preference for mating with part-ners that have good earning capacity (Buss,1989b), are instead the result of historicaland environmental factors that contributeto gender-differentiated social roles andsocialization across cultures. As evidencein favor of this position, Eagly and Woodnoted that in cultures where women havemore access to political and economicpower, gender differences in desires formating partners with resources are smaller(see also Kasser & Sharma, 1999). Thus,women’s pancultural desire for potentialmates with resources can be seen as thereasoned consequence of inhabitingresource-depleted social structures, not abiological adaptation residing withinwomen’s evolved mating psychology(Wood & Eagly, 2002).

Social role theory and gender differences indismissing romantic attachment acrosscultures

From this social structure perspective, gen-der differences in dismissing romanticattachment and emotional closeness mayalso result from biologically generatedsocial role differences, especially the differ-ent family roles that men and women nat-urally inhabit. Of crucial importance is thesocial structure of women more often beingassigned the task of child rearing. ‘‘Theassignment of the majority of child rearingto women encourages nurturant behaviorsthat facilitate care for children and otherindividuals. The importance of close rela-tionships to women’s nurturing role favorsthe acquisition of superior interpersonalskills and the ability to communicate non-verbally’’ (Eagly & Wood, 1999, p. 413). Inmost cultures, young girls are usually chan-neled into nurturing social roles and aresocialized to be sensitive to the emotionsof others, including their young children(Munroe & Munroe, 1997; Pasternak,Ember, & Ember, 1997; Quinn, 1977).Women’s gender roles and socializationexperiences, it could be argued, are whatcause lower levels of dismissing romanticattachment in women. Differences in thesocial structures thatmen andwomen inhabitas adults, and in the expectations of greaterfemale nurturance in most cultures, mayhelp to reinforce these universal genderdifferences in emotional sensitivity and dis-missiveness (see also Hofstede, 1998).

An important implication of this socialstructural perspective is that in cultureswhere women are more severely restrictedto childrearing (i.e., cultures with ‘‘trad-itional’’ sex-role ideologies; see Williams &Best, 1990), gender differences in dismissingattachment should be larger because menand women have been forcibly channeleddown separate social roles, with womenexperiencing more nurturing-based rolesand social expectations. Within culturesthat possess more ‘‘modern’’ or ‘‘progres-sive’’ sex-role ideologies, however, womenare allowed to explore a wider array of


social roles, including those that mayinvolve less nurturing and the developmentof more dismissing attachment orientations.Indeed, both men and women enjoy lessburdensome and gender-constraining socialstructures in cultures with modern sex-roleideologies. Consequently, gender differ-ences in dismissing romantic attachmentshould be smaller, or perhaps even absent,in cultures where either gender can take onthe role of family nurturer, ‘‘when men andwomen occupy the same specific social role,sex differences would tend to erode’’ (Eagly& Wood, 1999, p. 413).

This social role perspective on romanticattachment leads to the following series ofpredictions concerning the magnitude ofgender differences in dismissing romanticattachment across cultures.

Social Role Hypothesis 1:Gender differences in the dismissing formof romantic attachment should exist acrossmost cultures.

Gender differences should reliablyemerge because physical differencesbetween men and women have historicallyleft women in the social role of childcareprovider across most, if not all, human cul-tures (Eagly & Wood, 1999; Quinn, 1977).Gender differences in dismissing romanticattachment, therefore, are an expected con-sequence of women having universallyinhabited the social role of nurturer.

Social Role Hypothesis 2:Gender differences in dismissing romanticattachment should be smaller in cultureswith modern or progressive sex-roles ideol-ogies.

This hypothesis is based on the idea thatwhen women are neither expected norforced to reside solely in the role of nur-turer, men’s and women’s psychologiesshould become more similar (Eagly &Wood, 1999). Thus, in cultures with moremodern sex-role ideologies, men andwomen should be more similar in dismissingromantic attachment.

Social Role Hypothesis 3:Gender differences in dismissing romanticattachment should be smaller in cultureswhere women have access to political andeconomic power.

Women’s access to power across culturesis associated with smaller differencesbetween men’s and women’s sexual psych-ology (Eagly & Wood, 1999; Kasser &Sharma, 1999; Wood & Eagly, 2002). Thus,in cultures with more political-economicgender equality, men and women should bemore similar in dismissing romantic attach-ment.

Method

Participants

The research reported in this paper is aresult of the International SexualityDescription Project (ISDP). As shown inTable 1, the ISDP involved 10 geograph-ically based world regions, each with a num-ber of cultural regions: North America(which included 8 cultural regions), SouthAmerica (5 regions), Western Europe (9regions), Eastern Europe (11 regions),Southern Europe (6 regions), Middle East(4 regions), Africa (7 regions), Oceania (3regions), South/Southeast Asia (5 regions),and East Asia (4 regions). Thus, partici-pants represented 62 cultural regions in 56countries of the world, located in 6 differentcontinents and 13 islands. For some cul-tures (i.e., Australia, Austria, Canada-English, Chile, England, Germany, Israel,Malta, South Korea, Turkey, and the USAMidwest, South, and West regions) morethan one sample was collected. It is import-ant to acknowledge that in a few casesplacement of cultures into world regions isopen to debate. For example, Turkey couldhave beenplaced into several possible regionalcategories, including Southeastern Europe,Mediterranean, or Southwestern Asianregions.

