Marriage & Family Review

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Partners’ Dyadic Coping in India: Psychometric

Properties and Validity of the Tamil Version of the
Dyadic Coping Inventory

Barani Kanth, Ashley K. Randall, Guy Bodenmann & J. Indumathy

To cite this article: Barani Kanth, Ashley K. Randall, Guy Bodenmann & J. Indumathy (2021):
Partners’ Dyadic Coping in India: Psychometric Properties and Validity of the Tamil Version of the
Dyadic Coping Inventory, Marriage & Family Review, DOI: 10.1080/01494929.2021.1936743

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2021.1936743

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MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW
https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2021.1936743

Partners’ Dyadic Coping in India: Psychometric

Properties and Validity of the Tamil Version of the
Dyadic Coping Inventory
Barani Kantha , Ashley K. Randallb , Guy Bodenmannc , and J. Indumathya
a
Department of Applied Psychology, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry, India; bCounseling and
Counseling Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA; cDepartment of
Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Research outside of India suggests that romantic partners can Dyadic coping; Dyadic
help one another cope with these stressors by engaging in Coping Inventory; India;
dyadic coping; however, to date, there lacks an empirically marital relationships; stress
validated self-report measure to assess perceptions of one’s
own and their partner’s behaviors in the Indian cultural con-
text. While the Dyadic Coping Inventory has been translated
into 24 languages, it has not yet been validated for use with
individuals in India. The purpose of this study was to translate
and validate the DCI in Tamil, one of the widely spoken lan-
guages in India, using data from 931 (nmen ¼ 431 men; nwomen
¼ 500) married individuals in different-gender relationships.
The factorial structure and measurement invariance (MI) were
tested across genders (Indian men and women) and cultures
(India, Switzerland, and the United States). Results supported
the five-factor structure for the self and partner subscales and
a two-factor structure for common dyadic coping. MI analysis
indicated the DCI subscales showed configural, full metric and
partial scalar invariance across gender (male vs. female in
Indian sample) and culture (Indian vs. Swiss and Indian vs. the
US). Implications for cross-cultural research and future direc-
tions are presented.

India is considered one of the most collectivistic countries in the world

(Chadda & Deb, 2013). Over 90% of the marriages in India are organized
by parents and elder family members (Uberoi, 2006) based on caste and
religious match, in addition to considering the socioeconomic status of
both families. Marriage in India is viewed as a sacred institution with a
clear relational hierarchy in the family (Chitnis, 1988; Marshall, 2008). For
example, the husband is considered the head of the family and the bread-
winner, and the wife is responsible for domestic duties and taking care of
the children and elderly parents. As such, married couples in India are

CONTACT Barani Kanth [email protected] Department of Applied Psychology, Pondicherry

University, Pondicherry, 605014, India.
ß 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 B. KANTH ET AL.

likely to endorse traditional gender roles that emphasize interdependence

between family members (Sastry, 1999; Suppal et al., 1996) compared to
their counterparts from the Western cultural context who are guided by
their own self-determination and personal choices (Buunk et al., 2008;
Hagger et al., 2014).
Although such differences in the structure and the dynamics of marital
relationships exist among couples across Eastern and Western cultural con-
texts, empirical research on marital relationships, and in particular, under-
standing partners’ stress and coping processes in the Indian cultural
context, are sparse. Nevertheless, most empirical investigations on Indian
couples are based on measurement instruments developed in the Western
cultural context, without prior empirical evaluation of their cross-cultural
equivalence (e.g., Isaac & Shah, 2004). Such a practice can lead to incorrect
inferences (Byrne et al., 2009), in part, due to the differences that exist
across cultures. As such, the goal of the current study was to examine the
factor structure of a measure of Dyadic Coping in a sample of Tamil lan-
guage speaking married couples from India and examine, using separate
datasets, whether the Tamil version of the measure is equivalent to the ori-
ginal German version of the Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI; Bodenmann,
2008) and the translated version in English (Randall et al., 2016).

Contextualizing stress and dyadic coping in India

In the last two decades, India has undergone major social and economic
development, which has promoted the Westernization and change of trad-
itional family values (Desai et al., 2011; Kalliath et al., 2011). Although
some consider these shifts to have had positive socioeconomic impacts,
married couples in India are facing issues related to work-family conflict
(Panda, 2011; Sandhya, 2009), increased divorce rates (Giridharadas, 2008;
Mohan, 2000) and overall poorer well-being (Chandra et al., 1995; Rao
et al., 2003). One potential reason for these negative outcomes could be the
unhealthy levels of stress married couples in India are reporting due to the
shifts in the socioeconomic needs (e.g., dual-career couples) and cultural
expectations (e.g., egalitarian family structure) primarily fostered by global-
ization (Kalliath et al., 2011, Panda, 2011; Rajadhyaksha & Bhatnagar, 2000;
Rao et al., 2003). Given these trends and the increased stress individuals in
India are reporting, there is an increasing need for researchers and mental
health practitioners working with individuals and couples to have access to
self-report instruments to measure such constructs.
Stress among romantic partners is considered a major risk factor of
divorce among couples (Bodenmann et al., 2007; Randall & Bodenmann,
2009). Previous research had shown that partners’ ability to identify and
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 3

