East Indians in Canada: Changing conceptions of love.

When people from India immigrate to Canada, they experience conflicts between Indian and Canadian definitions of appropriate choices in intimate heterosexual relationships. Changes in attitudes regarding choices for a marriage partner due to acculturation may be influenced by a number of factors including the relative individualism/collectivism of both heritage and host cultures, the length of time spent in the host culture, strength of ethnic identification, idiocentrism/allocentrism, and gender. The present study examined the relationship between these factors and the attitudes toward love and mate preference in heterosexual relationships held by East Indians in Canada. One hundred and twenty-five unmarried, heterosexual participants of East Indian ancestry who were fluent in English, had completed secondary school, and were between the ages of seventeen and thirty-two were recruited from Windsor, Toronto, Guelph, Hamilton, and Montreal, and completed measures of ethnic identity (Phinney, 1992), cultural orientation (Bierbrauer, Meyer, & Wolfradt, 1994), mate preference (Buss et al., 1990), and passionate and companionate love (Hatfield & Rapson, 1996; Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986). (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1997 .H86. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 37-01, page: 0384. Adviser: Shelagh Towson. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1997