A cross-cultural examination of the relation of marital communication behavior to marital satisfaction.

Numerous studies have examined the communication behaviors of Western, primarily North American, couples and have demonstrated a robust and reliable association between marital satisfaction and couple communication. However, there has been relatively less attention given to the generalizability of these findings to non-Western couples. To address this issue, the authors conducted an observational study of marital communication among couples from 3 different cultural groups: 50 White American couples, 52 Pakistani couples in Pakistan, and 48 immigrant Pakistani couples in America. The results show that positive and negative communication behaviors were associated with marital satisfaction within each of the 3 cultural groups. However, the American group's marital satisfaction was more strongly related to marital communication behaviors than was that of the Pakistani group and, to a lesser extent, the immigrant group.