coping with stress in the context of their relationship (i.e., engage in dyadic
coping; Bodenmann et al., 2016) could be a protective factor and promote
relationship quality and well-being among couples, above and beyond the
effects of individual coping strategies (Badr et al., 2010; Papp &Witt, 2010).
Although dyadic coping has been extensively studied in a Western cultural
context, a few studies have examined dyadic coping in a non-Western cul-
tural context. For example, Xu et al. (2016) examined the validity of the
Chinese version of the DCI and concluded that the DCI could be used to
examine stress and coping behaviors for couples in China. Similarly,
Kawashima et al. (2014) examined the Japanese version of DCI and found
evidence for the reliability and validity of the DCI. However, to date, no
research had been conducted to examine the validity of both the construct
of dyadic coping and its measurement in the Indian cultural context. Given
that Indian culture lays emphasis on interdependence, connectedness and
collective efforts for resolving conflicts among family members (Bejanyan
et al., 2015; Sastry, 1999), there is a need for a cross-culturally validated
measure of dyadic coping among couples in India. The Tamil version of
the DCI would help to advance the understanding of partners’ coping
mechanisms beyond the individualized Western cultural contexts, which
complements existing cultural values (e.g., gender role norms; Sandhya,
2009). Having this information will hopefully help scholars better under-
stand the increased stress and conflict reports among couples in the past
decades (Kashyap, 2004).

Systemic transactional model

According to the systemic transactional model (STM; Bodenmann, 1997,
2005), stress and coping are considered interdependent phenomena. Thus,
one partner’s experience of stress is linked to the other partner’s involve-
ment, leading to shared appraisals of the situation and joint coping efforts.
This idea has been described as stress crossover (Neff & Karney, 2007),
wherein the experience of one partner’s stress “crosses over” to the other
partner. This crossover reflects partners’ interdependence in both the
experience of stress as well as stress management as a couple.
Dyadic coping (DC) occurs when one partner communicates – either
verbally or non-verbally – their stress to their partner (Bodenmann et al.,
2016). The other partner then assesses the partner’s stress and responds
either positively or negatively. Positive forms of dyadic coping include pro-
viding empathy (emotion-focused supportive DC; showing an empathic
understanding of the situation and offer care and love), helping the partner
to solve the problem (problem-focused supportive DC; helping to look for
the practical solution to the problem), or taking on tasks in order to help
mitigate the partner’s stress (delegated DC; helping out with actual work to
4 B. KANTH ET AL.

reduce the burden). Alternatively, partners can engage in negative forms of

dyadic coping by mocking the partner, minimizing their stress, or reluc-
tantly offering to help (e.g., teasing, showing indifference to the partner’s
stress, withdrawing from the situation). Engaging in positive forms of
dyadic coping has been found to be beneficial for individual and relation-
ship well-being for couples across the world (Falconier et al., 2015;
Falconier et al., 2016; Hilpert et al., 2016); however, to date, limited
research exists on how these phenomena may be applied to married cou-
ples in India due to the lack of a validated, self-report measure of stress
communication and dyadic coping behaviors.

Measuring dyadic coping behaviors

Originally developed in German, the DCI (Bodenmann, 2008) is a self-
report instrument designed to measure each partner’s individual stress
communication and coping behaviors when one or both partners experi-
ence stress. It is pertinent to note that while DC is a dyadic process, the
DCI focuses on perceptions and reports of individual partners (i.e., self and
partner), and many, if not all, DCI validations have been conducted with
individual (versus dyadic) samples (e.g., Ledermann et al., 2010; Randall
et al., 2016; Vedes et al., 2013); for notable exceptions, please see (Rusu
et al., 2016). Although the DCI has been translated into many languages
(for a review, see Nussbeck & Jackson, 2016), the DCI has not yet been
validated in Tamil, one of the widely spoken languages in southern India
and South Asia by over 76 million people and an official language in India,
Sri Lanka and Singapore (Lewis et al., 2009). Translating and validating the
DCI in Tamil are important steps in expanding the understanding of how
individuals in a relationship living in India may cope with stress in the
context of their married relationship. Moreover, it is important to test the
measurement invariance of the translated version of the DCI with the ori-
ginal version to examine whether the measure operates similarly across
individuals living in different countries.

Goals of the present study

Given the epidemic of stress in India (Sahoo & Khess, 2010; Suchday et al.,
2006), and evidence suggesting that partners can help mitigate the effects
of stress (Chandra et al., 1995; Kalliath et al., 2011; Rao et al., 2003), there
is a need for an empirically validated self-report measure to assess marital
partners’ stress and coping behaviors in India. To address this gap in the
literature, the present study translated and validated the DCI in Tamil,
using the same structure used in prior validation studies (Randall et al.,
2016). Additionally, the present study examined the convergent validity of
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 5

the DCI in Tamil with the Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS; Hendrick
et al., 1998). Furthermore, in order to evaluate the equivalence of the
measurement properties of the scale across gender and individuals living
in different countries, we tested measurement invariance across genders
in the Indian sample (male vs. female) and with those from a sample
from Switzerland (Indian vs. Swiss) and the United States (Indian vs.
the US).