Most sample groups (N¼ 52) were com-prised of college students; some (N¼ 8)included college students plus general


Table 1. Men’s and women’s sample sizes and sex differences in dismissing romantic attachment across 62 cultural regions

Sample size Dismissing attachment Sex difference

Men Women Men Women Significance Magnitude

Cultural regions n n M SD M SD t d

North AmericaCanada

Canada-English 313 553 4.22 1.60 3.66 1.59 5.01*** 0.35Canada-French 60 113 3.59 1.59 3.62 1.91 �0.11 �0.02

United States of America (USA)USA-Northeast 72 156 4.18 1.61 3.78 1.78 1.65 0.23USA-Midwest 184 357 4.25 1.60 3.97 1.68 1.84 0.17USA-South 368 570 4.07 1.68 3.76 1.74 2.68** 0.18USA-West 287 487 4.13 1.67 3.69 1.71 3.46*** 0.26USA-Hawaii 88 224 4.60 1.45 3.80 1.72 3.88*** 0.43

Mexicoa 106 109 4.31 1.82 3.82 1.95 1.89 0.26South AmericaPeru 106 100 3.95 1.71 3.53 1.67 1.77 0.25Bolivia 92 89 4.50 1.67 4.17 1.82 0.73 0.19Chile 100 212 3.57 1.75 2.94 1.48 3.28*** 0.39Argentina 110 136 2.76 1.79 2.21 1.60 2.54** 0.32Brazil 42 55 3.67 1.72 3.20 1.56 1.40 0.29

Western EuropeFinland a 24 90 3.35 1.50 3.28 1.78 0.16 0.04United Kingdom

UK-Northern Ireland 56 244 4.05 1.57 3.36 1.64 2.88** 0.42UK-Englandb 82 101 4.00 1.57 3.80 1.71 0.80 0.12

Netherlands 115 126 3.75 1.63 3.27 1.55 2.34* 0.30Belgium (Flanders) 166 356 3.81 1.73 3.45 1.73 2.18* 0.20France 55 56 4.10 1.79 3.85 1.75 0.71 0.14Switzerland 85 129 3.89 1.71 3.24 1.67 2.73** 0.37

316

D.P.Schmitt

etal.

Table 1. (continued)

Germanyb 294 496 3.81 1.73 3.24 1.77 4.41*** 0.32Austriab 207 260 3.77 1.88 3.69 1.89 0.42 0.04Eastern EuropeEstonia 79 109 3.47 1.67 3.38 1.69 0.34 0.05Latvia 90 103 4.13 1.74 3.36 1.82 3.00** 0.43Lithuania 47 47 3.64 1.67 3.66 1.82 �0.06 �0.01Poland 309 537 3.50 1.93 3.17 1.85 2.42* 0.17Czech Republic 106 129 3.10 1.62 2.61 1.59 2.35* 0.31Slovakia 84 100 3.58 1.67 2.92 1.74 2.60** 0.38Ukraineb 100 100 4.39 1.88 4.84 1.49 �1.85 �0.26Romania 123 128 4.24 1.84 4.15 2.06 0.38 0.05Serbia 100 100 3.63 1.76 3.07 1.75 2.26* 0.32Croatia 113 109 3.59 1.82 3.39 1.73 0.87 0.12Slovenia 73 109 3.63 1.63 3.07 1.40 2.47** 0.37

Southern EuropePortugal 110 142 3.51 1.80 3.17 1.71 1.53 0.19Spain 95 178 3.21 1.74 2.58 1.49 3.15** 0.39Italyb 92 108 3.05 1.69 2.69 1.82 1.48 0.21Malta 133 198 3.75 1.91 3.73 1.93 0.11 0.01Greece 47 182 3.38 1.73 3.42 1.79 �0.12 �0.02Cyprus 24 36 4.00 1.80 3.42 1.89 1.16 0.31

Middle EastTurkeyb 206 206 3.80 1.85 3.08 1.76 4.04*** 0.39Lebanon 124 139 4.07 1.86 3.91 1.76 0.68 0.09Israel 180 214 3.66 1.64 3.31 1.66 2.10* 0.21Jordan 80 195 3.44 1.90 3.53 2.32 �0.32 �0.04

AfricaMorocco 93 89 4.27 2.01 4.03 2.26 0.75 0.11Ethiopiab 140 100 4.69 1.97 5.00 2.10 �1.14 �0.15Tanzania, United Republic of 93 43 3.30 2.05 3.78 2.38 �1.19 �0.22

Gender

andatta

chmentacro

ss62cultu

res317

Table 1. (continued)

Congo, Democratic Republic of theb 126 66 3.13 1.86 2.81 1.94 1.06 0.17Zimbabwe 100 100 3.75 2.19 3.88 2.00 �0.41 �0.06Botswana 97 116 4.08 2.08 4.35 2.05 �0.95 �0.13South Africa 81 81 4.16 1.79 4.15 1.78 0.04 0.01

OceaniaAustralia 201 288 4.03 1.53 3.90 1.52 0.94 0.09New Zealand 116 158 4.17 1.64 3.88 1.63 1.43 0.17Fiji & Pacific Islandsb 81 82 4.20 1.90 4.34 2.05 �0.43 �0.07

