Interdependence as a Mediator between Culture and Interpersonal Closeness for Euro-Canadians and Turks

Abstract

The present study examines cross-cultural differences in interpersonal closeness to different people and whether these differences can be explained by independent and interdependent self-construal. Turkish and Euro-Canadian samples of university students were asked to indicate how close they feel and how close they ideally would like to be to family members, romantic partners, friends, and acquaintances. As predicted, Turkish participants scored higher on interdependent self-construal, whereas there was no culture difference on independent self-construal scores. Turkish participants rated their actual and ideal closeness with others higher than Euro-Canadian participants did. Both Turkish and Euro-Canadian participants reported feeling closest and ideally wanting to be closest to their romantic partner, and then to their families and friends, followed by acquaintances. Turkish participants desired more closeness with family members and acquaintances than Euro-Canadian participants did. Interdependent self-construal was found to partially mediate the relationships between culture and actual closeness scores forfamily, friends, and acquaintances and between culture and ideal scores for family and acquaintances.