Method
Recruitment and participants
The Institute Ethics Committee (Human Subjects) of Pondicherry
University approved the study. Participants were recruited via online and
paper-pencil modes using flyers inviting participants to participate in a
study on stress and coping strategies in Indian married couples. For online
recruitment, the survey was posted on social media platforms such as
Facebook and WhatsApp groups inviting married individuals living in
India. Additionally, the flyers were distributed at various schools and differ-
ent enterprises (companies, hospitals, etc.) in three major towns in the
states of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry located in south India. Interested
participants who fulfill the inclusion criteria were asked to contact the
research assistants via email or text message. We followed similar inclusion
criteria laid by previous validations (e.g., Randall et al., 2016) regarding age
and relationship status—participants had to be: (1) over the age of 18, (2)
married and currently living with their spouse for at least two years.
Besides, we recruited participants who are currently living in India and can
read and write Tamil. All the participants were in a different-
gender marriage1.
Approximately 987 individuals showed interest in the study, and 972 par-
ticipants filled out the survey. Fifteen participants did not submit their
responses despite two reminders with a gap of one week. Data from 41 par-
ticipants were excluded because of incomplete responses. The final sample
included data from 931 individuals ranging in age from 20–64 years old
(MMen ¼ 39.26, SD ¼ 7.39; MWomen ¼ 35.06, SD ¼ 7.13). Seventy percent
of the participants reported they belong to the middle-income category
(monthly income range: INR 30,000–50,000); approximately 16% reported
belonging to the low-income category (monthly income below INR 30,000);
12% reported high income (monthly income above INR 50,000).
Approximately 60% of the participants were undergraduate educated, 23%
had completed high school education, and 12% had some professional
qualification.
6 B. KANTH ET AL.

Table 1. Sample Characteristics for the Indian Sample.

Variable Men (%) Women (%)
Education
Less than High School 26 (6.03) 25 (5)
High School 52 (12.06) 62 (12.40)
Higher Secondary 39 (9.04) 59 (11.80)
Undergraduate 142 (32.94) 180 (36)
Postgraduate 138 (32.01) 132 (26.40)
Professional 34 (7.89) 42 (8.40)
Type of Marriage
Not Reported 7 (1.6) 15 (3)
Love (marriage of choice) 129 (29.9) 151 (30.2)
Arranged 295 (68.4) 334 (66.8)
Number of Children
Not Reported 6 (1.4) 9 (1.8)
0 17 (3.9) 27 (5.4)
1 158 (36.7) 196 (39.2)
2 212 (49.2) 225 (45)
3 31 (7.2) 37 (7.4)
4 7 (1.6) 6 (1.2)

Participants reported being married for an average of 11.92 years (range

¼ 2–39 years; MMen ¼ 11.83, S.D ¼ 6.44 and MWomen ¼ 12.03, S.D ¼
7.09). Nearly 68% of the participants reported that they had an arranged
marriage (n ¼ 629) and 30% reported that they had a love marriage (mar-
riage of choice; n ¼ 280); less than 3% of the participants did not report
information about their type of marriage (n ¼ 22). See Table 1 for add-
itional descriptive information.

Procedure
For online recruitment, participants filled out the questionnaires using the
survey link posted on the social networking platforms after giving consent
for participation. For those who completed the paper-pencil survey, inter-
ested participants approached the research assistants and were either
handed a sealed envelope containing informed consent at their organization
or via post, study questionnaires, and pre-addressed and stamped enve-
lopes. They were instructed to read and sign the consent form, fill out the
questionnaires, and send back the envelopes via post. Upon completion,
participants in both modes of data collection were given compensation of
Indian rupees 75 (approximately 1.00 USD) for participation in the study.

Swiss and US samples for tests of measurement invariance

To test the factorial structure and measurement invariance (MI) of the DCI
across cultures, we utilized data from the previous studies on DCI from
Switzerland (Bodenmann, 2008; Bodenmann et al., 2014) and the US
(Randall et al., 2016). The Swiss data included 368 couples (n ¼ 736 indi-
viduals) ranging in age from 18–82 years old (MMen ¼ 49.33, SD ¼ 18.32;
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 7

MWomen ¼ 47.32, SD ¼ 18.41). The average relationship duration of the

participants was 21.4 years (SD ¼ 18.2) (Bodenmann et al., 2014). The US
data included 938 heterosexual individuals (29.2% men and 70.8% women)
ranging in age from 18–75 years old (MMen ¼ 32.36, SD ¼ 12.38; MWomen
¼ 33.35, SD ¼ 12.07) currently in a romantic relationship. Participants
reported being in a relationship with their partner for an average of
10.79 years (SD ¼ 10.13) (Randall et al., 2016).

