Article Critique



Intercultural Couples’ Internal Stress, Relationship Satisfaction, and Dyadic Coping

Paris Ramsay

Georgia State University

Article Critique of “Intercultural Couples’ Internal Stress, Relationship Satisfaction, and Dyadic Coping”

The article is a research study with a cross-sectional design highlighting the internal stress (levels of stress in a relationship). However, the internal stress is negatively associated with stress communication, and relationship satisfaction. Although, the best possible way for this is to be arranged in Dyadic Coping (the process by which most of the couples communicate about stress through stress communication or assisting their partners through multiple strategies to cope together). The research design was cross-sectional which involved a total of 17, 856 participants to be surveyed from the various online sources. The participants were intercultural people who have been in a heterosexual relationship with their partner for more than six months.

The results implicated the positive effects of DC on their intercultural relationship internal stress and stress communication on their relationship satisfaction. There were no findings on the association between the negative dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction. The results showed a higher number of relationship satisfaction and lower levels of internal stress in the partners and the couples who showed more engagement in stress communication. However, upon the analysis of the article and the study method, there were several issues being examined. The research was conducted on the eligibility on only intercultural relationships, which shouldn’t have been. The study only focused on the relationship stress communication and its effect on the relationship satisfaction, although there are other numbers of factors which largely impact the relationship communication such as the stability of the partner through racial consideration, their recognition on the dyadic coping and agreeing power towards this (Levenson, 1985).. Throughout the whole study, there were continuous repeating of the terms associated with the variables of the study.

The findings of the study implicated the focus on the intercultural couples who faced the internal stress and the effect, whether Positive or Negative Dyadic Coping, on their relationship satisfaction. The study used the approach to focus only variables that were just focusing their effect on the intercultural relationships. There are several studies which have reported the effect of stress communication on the internal stress of the relationship satisfaction. The flaw can be improved by the effect of the individual’s perception of their intercultural differentiation approach and a questionnaire designed which assesses such problems. Along with the perception, stress communication shouldn't have been the point of the study. Focus on one variable will result in the precise assessment of the data collected and an easy implication in the research results.

The study followed a systematic translation model to follow the complications of the intercultural stress. The study only collected 73 samples which makes the sample size too small to be implacable on a general scale. Most of the studies which have been published in the past focus on the sample size more than 200 to generalize the study results and its implications. The study highlighted the intercultural couples that were only White/European-American variation. The intercultural approach targeted was very short. For the generalization of the sample studied, the intercultural should have also targeted other intercultural couples which might have included White-Black, Asian-Black, White-Asian couples to appropriately generalize the study.

There were several issues in the methodological ways to conclude the study, which included the sample size (73), intercultural approach only targeting the White/European-American as the variation in the cultures. The methodological issues in the study can be rationalized through an increase in the sample size and following, a change in the couples that were used as the intercultural approach targeting.

References

Holzapfel, J., Randall, A. K., Tao, C., & Iida, M. (2018). Intercultural Couples’ Internal Stress, Relationship Satisfaction, and Dyadic Coping. Interpersonal: An International Journal on Personal Relationships, 12(2), 145–163. https://doi.org/10.5964/ijpr.v12i2.302

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