South/Southeast AsiaIndia 100 100 4.15 1.84 4.17 1.79 �0.08 �0.01Bangladesh 83 62 4.92 2.17 4.69 1.90 0.64 0.11Malaysia 50 91 4.75 1.50 4.26 1.79 1.59 0.29Indonesia 55 56 4.56 1.55 4.33 1.97 0.64 0.13Philippines 121 161 4.59 1.56 4.02 1.68 2.88** 0.35

East AsiaHong Kong (China) 100 101 4.04 1.31 3.97 1.55 0.34 0.05Taiwan 116 93 4.09 1.74 3.85 1.71 0.99 0.14(South) Korea, Republic of 195 295 3.80 1.69 3.49 1.67 2.03* 0.19Japan 157 102 2.78 1.56 2.29 1.31 2.64** 0.33

Worldwide ISDP Sample: 7,432 10,372 3.88 1.80 3.55 1.81 12.01*** 0.18

Note. Most samples were primarily comprised of college students, some included general members of the community. All samples were convenience samples. Further details on

sampling methods within each culture are available from the authors.a¼Community-based sample; b¼Combination of college students and community-based samples.

*p< .05; **p< .01; ***p< .001.

318

D.P.Schmitt

etal.

members of the community, and two(Finland and Mexico) consisted solely ofcommunity members. All samples were con-venience samples. Most participants wererecruited as volunteers, some received coursecredit for participation, and others received asmall monetary reward for their participa-tion. All samples were administered ananonymous self-report survey, most ofwhich were returned via sealed envelopeand/or the usage of a dropbox. Returnrates for college student samples tended tobe relatively high (around 95%), thoughthis number was lower in some cultures.Return rates for community samples werearound 50%. Not all participants fromChile, Jordan, South Africa, Fiji, India,and Bangladesh received the full ISDP sur-vey, though all samples received the meas-ures used in this paper. Missing data was aproblem in some samples, though this wasgenerally restricted to measures that dealtexplicitly with sexual desire and infidelity—topics not addressed in this paper. Furtherdetails on the sampling and assessment pro-cedures within each of the 62 cultural regionsare provided elsewhere (Schmitt et al., inpress) and are available from the authors.

Procedure

All collaborators were asked to administeran anonymous 9-page survey to at least 100men and 100 women. As seen in Table 1,most collaborators reached this approxi-mate sample size of men and women.Participants were provided with a briefdescription of the study, including the fol-lowing written instructions:

This questionnaire is entirely voluntary.All your responses will be kept confidentialand your personal identity will remainanonymous. No identifying information isrequested on this survey, nor will any suchinformation be added later to this survey. Ifany of the questions make you uncomfort-able, feel free not to answer them. You arefree to withdraw from this study at any timefor any reason. This series of questionnairesshould take about 20 minutes to complete.Thank you for your participation.

The full instructional set provided byeach collaborator varied, however, andwas adapted to fit the specific culture andtype of sample. Details on incentives andcover stories used across samples are avail-able from the authors.

Measures

Language and translation procedures. In21 samples the survey was administered inEnglish; it was translated into 29 other lan-guages as well. More specifically, the surveywas administered in English to participantsfrom Canada, the United States, the UnitedKingdom, Malta, Lebanon, all Africancountries except the Congo, Oceania, thePhilippines, and Hong Kong. The survey wasadministered in Spanish to participants fromSpain and all South American countriesexcept Brazil. It was administered in Germanto those from Switzerland, Germany, andAustria, and in French to those from FrenchCanada, France, and the Congo. Elsewhere itwas administered in a variety of other lan-guages indigenous to the regions.

Researchers from cultural regions whereEnglish is not the primary language wereasked to use a translation/back-translationprocess and administer the ISDP in thenative language. This procedure typicallyinvolved the primary collaborator translat-ing the measures into the native language ofthe participants, and then having a secondperson back-translate the measures intoEnglish. Differences between the originalEnglish and the back-translation were dis-cussed, and mutual agreements were madeas to the most appropriate translation. Thisprocedure tries to balance the competingneeds of making the translation meaningfuland naturally readable to the native partici-pants, while preserving the integrity of theoriginal measure and its constructs (Brislin,1980). Samples from Morocco, Ethiopia,Fiji, the Philippines, and Hong Kong wereadministered the survey in English, but cer-tain terms and phrases were annotated toclarify what were thought to be confusingwords for the participants. The translationof the ISDP survey into the Flemish dialect


of Dutch used only a translation procedure,as this involved mainly word variantchanges from the original Dutch. Finally,pilot studies were conducted in several test-ing sites, in part to clarify translation andcomprehension concerns.

Demographic measure. Each sample wasfirst presented with a demographic measureentitled ‘‘Confidential Personal Informa-tion.’’ This measure included questionsabout gender, age, date of birth, weight,height, sexual orientation, current relation-ship status, socioeconomic status as a child,socioeconomic status now, area in whichone was raised (rural, urban, suburban),total number of years of education, currentreligious affiliation, degree of religiosity,ethnic background, and political attitude(conservative versus liberal). Not all ques-tions were included in all samples (e.g., dateof birth was considered too invasive in somecultures; some cultures had no concept of‘‘suburban’’), and all collaborators wereasked to adapt the demographic questionsto obtain the most appropriate demo-graphic variables for their culture (e.g., eth-nicity and religious affiliation categoriesvaried across cultures; political attitude ter-minology varied across cultures).

