China Social Science Review

No.3, 2024

Intimate Relationships: Ethical Needs or Social Exchange—Comparative Analysis Based on Cultural Differences Between China and the West

(Abstract)

Shen Yi

The comparison of intimate relationship patterns is a core issue in the comparison of social relationships between Chinese and Western cultures. In the “face and favor” theory model, Kwang-Kuo Hwang raised the issue of the “mixed” of “emotion” and “interest,” which shares similarities with Zelizer’s subsequent research on “the purchase of intimacy.” However, the “need rule” in Hwang’s theory model has been overlooked by subsequent research to a considerable extent. The “deep emotional relationship” based on blood and quasi blood ties continues the research tradition of the “need rule.” The comparison among the three reflects the prominent differences in the intimate relationship patterns between Chinese and Western cultures. Individualist cultural cognition always presupposes a value separation of emotion and interest, which in practice promotes mixed exchange and reciprocity between the two elements of emotion and interest. The “ethics-based” cultural pattern of familism tends to form a high degree of integration of emotion and interest at the dual levels of value and practice, and its ethical responsibility always emphasizes the “need rule” of prioritizing emotions and obligations.