Culture, Family and Feelings of Closeness

Empirical studies show that a sense of belonging and closeness are important to social satisfaction and mental health. Similarly, feeling lonely can compromise life satisfaction and even impair global motor function. My study, designed on a series of questionnaires, investigates feelings of loneliness and closeness as they occur in students from either one-child family or multiple-child family homes of either Chinese or American culture. I hypothesize that culture is the most important source of any individual differences, and that family configuration will have different effects within Chinese or American culture. I predict that cultural emphasis on collectivism as in China will be strongly associated with higher closeness and loneliness, while emphasis on individualism as in the United States will show the opposite pattern. The results of my study may enhance our understanding of how culture and family shape a person's relationships with others.