Measures
DCI
For our study, we translated the English version of the DCI (Randall et al.,
2016) into Tamil following translation procedures recommended by
Hambleton and Patsula (1998) and Sireci et al. (2006). These methods sug-
gest that authors translating survey items used in cross-cultural research
need to involve qualified and independent translators fully proficient with
both languages and familiar with the cultural contexts. Besides, the trans-
lated version must be back-translated and checked with the original version
for equivalence before evaluating the translation using statistical analysis.
To that end, the English version of the DCI was first translated from
English to Tamil by a native bi-lingual expert. The translated Tamil version
of the DCI was then checked by two researchers in India. The finalized
Tamil version of the DCI was then back-translated into English by a
researcher and checked for congruence.
The 37-item DCI is designed to assess self (15 items) and partner’s
coping behavior (15 items), and common dyadic coping (CDC; 5 items)
and overall satisfaction with dyadic coping (2 items). In line with previous
validation studies of the DCI (e.g., Randall et al., 2016), we did not include
the two items in the overall satisfaction with dyadic coping in the present
study as they do not assess any theoretically conceptualized dyadic coping
behaviors (Bodenmann, 2008; Falconier et al., 2013; Ledermann
et al., 2010).
The DCI has each partner report on their perceptions of their own (self)
and their partner’s (partner) (1) stress communication (SC) (2) emotion-
focused supportive DC (3) problem-focused supportive DC (4) delegated
DC, and (5) negative DC. In addition, two forms of common dyadic coping
are assessed (emotion-focused and problem-focused common dyadic cop-
ing), which are used when partners are experiencing joint stressors.
Participants rate their responses to each question using a five-point Likert
scale (1 ¼ not at all/very rarely to 5 ¼ very often).
The subscales scores were computed by summing the scores of each item
in the subscale. The total DC score represents the overall dyadic coping
8 B. KANTH ET AL.

behavior of the partners computed by summing the scores of all the DCI
items. The mean scores of the DCI subscales along with the score ranges
are presented in Table 1. In the present study, all subscales showed alpha
values above .60 (.60  a  .87) except problem-focused supportive
DC (.41  a  .62).

Relationship assessment scale (RAS)

The RAS (Hendrick et al., 1998) is a 7-item self-report instrument that
requires participants to rate their relationship using a five-point scale. The
RAS measures how well the partner meets one’s needs, general relationship
satisfaction, relationship expectations, and love for one’s partner, and it
assesses the severity of problems in the relationship. For our study, the
RAS was translated into Tamil, using the same procedure for the DCI and
was used as a measure of convergent validity since both the DCI and RAS
assess satisfaction in a relationship. To examine the factor structure of the
Tamil version of the RAS, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis.
The results showed that the data fit the model well for the unifactorial
structure [v2(13) ¼ 6.48; CFI ¼ .97; RMSEA ¼ .08; SRMR ¼ .03) indicat-
ing that the Tamil version of the RAS is similar to the original version. In
the present study, the Tamil version of the RAS showed good internal con-
sistency for men (a ¼ .73) and women (a ¼ .70).

Analytic strategy
Testing CFA models
To find the best fitting model, we used separate CFAs for the three groups
(Indian, Swiss, and the US) across gender. Specifically, we tested the five-
factor structure for DC by self and partner and the two-factor structure of
common dyadic coping (Bodenmann, 2008). This version had been consist-
ently validated in the previous studies of the DCI validation in English
(Levesque et al., 2014; Randall et al., 2016), Chinese (Xu et al., 2016),
French (Ledermann et al., 2010), Italian (Donato et al., 2009), Japanese
(Yokotani & Kurosawa, 2015), Polish (Wendołowska et al., 2020), Persian
(Fallahchai et al., 2019), Portuguese (Vedes et al., 2013), Spanish (Falconier
et al., 2013) as well as Romanian (Rusu, Hilpert, Turliuc, & Bodenmann
et al., 2016). We used the following cutoff values for the model fit indices:
CFI  .95, RMSEA  .08 and SRMR  .08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999). We
relied on modification indices and parameter estimates (PE) to examine the
potential model misfit and model re-specification (Byrne et al., 2009).
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 9