Romantic attachment measure. All sam-ples were administered the two-dimension/four-category measure of adult romanticattachment called the Relationship Ques-tionnaire (RQ; Bartholomew & Horowitz,1991). This measure of attachment has onesingle-item secure romantic attachmentscale, and three single-item insecure scalesincluding a dismissing romantic attach-ment. Each single-item scale uses a 7-pointLikert-type rating format ranging from1¼ doesn’t describe me to 7¼ very accur-ately describes me, with 4 as the midpointof each scale. We used this measure of dis-missing romantic attachment because theRQ is relatively brief and has been validatedin several studies and because it has beendescribed as useful for examining the rela-tionship of attachment to external cultural

criteria (Bartholomew, 1994; Griffin &Bartholomew, 1994). Although some mayconsider it a limitation of the currentstudy, single-item scales are increasinglybeing viewed as psychometrically soundalternatives to longer, more redundantmulti-item scales (Barrett & Paltiel, 1996).As the key analyses in this study are doneon data aggregated at the cultural levelrather than on the answers of individualrespondents, the loss of reliability resultingfrom a single-item measure is less problem-atic. The complete RQ dismissing attach-ment item in English reads: ‘‘I amcomfortable without close emotional rela-tionships. It is very important to me to feelindependent and self-sufficient, and I prefernot to depend on others or have othersdepend on me.’’

Other measures of the ISDP. Participantsin the ISDP were also asked to completeseveral measures not used in the present ana-lyses. This included a measure of global self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965) and a measure ofpersonality traits (Benet-Martinez & John,1998). Multiple sexuality measures wereadministered, including measures of short-term mating tendencies (Schmitt et al.,2001), the sociosexual orientation inventory(Simpson & Gangestad, 1991), a survey ofhuman mate-poaching experiences (Schmitt& Buss, 2001), and the ‘‘Sexy Seven’’ traitmeasure of sexual self-description (Schmitt& Buss, 2000).

Archival measures. To test the secondand third evolutionary and social rolehypotheses, several archival data sets wereused. First, there were four measures ofhigh stress environments. The first waspathogen stress load, computed by sum-ming the incidence of seven infectious dis-eases, including leishmanias, malaria, andleprosy (for computational details, seeGangestad & Buss, 1993). It was assumedthat the higher the level of pathogens, thegreater the environmental and reproductivestress experienced by a culture. The secondstress measure was data on HIV/AIDS rates


obtained from United Nations Develop-ment Programme (2001). Scores fromSerbia and Taiwan were not available. Cul-tures with high levels of HIV/AIDS wereconsidered under higher stress than thosewith lower levels. Life expectancy at birth(or mortality rate) was the third stress meas-ure (UN Development Programme). It canbe a good indicator of environmental stressand general health of a culture, as it reflectsboth the overall exposure people have todiseases and environmental dangers, aswell as the quality of healthcare a nationprovides to help reduce the harsh conse-quences of disease exposure (again, scoreswere not available for Serbia or Taiwan).The final stress measure was the HumanDevelopment Index, defined as the achieve-ment of a nation in basic human capabil-ities, including health, longevity, education,and a decent standard of living (UN Devel-opment Programme). Those nations withlower levels of human development can beseen as having higher levels of environmen-tal stress. Fertility rates obtained from theUnited Nations Development Programmewere used to test the third evolutionaryhypothesis.

To test the second Sex Role Hypothesis,an index of cultural masculinity wasobtained from Hofstede’s (2001) classicIBM study of attitudes and values. Highlevels of cultural masculinity are associatedwith the differential socialization of childrenand an emphasis on separate social roles andstructures among adults, and is highlyrelated to sex-role ideology (Hofstede, 2001).To test the third Sex Role Hypothesis, twomeasures were employed. The GenderEmpowerment Measure (GEM), availablefor 36 nations, was obtained from theUnitedNations Human Development Report (UNDevelopment Programme, 2001). The GEMis based on the degree to which women haveequal access to economic, political, and deci-sion-making roles in a culture. As noted byEagly and Wood (1999), the GEM is ‘‘apurer indicator of equal participation in eco-nomic and political life’’ (p. 417) than othergender equity measures. The Gender-related

Development Index (GDI) was obtainedfrom the United Nations Human Develop-ment Report. The GDI is similar to theHuman Development Index in that it is anindex of a nation’s capability in providinghealth, education, and welfare to its citizens.However, the GDI penalizes nations if menand women have unequal levels of humandevelopment in that nation (UN Develop-ment Programme, 2001).

Results and Discussion

Are men universally more dismissing thanwomen across cultures?

