Immigrants’ Shared Beliefs on Love in the United States: Insights from a Cultural Consensus Theory Approach
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Love is shaped by cultural context. The Cultural Consensus Theory (CCT) framework can be used to explore shared beliefs within cultures. Immigrants are a growing subculture within the United States that may have diverse views on love. This study investigated the shared beliefs of everyday love among 230 U.S. adults who had immigrated from 78 countries; participants were aged 19–72 years (M = 37.82, SD = 11.38). We aimed to (1) assess whether U.S. immigrants come to a consensus on what love means in daily life, (2) explore the details of U.S. immigrants’ shared beliefs on love while comparing those beliefs with the general U.S. population, and (3) examine the individual differences in decision-making styles. Using the Extended Condorcet Model and Bayesian psychometric methods for CCT analysis, we found that U.S. immigrants converge on a single-culture consensus on love and have similar beliefs as the general U.S. population on a set of 60 everyday love scenarios. We also found differences between immigrants and the general population for some scenarios. Lastly, we found that individual differences (personality factors, integration index, education, country of origin) were associated with people’s ability to know the consensus and guessing tendencies. While beliefs on love are mostly shared among people from both majority and immigrant populations, this research highlights how cultural background can inform nuances in shared beliefs on love.