Testing MI
We used the best fitting factorial structure derived from the CFA models
to examine MI (configural, metric, and scalar invariance; (Vandenberg &
Lance, 2000) across gender in the Indian sample as well as for comparisons
between the original Swiss and US samples. Specifically, we tested a series
of multi-group CFA models with increasing levels of parameter constraints.
First, we examined configural invariance in the model where the factorial
structure was equivalent across groups with no equality constraints
imposed, using the following cutoff values: v2/df <3, CFI  .95, RMSEA
 .08 and SRMR  .08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999, Chen, 2007). The establish-
ment of configural invariance would indicate that the factor structure of
the DCI in Tamil (number of factors and the items that load onto them) is
similar to the original Swiss and US sample. Second, metric invariance was
tested by imposing equality constraints on factor loadings on all items
across groups (Brown, 2015). Metric invariance would indicate that the
items have a similar meaning across groups—an equal level of salience
attributed to the item, and thus the associations across groups can be com-
pared. Third, we tested scalar invariance by constraining intercepts along
with factor loadings to be equal across groups (Brown, 2015; Vandenberg
& Lance, 2000). The establishment of scalar invariance would indicate simi-
larity of means of the items across groups and thus permit mean level com-
parisons. Finally, uniqueness invariance (residual invariance) was examined
by constraining the residual variances also equal across groups along with
constraining loadings and intercepts. MI, at this level, would indicate that
the explained variance of the items is similar across groups. However, test-
ing uniqueness invariance is considered to be optional and sometimes
unreasonably strict (Byrne & Van de Vijver, 2010), as it is difficult to
achieve invariance at this level (Schmitt & Kuljanin, 2008), especially in
cross-cultural comparisons (Schwartz et al., 2014). As such, in the present
study, we examined uniqueness invariance only in the Indian sample
(across Indian men and women).
To evaluate metric and scalar invariance, we used Chen’s (2007) recom-
mendations in using D CFI, D SRMR and D RMSEA to examine changes
in model fit between nested models. We followed the following cutoff val-
ues to evaluate metric and scalar invariance models across groups: D CFI
 .010, D SRMR  .030 and D RMSEA  .015 (N > 300; Chen, 2007).
Whenever we could not find full scalar invariance, we tested partial scalar
invariance (Byrne et al., 2009). We used the common and highest MI val-
ues to identify the item intercepts that needed to be freely estimated
(Brown, 2015; Byrne et al., 2009). Following the recommendation of
Schwartz et al. (2014), we accepted partial scalar invariance if less than half
of the item intercepts are freely estimated.
10 B. KANTH ET AL.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and mean differences in DCI for the Indian sample.
Men Women
Score Range t
Min - Max M SD a Avg. r M SD a Avg. r p
Stress Communication (S) (2 items) 2–10 7.29 2.12 .67 .51 7.30 2.14 .65 .49 .06
Stress Communication (P) (2 items) 2–10 7.12 2.05 .64 .48 6.56 2.42 .74 .59 .03
Emotion-Focused SDC (S) (3 items) 3–15 11.24 2.90 .73 .47 11.43 2.73 .72 .47 .30
Emotion-Focused SDC (P) (3 items) 3–15 11.18 3.03 .72 .47 11.06 3.09 .70 .44 .56
Problem-Focused SDC (S) (2 items) 2–10 7.09 1.99 .53 .37 6.94 1.93 .41 .26 .24
Problem-Focused SDC (P) (2 items) 2–10 6.87 2.17 .58 .40 6.88 2.25 .62 .45 .97
Delegated DC (S) (2 items) 2–10 7.12 2.08 .73 .58 7.13 2.04 .59 .42 .96
Delegated DC (P) (2 items) 2–10 7.23 2.14 .62 .45 7.20 2.13 .66 .50 .87
Negative DC (S) (3 items) 3–15 10.27 3.52 .61 .31 10.52 4.05 .71 .44 .40
Negative DC (P) (3 items) 3–15 9.86 3.63 .67 .45 11.05 4.27 .75 .56 .02
Problem-Focused Common DC (3 items) 3–15 11.24 3.11 .80 .57 11.08 3.10 .81 .59 .45
Emotion-Focused Common DC (2 items) 2–10 7.15 2.27 .65 .48 7.19 2.17 .65 .48 .80
Evaluation of DC (2 items) 2–10 7.29 2.68 .82 .70 7.27 2.54 .86 .76 .96
Total DC (S) (12 items) 12–60 48.69 10.97 .69 .49 50.15 9.20 .67 .41 .15
Total DC (P) (12 items) 12–60 47.71 13.04 .83 .45 47.15 11.35 .84 .50 .72
Total DC (29 items) 29–145 103.29 24.56 .87 .54 104.56 19.49 .87 .55 .65
Note. S: self, P: partner, SDC: supportive dyadic Coping; DC: dyadic coping, Avg. r: average inter-item correlation;
Min: minimum; Max: maximum.
p < .01.

Results
Descriptive statistics, internal consistencies and correlations
among subscales
Descriptive statistics, mean differences, reliabilities of the dimensions of the
DCI across gender are given in Table 2. Gender differences were found
only in perceived partner stress communication and perceived partner
negative dyadic coping; men in this sample reported that their partner
communicated more stress [t (929) ¼ 2.41, p ¼ .03] compared to women,
and women reported more perceived negative dyadic coping compared to
men [t (929) ¼ 3.43, p ¼ .02].
Given the prevalence of arranged versus love (i.e., marriage of choice)
marriages in India (Allendorf & Pandian, 2016), analysis of mean differen-
ces across the type of marriage (arranged vs. love) showed similar levels of
DC in most of the DC subscales. However, participants who were in a love
marriage reported more stress communication by self [t (907) ¼ 2.52, p
¼ .01], negative DC by self [t (907) ¼ 3.09, p ¼ .01], perceived partner
negative DC [t (907) ¼ 2.66, p ¼ .01] and perceived partner problem-
focused supportive DC [t (907) ¼ 2.03, p ¼ .04]. These results show that
participants who were in a love marriage reported engaging in more nega-
tive coping strategies. At the same time, they reported more stress commu-
nication and greater reports of perceived partner problem-focused
supportive coping.
All the subscales showed acceptable alpha values, ranging from (.61  a 
.92), with the exception of the problem-focused supportive DC (aMen ¼ .53;
aWomen ¼ .41). Although this is a matter of concern, previous validation
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 11