A primary objective of this research was toevaluate the prediction of both Evolution-ary and Social Role theories that genderdifferences in the dismissing form of roman-tic attachment should consistently emergeacross a diverse range of cultures. Listed inTable 1 are the mean levels of dismissingromantic attachment for men and womenfrom the 62 cultural regions of the ISDP. Atfirst glance, men’s and women’s dismissingromantic attachment levels appear to varyconsiderably across cultures, with the high-est levels of men’s dismissing attachment inBangladesh (M¼ 4.92) and the lowest levelsin Argentina (M¼ 2.76). For men, thevariability within cultures of dismissingattachment—expressed in standard devi-ations—averaged 1.80. For women, the high-est level of dismissing romantic attachmentwas found in Ethiopia (M¼ 5.00) and thelowest level in Argentina (M¼ 2.21). Simi-lar to men, for women the variability withincultures averaged around 1.80. Overall, wefound a strong positive association amongmen’s and women’s dismissing attachmentlevels across the 62 cultures. Using averagesof the 56 nations, men’s level of dismissingromantic attachment levels correlatedpositively with women’s level of dismiss-ing romantic attachment, r(54)¼þ 0.87,p< .001.

Even though men’s and women’s scoreswere positively correlated across cultures,small to moderate gender differences in dis-missing romantic attachment emerged in


most cultures. As seen in Table 1, we com-puted effect sizes (d) within each culturalregion as an expression of the magnitudeof the difference between men’s andwomen’s levels of dismissing romanticattachment. Previous research (e.g., Bartho-lomew & Horowitz, 1991) found that gen-der differences in dismissing attachmentwere moderate in size (around d¼ 0.50).The five largest gender differences in dis-missing attachment that we found were inUSA-Hawaii (d¼ 0.43), Latvia (d¼ 0.43),Northern Ireland (d¼ 0.42), Chile(d¼ 0.39), and Spain (d¼ 0.39). All ofthese differences approached a moderatemagnitude of effect (Cohen, 1988), similarto previous research findings (Bartholomew& Horowitz). However, for most culturalregions gender differences were small inmagnitude (around d¼ 0.20), with only 43of 62 cultural regions (69%) possessing agender difference greater than d¼ 0.10.Moreover, in only 23 of 62 cultures (37%)did the observed gender differences reachthe level of statistical significance, thoughinadequate sample sizes may have obscuredsignificance levels of small effect sizes insome regions. For example, with statisticalpower (b) set at 0.80 and statistical signifi-cance (a) at 0.05, to ensure that a differenceof d¼ 0.20 would be found statistically sig-nificant, a sample size of more 300 men and300 women would have been necessary(Kirk, 1999). Our samples averagedapproximately 100 men and 100 women,suggesting that we may have sampled toofew participants to always capture small(d¼ 0.20) gender differences as statisticallysignificant. A few cultures possess the oppo-site of the predicted pattern, with womenslightly more dismissive than men (e.g.,Ukraine, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Bots-wana). However, these differences areneither significant nor do the findingsapproach moderate levels of magnitude.Overall, these findings lead us to tentativelyconclude that greater male dismissiveness isa ‘‘near universal’’ of human nature(Brown, 1991; Gaulin, 1997), but thatsome features of culture seem to attenuateits expression.

Using a 2� 10 factorial design with gen-der (male, female) and the 10 ‘‘worldregion’’ groupings shown in Table 1 as inde-pendent variables, we found a main effect ofgender on dismissing attachment such thatmen were significantly more dismissing thanwomen, F(1, 17,614)¼ 90.75, p< .001,Z2¼ 0.01. However, the magnitude of thiseffect as indexed by ‘‘partial eta squared’’was small.1 According to Cohen (1988),partial eta squared (Z2) is considered smallif 0.01, medium if 0.06, and large above0.14. We also found that world region hasa small but significant main effect, F(9,17,614)¼ 47.59, p< .001, Z2¼ 0.02, and wefound that gender significantly interactswith world region, F(9, 17,614)¼ 4.26,p< .001, Z2¼ 0.002. As shown in Figure 1,gender differences in dismissive romanticattachment are not evident in Africa, andthe effects of gender are smaller in Oceaniaand East Asia than in other world regions.These regional differences are all significantaccording to multiple post hoc statisticalanalyses (e.g., Tukey’s HSD). From theseresults it must be concluded that it is onlya ‘‘near universal’’ of human psychology formen to be more dismissing in romanticattachment orientation than women. Menare more dismissing than women in almostall cultures, but these differences are usuallyquite small in magnitude. EvolutionaryHypothesis 1 and Social Role Hypothesis1, therefore, received only partial supportfrom our ISDP analyses.

What causes gender differences in dismissingromantic attachment to vary across cultures?

Evolutionary Hypothesis 2 stated that gen-der differences in dismissing romanticattachment should be lower in cultures with

1. Using a similar analytic approach, we foundsignficant main effects of gender such that menare more secure, F(1, 17,594)¼ 13.42, p< .001,Z2¼ 0.001, and preoccupied, F(1, 17,603)¼ 43.34,p< .001, Z2¼ 0.002, than women. In contrast,women are signficantly more fearful than men,F(1, 17,589)¼ 69.65, p< .001, Z2¼ 0.004. However,these effect sizes are trivial in magnitude comparedto the observed gender differences in dismissingromantic attachment.


high-stress environments. We examinedEvolutionary Hypothesis 2 by relating ourobserved gender differences in dismissingromantic attachment to four socioculturalindexes: pathogen stress load, HIV/AIDSrates, life expectancies, and the HumanDevelopment Index. As shown at the top ofTable 2, the pathogen stress load is unrelatedto the difference betweenmen’s and women’slevels of dismissing attachment,r(18)¼� 0.01. Thus, this finding failed tosupport Evolutionary Hypothesis 2. How-ever, support for the hypothesis was foundin the other three indexes.

