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Divorce can be predicted by interactions between cultural and personal values, study finds

Divorce, the legal dissolution of marriage, can be driven by a variety of factors, ranging from changes in the economic status or health conditions of spouses to contrasting values. The end of a marriage can often be challenging to process. Thus, it can have adverse effects on the well-being and mental health of ex-spouses.

On average, the rates of divorce worldwide have increased over the past century. Improved understanding of the primary factors that prompt people to dissolve a marriage could help to devise more effective couples and marriage counseling strategies, potentially contributing to a reduction in divorce rates.

Sari Mentser and Lilach Sagiv, two researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, recently carried out a study specifically exploring the relationship between people's values and divorce. Their findings, in Communications Psychology, suggest that interaction between spouses' cultural and personal values can predict divorce.

"We investigate the role of values in motivating the dissolution of marriage," wrote Mentser and Sagiv wrote in their paper. "Drawing on comprehensive value frameworks, we study how cultural values explain cross-national variation in divorce, how personal values explain further variation within nations, and how the two value systems interact together."

Individuals worldwide are known to have a variety of cultural and personal values. Cultural values are essentially shared beliefs connected to societal norms, which can emphasize individual freedom (i.e., autonomy) or social stability and tradition.

Personal values, on the other hand, are beliefs influencing the behavior of specific people. For instance, one person could value independence, new experiences and pleasure more than another, who could instead be more driven by a respect for traditions and social conformity.

Mentser and Sagiv analyzed the data collected as part of three past archival studies, which involved over 100,000 participants residing in more than 55 different countries worldwide. The researchers looked at survey responses provided by these participants, focusing on their attitudes towards specific aspects of relationships and divorce, and their marriage history.

"We found that divorce was more justifiable and likely in nations emphasizing autonomy values and among individuals ascribing importance to self-direction, stimulation, and hedonism values," wrote Mentser and Sagiv. "Divorce was less justifiable and likely in nations emphasizing embeddedness values, and among individuals ascribing importance to tradition and conformity values."

The results of the team's analysis suggest that cultural and personal values interact to predict divorce. Specifically, they show that cultural values prioritizing autonomy (i.e., individual freedom) are linked to higher divorce rates, while those prioritizing social stability and tradition are linked to lower divorce rates.

Similarly, the team also found that individuals who placed a greater value on independence, new stimuli and pleasure were more likely to divorce. Meanwhile, those who valued tradition and social harmony more were less likely to dissolve their marriage. Interestingly, the effect of these personal values on divorce appeared to be stronger in countries with a culture that emphasizes autonomy, which hints at an interaction between cultural and personal values.

"Overall, the impact of personal values was stronger the more the culture emphasizes autonomy (vs. embeddedness) values," wrote Mentser and Sagiv. "Understanding the role of values in divorce may inform individuals as to the values they desire in their future spouses."

This recent study by Mentser and Sagiv emphasizes the extent to which values can shape divorce trends in different countries worldwide. In the future, it could inspire new research examining the differences that the team observed in different countries worldwide, which could help to improve understanding of what contributes to long-lasting relationships.