Table 3. Fit indices for CFA models of DCI across three samples for women.
Models Item v2 df CFI SRMR RMSEA (90%CI) AIC p
Indian (N ¼ 500)
5-factor/Self 15 151.38 80 .96 .04 .04 (.03, .05) 231.38 .00
5-factor/Selfa 12 94.34 44 .96 .04 .05 (.04, .06) 162.34 .00
5-factor/Partner 15 180.24 80 .96 .05 .05 (.04, .06) 260.24 .00
5-factor/Partner 13 96.56 55 .98 .03 .04 (.03, .05) 168.56 .00
5-factor/Partnera 12 90.58 44 .98 .04 .05 (.03, .06) 158.58 .00
2-factor/Common 5 17.12 4 .99 .02 .08 (.04, .12) 39.12 .00
Swiss (N ¼ 368)
5-factor/Self 15 201.96 80 .92 .06 .06 (.05, .08) 281.96 .00
5-factor/Selfa 12 101.38 44 .95 .04 .06 (.04, .08) 169.38 .00
5-factor/Partner 15 211.16 80 .94 .06 .07 (.06, .08) 291.16 .00
5-factor/Partnera 12 81.53 44 .98 .03 .05 (.03, .06) 149.53 .00
2-factor/Common 5 10.30 4 .99 .03 .07 (.02, .12) 32.30 .00
US (N ¼ 664)
5-factor/Self 15 271.87 80 .93 .05 .06 (.05, .07) 351.87 .00
5-factor/Selfa 12 88.798 44 .98 .03 .04 (.03, .05) 156.80 .00
5-factor/Partner 15 343.21 80 .95 .06 .07 (.06, .08) 423.21 .00
5-factor/Partnera 12 117.22 44 .98 .02 .05 (.039, .06) 185.22 .00
2-factor/Common 5 7.99 4 1.00 .01 .04 (.00, .08) 29.98 .00
Note. df: degrees of freedom; CFI: comparative fit index; SRMR: standardized root mean square residual; RMSEA:
root mean square error of approximation; 90% CI: 90% confidential interval; AIC: Akaike information criterion;
D v2: chi-square difference test. Two evaluation items (Items 36 and 37) were excluded for the analysis and
(Items 2, 3, 7, 17,18 and 22) were deleted for testing final models.
a
Indicates results for the final model.

studies of the DCI showed a similar trend of lower reliabilities in problem-

focused supportive DC (Falconier et al., 2013; Xu et al., 2016), which may be
attributed to the fact this is a two-item subscale. Many authors suggest that
inter-item correlation would be a better indicator of reliability for two-item
scales instead of Cronbach’s alpha (e.g., Hulin et al., 2001; Eisinga et al.,
2013). Therefore, we calculated the average inter-item correlation of all the
subscales and the aggregate scales showed acceptable coefficients —ranged
from .31 to .58 for men and .26 to .59 for women.

Factor structure
This study tested for a similar factor structure found in previous validations
(Randall et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2016). Based on prior validations, we tested
a five-factor model for self and partner (stress communication, emotion-
focused supportive DC, problem-focused supportive DC, delegated DC and
negative DC) and a two-factor model for common DC (problem-focused
common DC and emotion-focused common DC). Tables 3 and 4 show the
results of competing CFA models explored separately for men and women
to attain the best fitting structure for each sample (India, Swiss, and the
US) across gender.
Results revealed that for the Indian sample, the five-factor (for both self
and partner) and two-factor model for common dyadic coping yielded
acceptable fit with all 35 items; but Swiss and US samples did not show an
12 B. KANTH ET AL.

Table 4. Fit Indices for CFA models of DCI across three samples for men.
Models Item v2 df CFI SRMR RMSEA (90%CI) AIC p
Indian (N ¼ 431)
5-factor/Self 15 147.35 80 .95 .04 .04 (.03, .05) 227.35 .00
5-factor/Selfa 12 81.05 44 .97 .04 .04 (.03, .06) 149.05 .00
5-factor/Partner 15 200.45 80 .93 .05 .06 (.05, .07) 280.45 .00
5-factor/Partnera 12 99.88 44 .96 .04 .05 (.04, .07) 167.88 .00
2-factor/Common 5 2.28 4 1.00 .01 .00 (.00, .06) 24.28 .69
Swiss (N ¼ 368)
5-factor/Self 15 171.20 80 .94 .06 .06 (.04, .07) 251.20 .00
5-factor/Selfa 12 65.31 44 .98 .32 .04 (.02, .05) 133.31 .02
5-factor/Partner 15 202.70 80 .93 .06 .07 (.05, .08) 282.70 .00
5-factor/Partnera 12 67.43 44 .98 .03 .04 (.02, .06) 135.43 .01
2-factor/Common 5 2.49 4 1.00 .02 .00 (.00, .06) 24.49 .64
US (N ¼ 274)
5-factor/Self 15 164.17 80 .95 .06 .06(.05, .08) 244.17 .00
5-factor/Selfa 12 69.53 44 .98 .04 .05 (.02, .07) 137.53 .00
5-factor/Partner 15 244.44 80 .92 .07 .09 (.07, .09) 324.44 .00
5-factor/Partnera 12 107.44 44 .96 .04 .07 (.06, .09) 175.44 .00
2-factor/Common 5 11.96 4 .99 .03 .09 (.03, .14) 33.96 .01
Note. df: degrees of freedom; CFI: comparative fit index; SRMR: standardized root mean square residual; RMSEA:
root mean square error of approximation; 90% CI: 90% confidential interval; AIC: Akaike information criterion;
D v2-chi-square difference test. Two evaluation items (Items 36 and 37) were excluded for the analysis and
(Items 2, 3, 7, 17,18 and 22) were deleted for testing final models.
a
Indicates results for the final model.