As predicted, in nations with higherstress levels (i.e., higher HIV/AIDS rates)the difference between men’s and women’sdismissing romantic attachment is reduced,r(52)¼� 0.43, p< .001. Life expectancy atbirth is also strongly correlated with the

World RegionsE

ast A

sia

Sou

th/S

E A

sia

Oce

ania

Afr

ica

Mid

dle

Eas

t

Wes

tern

Eur

ope

Sou

th A

mer

ica

Nor

th A

mer

ica

Dis

mis

sing

Rom

antic

Atta

chm

ent

7.0

6.0

5.0

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

Male

Female

Sou

ther

n E

urop

e

Eas

tern

Eur

ope

Figure 1. Dismissing romantic attachmentscores of men and women across the 10world regions of the International SexualityDescription Project.

Table 2. Dismissing romantic attachment correlated with sociocultural characteristics

Dismissing romantic attachment

Sociocultural characteristics Men WomenGenderdifference

Evolutionary psychology predictorsPathogen load (n¼ 20)

(Gangestad & Buss, 1993)�0.05 0.01 �0.01

HIV/AIDS rate among adults (n¼ 54)(United Nations Development Programme, 2001)

0.08 0.28* �0.43***

Life expectancy at birth (n¼ 54)(United Nations Statistics Division, 2001)

�0.29* �0.46*** 0.47***

Human development index (n¼ 54)(United Nations Development Programme, 2001)

�0.31* �0.48*** 0.48***

National fertility rate (n¼ 54)(United Nations Development Programme, 2001)

0.24* 0.38** �0.38**

Social role theory predictorsCultural masculinity (n¼ 49)

(Hofstede, 2001)�0.06 �0.09 0.12

Gender empowerment measure (n¼ 36)(United Nations Development Programme, 2001)

�0.21 �0.19 0.08

Gender development index (n¼ 53)(United Nations Development Programme, 2001)

�0.31* �0.48*** 0.49***

Note. Correlations in the first two columns represent the nation-level dismissing attachment means of men and

women, respectively, related to sociocultural indicator variables. Correlations in the ‘‘Gender difference’’ column

represent the magnitude of nation-level gender differences (d) related to sociocultural indicator variables.

*p< .05; **p< .01; ***p< .001.


difference between men’s and women’slevels of dismissing attachment,r(52)¼þ 0.47, p< .001 (see Figure 2). Thisrelationship suggests that as environmentalharshness and stress increases (indicated bya lower life expectancy), the gender differ-ence in dismissing attachment decreases, aspredicted. Finally, with the fourth indicatorof stress, the lower the human developmentindex for a country, the smaller the differ-ence between men’s and women’s dismiss-ing romantic attachment, r(52)¼þ 0.48,p< .001, just as predicted by EvolutionaryHypothesis 2.

It is also worth noting that the relation-ship between life expectancy and dismissingattachment levels is, as predicted byChisholm (1996), strongly negative inwomen, r(52)¼� 0.46, p< .001. Moreover,the strength of this relationship appears tobe somewhat lower in men, r(52)¼� 0.29,p< .05 (see Table 2). Although in this case

the difference between men’s and women’scorrelations fails to reach significance usingFisher’s r0 to z transformation, z(52)¼ 1.00,p¼ .16, this general trend may still be seenas in line with the notion that variations inwomen’s dismissing attachment are whatdrive the shift in gender difference acrosscultures.

Evolutionary Hypothesis 3 stated thatgender differences in dismissing romanticattachment should be lower in cultureswith higher fertility rates. We correlatedgender differences in dismissing romanticattachment with the national fertility rateof 52 nations for which data were providedby the United Nations (UN DevelopmentProgramme, 2001). Fertility rates wererecorded such that higher levels indicatemore children are born per female in a cul-ture. As shown in Table 2, we found a sig-nificant negative association betweenfertility rates and the magnitude of gender

Life Expectancy at Birth

8075706560555045403530

Gen

der

Diff

eren

ce (

d) in

Dis

mis

sing

Atta

chm

ent

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

–0.1

–0.2

–0.3

Congo, D.R.

South Africa

Zimbabwe

Botswana

Tanzania

India LithuaniaJordan

FijiGreece

Malta

Ukraine

Ethiopia

Bangladesh

Bolivia

Morocco Indonesia

Lebanon

Estonia

Romania Finland Austria

Australia

France

New Zealand

Croatia

Poland

Peru Brazil

Latvia

Turkey

Philippines

Spain Switzerland

Japan

Slovakia Chile

Slovenia Argentina Serbia

Malaysia

Mexico

Czech R.

