ABSTRACT
Our work has focused on cultural perspectives on heterosexual love, including issues pertaining to love and interdependence and love and views of self. When we first considered these issues in the 1980s (K.L.Dion & K.K.Dion, 1988), little research was being conducted on the cultural context of close relationships by social or cross-cultural psychologists in Canada or the United States, who studied topics such as attraction, love, relationship development, or relationship maintenance. We contended, then as now, that social psychological phenomena such as love and intimate relationships can be more fully understood by considering the societal and cultural context, particularly family structure and societal norms pertaining to close relationships.