acceptable fit for men, women, self and partner models (see Table 3 and 4).
A closer look at the loadings of the items across models showed that three
items showed the lowest loadings (.20  k  .40) across both Swiss and US
data; in stress communication by self-model, item 2 (“I ask my partner to do
things for me when I have too much to do”), item 3 (“I show my partner
through my behavior when I am not doing well or when I have problems”),
and item 22 (“I blame my partner for not coping well enough with stress”)
in negative dyadic coping showed lowest loadings. To attain a common fac-
torial structure for the three samples, thereby achieving MI across samples,
we removed the above items in all the three models and recomputed CFA
models without these three items (see Figure 1). After doing so, we achieved
a satisfactory model fit across three cultures in both genders.
Similar trends were shown for DC by partner models; item 17 (“My part-
ner asks me to do things for him/her when he has too much to do”) and
item 18 (“My partner shows me through his/her behavior that he/she is
not doing well or when he/she has problems”) in stress communication
model and item 7 (“My partner blames me for not coping well
enough with stress”) the negative dyadic model showed lowest loadings
(.31  k  .38). Removal of these items from the model showed better and
acceptable fit indices across the three samples.

Intercorrelation among subscales and convergent validity

Table 5 shows intercorrelations among the subscales of the DCI as well as
correlation coefficients of the DCI subscales with relationship satisfaction.
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 13

Figure 1. Standardized factor loadings for men’s and women’s DC for a five-factor model (by
Self and Partner) and a two-factor model for Common DC. All factor loadings are statistically
significant at the p < .05 level.

As shown in the results, all subscale scores were correlated for both the
genders, ranging from .13  r  .92, in the expected direction. Of all the
correlations, only the correlation of negative DC by self was not correlated
with stress communication by partner and problem-focused supportive DC
by self and partner.
14 B. KANTH ET AL.

A perusal at the correlation coefficients of DCI subscales with relation-

ship satisfaction for men and women suggests that the DCI subscales show
significant positive correlations with relationship satisfaction (rmen ¼ .17 
r  .34; rWomen ¼ .15  r  .46). The correlation between emotion-
focused SDC with relationship satisfaction was slightly higher across men
and women (rmen ¼ .24  r  .37; rWomen ¼ .26  r  .34) compared to
other subscales. However, as expected, negative DC was negatively associ-
ated with relationship satisfaction (.18  r  .31). Additionally, common
DC was moderately correlated with relationship satisfaction among both
men and women (.26  r  .39). These results suggest that the Tamil ver-
sion of the DCI shows convergent validity when compared to relationship
satisfaction.

Testing measurement invariance (MI)

MI analyses were conducted based on the results of the final model for DC
by self, partner and common DC in each sample.

Comparisons across gender in the Indian sample

MI analysis for the Indian sample across gender (nmen ¼ 431; nwomen ¼
500) was conducted to test whether the factor structure, loadings, and
intercepts, were equivalent for men and women in this sample. As shown
in Table 6, the models with the five-factor structure for self and partner
and two-factor structure for common DC showed full configural, metric,
scalar and uniqueness invariance for all the subscales with acceptable fit
indices. All differences in CFI, RMSEA and SRMR for factor loadings,
intercepts and residuals were below the critical value (Chen, 2007). The
findings indicate and support the supposition that married men and
women in this sample responded similarly.

Comparisons between the Indian and Swiss samples

As shown in Table 7, the results indicated a good fit for configural invari-
ance for comparisons across the Indian and Swiss samples (Bodenmann,
2008). Full metric invariance with acceptable fit indices in all models was
found across Indian and Swiss samples comparisons; however, the model
did not show a satisfactory fit for full scalar invariance, which suggests
some item intercepts are not equivalent across Indian and Swiss samples.
As such, we allowed the intercepts with the highest modification indices to
vary freely in models involving men and women; in the models involving
men, five intercepts (self: items 21, 25, 26, 27, 4; partner: items 9, 10, 11,
12, 15) were allowed to vary freely. Similarly, in models involving women,
Table 5. Inter-correlations among DCI Subscales for Men and Women in the Indian Sample.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
1. Stress Communication (S) .53 .49 .57 .45 .49 .43 .47 .19 .23 .50 .46 .72 .69 .74 .19
2. Stress Communication (P) .36 .53 .49 .50 .45 .48 .40 .13 .16 .53 .45 .52 .69 .65 .19
3. Emotion-Focused SDC (S) .42 .38 .53 .55 .50 .60 .51 .22 .22 .66 .53 .77 .53 .67 .26
4. Emotion-Focused SDC (P) .45 .40 .34 .44 .65 .39 .62 .25 .31 .57 .41 .68 .82 .81 .34
5. Problem-Focused SDC (S) .36 .37 .51 .27 .40 .50 .38 .16 .15 .52 .41 .69 .54 .64 .17
6. Problem-Focused SDC (P) .40 .44 .34 .62 .29 .38 .64 .27 .23 .58 .46 .65 .78 .76 .22
7. Delegated DC (S) .37 .36 .47 .24 .47 .26 .46 .23 .23 .53 .51 .63 .43 .53 .27
8. Delegated DC (P) .42 .47 .35 .58 .31 .59 .37 .24 .27 .55 .47 .61 .78 .76 .23
9. Negative DC (S) .13 .00 .13 .12 2.08 2.07 .21 .09 .62 .27 .23 .42 .29 .34 .23
10. Negative DC (P) .16 .14 .17 .20 .17 .18 .22 .19 .63 .25 .22 .29 .39 .34 .31
11. Problem-Focused Common .48 .47 .58 .56 .45 .54 .45 .55 .11 .23 .65 .75 .72 .77 .26
12. Emotion-Focused Common .38 .45 .39 .43 .32 .42 .38 .46 .10 .19 .62 .72 .66 .73 .33
13. Total DC (S) .58 .25 .66 .31 .60 .19 .68 .39 .57 .47 .37 .32 .81 .93 .27
14. Total DC (P) .34 .63 .39 .77 .32 .77 .34 .72 .19 .49 .69 .61 .51 .97 .31
15. DC Total .51 .54 .57 .68 .49 .63 .54 .68 .37 .53 .66 .59 .80 .92 .31
16. Relationship Satisfaction .25 .24 .24 .37 .15 .29 .19 .39 .18 .21 .39 .36 .24 .46 .43
Note. S: self; P: partner; SDC: supportive dyadic coping; DC: dyadic coping; Men’s correlations are presented above the diagonal and women’s correlations are presented below the diag-
onal. p < .01 and p < .05.
MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW
15
16 B. KANTH ET AL.