Italy South Korea

Portugal

USA Israel

Belgium

United Kingdom

CanadaNetherlands

GermanyCyprus

Figure 2. Gender differences (d) in dismissing romantic attachment related to lifeexpectancy at birth across 54 nations.


difference between men’s and women’s dis-missing attachment, r(52)¼� 0.38, p< .01.This confirms Evolutionary Hypothesis 3 inthat cultures with higher fertility levels tendto have reduced differences between men’sand women’s dismissing romantic attach-ment levels. We also found that fertilityrates were positively associated with dis-missing romantic attachment in men,r(52)¼ 0.24, p< .05, and slightly more soin women, r(52)¼ 0.38, p< .01. Again, thistrend seems to support the view that varia-tion in dismissing attachment gender differ-ences across cultures is more strongly drivenby variations in women’s level of dismissingromantic attachment.

What aspects of social structure causegender differences in dismissing romanticattachment to vary across cultures?

Social Role Hypothesis 2 stated that genderdifferences in dismissing romantic attach-ment should be lower in cultures with mod-ern or more progressive sex-role ideologies.As shown in Table 2, we tested Social RoleHypothesis 2 by correlating gender differ-ences in dismissing romantic attachmentwith the overall level of cultural masculinityacross the 49 nations that were part of bothHofstede’s (2001) IBM data set and the cur-rent ISDP survey. We found that genderdifferences in dismissive attachment areunrelated to cultural masculinity levels,r(47)¼þ 0.12, p¼ .21. The correlation is inthe predicted direction, however, withhigher cultural masculinity scores asso-ciated with larger gender differences. Over-all, Social Role Hypothesis 2 received littleempirical support from our study.

Social Role Hypothesis 3 stated that gen-der differences in dismissing romanticattachment should be lower in cultureswhere women have access to political andeconomic power. We related gender differ-ences in dismissive attachment to an indexof political and economic equality acrossnations, the Gender Empowerment Meas-ure (UN Development Programme, 2001).As shown in Table 2, the GEM is not sig-nificantly associated with gender differences

in dismissing attachment. The correlationthat was found is in the positive direction,r(34)¼þ 0.08, p¼ .33, suggesting that if arelationship does exist, women gainingmore access to economic and politicalpower is associated with greater differencesbetween men and women. Thus, our find-ings are not supportive of Social RoleHypothesis 3.

A second test of Social Role Hypothesis3 came from relating gender differences indismissing romantic attachment to the levelof gender development across nations. Asseen in Table 2, we found that the differ-ences in men’s and women’s levels ofdismissing romantic attachment tendedto increase as the GDI increased,r(51)¼þ 0.49, p< .001. Because the differ-ences between men and women increase aswomen gain economic equality, our find-ings seemed to run directly counter to SocialRole Hypothesis 3.

One limitation of findings reported inTable 2 is that the two perspectives, evolu-tionary and social role theory, were evalu-ated using varying numbers of nations. Inorder to more directly contrast the evolu-tionary and social role hypotheses, we con-ducted a series of partial correlations usingcommon subsets of cultures. For example,we correlated life expectancy scores withgender differences in dismissing attachment,after partialling out the effects of culturalmasculinity (we highlight cultural masculin-ity because it provided the most supportfor social role hypotheses). This partial cor-relation, based on the 46 nations for whichwe had all three indexes, was r(42)¼þ 0.49,p< .001. This finding suggests that Evolu-tionary Hypothesis 2 is equally supportedafter the effects of cultural masculinity werepartialled out. Conversely, we correlatedcultural masculinity with gender differencesin dismissing attachment after partiallingout the effects of life expectancy. Wefound partialling out the effects of lifeexpectancy reduced the cultural masculinitycorrelation to r(42)¼þ 0.09, p¼ .28. Simi-lar results were obtained from computingpartial correlations and stepwise regressionson all other evolutionary and social role


predictors. Overall, these findings suggestthat the social role variables are relativelypoor predictors of gender differences indismissing romantic attachment and donot add further incremental variancebeyond that of the more powerful evolu-tionary predictors.

Limitations and future research directions

The survey responses that form the basis ofthis study are, in many ways, of limitedvalue. For one, the reliance on self-reportas the sole means of assessment is a seriouslimitation, particularly with the sensitivenature of romantic attachment styles(Whitely, 1996). It is true that anonymitytends to increase the validity of sex-relatedsurveys, especially when compared to face-to-face interviews (Andersen & Broffitt,1988). Nevertheless, even with guaranteesof anonymity the cross-cultural nature ofthe ISDP raises additional questions aboutsurvey response veridicality (Brislin, 1993).Any observed cultural differences, forexample, may be due not only to a realcultural disparity on attachment, but alsoto inappropriate translations, biased sam-pling, or the nonidentical response stylesprevalent in various cultures (van de Vijver& Leung, 2000).

The concerns about sampling raise theadditional issue of generalizability. Theconvenience sampling techniques utilizedin the ISDP seriously limit the representa-tiveness of our national attachment profiles.Because the ISDP samples were primarilycollege students, any generalizationsbeyond college-aged populations would beinappropriate. On the other hand, becauseall nations were represented by college-agedsamples, any differences between sampleswill tend to elucidate the effects of culture,and not other age-related demographic con-founds. Ultimately, future research takingfactors such as sampling and responsebiases into account will be needed to fullyverify the psychometric value of nation-level scores on the Relationship Question-naire.

Another limitation involves the represen-tativeness of high-stress cultures. For exam-ple, in the ISDP samples from Africa, mostparticipants were college students. Unlikemany Western cultures, college studentsare rather unrepresentative of nationalAfricanpopulations. Indeed, African studentsfrom Botswana, the Democratic Republicof the Congo, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwemay constitute a subportion of their cul-tures that is especially exempt from highrates of ecological stressors. Future researchin which truly representative samples from awider range of high-stress cultures will helpto more accurately relate United Nationdatabases of stress to large-scale anonym-ous sex surveys.

Conclusion

We conclude from our ISDP findings thatgender differences in dismissing romanticattachment are only a ‘‘near universal’’ ofhuman culture. In Western cultures, pre-vious research had profiled men as signifi-cantly more dismissing than women (e.g.,Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). Weencountered this general trend among West-ern cultures as well, but we also revealedthat in non-Western cultures men are some-times only slightly more dismissing thanwomen. In some African and Oceaniccultures—including Ethiopia, Tanzania,Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Fiji—womenare slightly more dismissing than men.These findings seem to run counter to theexpectations of evolutionary psychologyand social role theories which predictedgender differences in dismissing romanticattachment should be culturally universal.Still, most cultures display small to moder-ate gender differences in dismissing roman-tic attachment, suggesting that greater maledismissiveness is a near universal of humanpsychology (Brown, 1991). Consequently,our efforts shifted to understanding whatfeatures of culture might accentuate orattenuate gender differences in romanticdismissiveness.

Evolutionary psychological theories ofromantic attachment and human mating


(Belsky et al., 1991; Chisholm, 1996;Gangestad & Simpson, 2000) have suggestedthat in cultures where environmental andreproductive stressors are relatively high,women should tend to engage in moreshort-term mating, and presumably womenshould tend to develop more dismissingromantic attachment orientations (Kirkpa-trick,1998). In the ISDP, short-term matingis associated with high levels of dismissingattachment (Schmitt, 2003b). In combina-tion with men’s preferential tendencytoward dismissing romantic attachmentand short-term mating in general (Buss &Schmitt, 1993; Schmitt et al., 2001), this ledto the expectation that men’s and women’sdismissing attachment orientations willconverge and become more similar in cul-tures with high-stress reproductive environ-ments. We found some support for thesehypotheses by relating the magnitude ofgender differences in dismissing attachmentto sociocultural indicators from previousresearch. For example, we confirmed thatin cultures with low life expectancy, poorhuman development, and high fertilityrates (an index of reproductive stress), gen-der differences in dismissing attachment areattenuated, presumably because womenbecome more similar to men in short-termmating tendencies and express concomi-tantly higher levels of dismissing romanticattachment.

Social role theory led to the predictionthat gender differences should be minimizedin cultures with more modern sex-role ideol-ogies. Because social role theories posit thatgender differences come from the stronggender roles that men and women are chan-neled into, more traditional sex-role ideolo-gies should be associated with larger genderdifferences. We found little evidence in sup-port of this hypothesis. In most instances,the trend ran counter to this theoreticalperspective. Greater political and economicequality, for example, is at times associatedwith larger gender differences in dismissingattachment across cultures. This perplexingfinding is not unique to the ISDP dataset,however. Several cross-cultural studies (e.g.,Costa et al., 2001; Williams & Best, 1990)

have shown that more progressive sex-rolecultures tend to have larger gender differ-ences in self-perceptions. For instance, in arecent study of personality traits across 26cultures, it was noted that ‘‘the social rolemodel would have hypothesized that genderdifferences would be attenuated in progres-sive countries, when in fact they were mag-nified’’ (Costa et al., 2001, p. 329).

Future research is needed to understandhow a culture’s tendency to treat men andwomen more similarly unexpectedly leadsto greater differences between men andwomen. One speculation is that in cultureswhere men and women are more highlydifferentiated, they fail to even comparethemselves across genders when completingself-report surveys. In cultures where menand women are free to inhabit differentsocial roles, on the other hand, people aremore likely to compare themselves to bothgenders and sex differences are therebymore likely to surface. For example, Costaand his colleagues (2001) speculated that,‘‘in traditional cultures, where clear sex roledifferences are prescribed, self-descriptionsare based on comparisons of the self withothers of the same gender . . . in moderncultures men and women may comparethemselves to others of both genders, andthus reveal true gender differences’’ (p. 329).

In sum, we found that gender differencesin dismissing romantic attachment are not apancultural universal. In a few cultures,women appear equal to men in romanticdismissiveness. In most cultures, when mendo prove more dismissing than women, thedifference is usually only small in magni-tude. We also found that variation in genderdifferences across cultures is associated withseveral sociocultural characteristics. Specif-ically, men and women are more similar incultures with higher mortality, fewerresources, and higher fertility rates. Thesefindings are in accord with some evolution-ary theories of romantic attachment andhuman mating strategies, though not allfindings support the evolutionary psych-ology perspective. We failed to find muchsupport for the social role perspective, inthat men’s and women’s economic equality


is unassociated with gender differences indismissing romantic attachment. Futureanalyses in which the findings presentedhere are related to other sociocultural

characteristics may help to disentangle thecomplex relationships among romanticattachment, human mating strategies, andsex-role ideologies.

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