Table 6. Model Indices for Measurement Invariance across Gender.

Goodness-of-fit indices Comparison of nested model
Invariance types v2 df CFI SRMR RMSEA Contrast D v2 Ddf DCFI DSRMR DRMSEA p
DC by Self
1. Configural 175.39 88 .97 .04 .03
2. Metric 179.34 95 .97 .04 .03 2 vs 1 3.95 7 .00 .00 .00 .79
3. Full scalar 195.69 107 .97 .04 .02 3 vs 2 16.35 12 .00 .00 .01 .18
4. Residuals 233.08 119 .96 .04 .03 4 vs 3 37.39 12 .01 .00 .01 .00
DC by Partner
5. Configural 190.46 88 .97 .04 .04
6. Metric 211.11 95 .97 .04 .04 6 vs 5 20.65 7 .00 .00 .00 .00
7. Full scalar 246.59 107 .96 .04 .04 7 vs 6 35.48 12 .01 .00 .0 .00
8. Residuals 272.18 119 .96 .05 .04 8 vs 7 25.59 12 .00 .01 .000 .00
Common
9. Configural 19.39 8 .99 .01 .04
10. Metric 20.21 11 .99 .01 .03 10 vs 9 .08 3 .00 .00 .01 .85
11. Full scalar 27.47 16 .99 .01 .03 11 vs 10 7.26 5 .00 .00 .00 .20
12. Residuals 40.78 21 .99 .02 .03 12 vs 11 13.31 5 .00 .01 .00 .02
Note. df: degrees of freedom; CFI: comparative fit index; SRMR: standardized root mean square residual; RMSEA:
root mean square error of approximation; DC: dyadic coping; D v2: chi-square difference test.

Table 7. Model Indices for Measurement Invariance across the Indian-Swiss Sample.
Goodness-of-fit indices Comparison of nested model
Invariance types v2 df CFI SRMR RMSEA Contrast D v2 Ddf DCFI DSRMR DRMSEA p
Men
DC by Self
1. Configural 146.36 88 .98 .04 .03
2. Metric 155.73 95 .97 .04 .03 2 vs 1 9.37 7 .00 .00 .00 .22
3. Full scalar 783.70 107 .71 .09 .09 3 vs 2 627.97 12 .27 .05 .06 .00
4. Partial scalar 191.64 102 .96 .04 .03 4 vs 2 35.91 7 .01 .00 .00 .00
DC by Partner
5. Configural 167.30 88 .97 .04 .03
6. Metric 191.59 95 .97 .04 .04 6 vs 5 24.29 7 .00 .00 .00 .00
7. Full scalar 902.41 107 .71 .11 .09 7 vs 6 710.82 12 .25 .07 .06 .00
8. Partial scalar 230.04 102 .95 .04 .04 8 vs 6 39.45 7 .01 .00 .00 .00
Common
9. Configural 4.76 8 1.00 .01 .00
10. Metric 20.83 11 .99 .02 .03 10 vs 9 16.07 3 .01 .01 .03 .00
11. Full scalar 315.14 16 .79 .03 .15 11 vs 10 294.31 5 .21 .00 .12 .00
12. Partial scalar 26.96 13 .99 .02 .04 12 vs 10 6.13 2 .00 .00 .01 .05
Women
DC by Self
13. Configural 195.72 88 .96 .04 .04
14. Metric 208.09 95 .95 .04 .04 14 vs 13 12.37 7 .01 .00 .00 .09
15. Full scalar 787.76 107 .73 .06 .09 15 vs 14 579.67 12 .22 .02 .05 .00
16. Partial scalar 506.44 102 .95 .04 .07 16 vs 14 298.35 7 .00 .00 .03 .00
DC by Partner
17. Configural 172.12 88 .98 .04 .03
18. Metric 197.05 95 .97 .04 .04 18 vs 17 24.93 7 .00 .01 .01 .00
19. Full scalar 619.91 107 .87 .07 .07 19 vs 18 422.86 12 .11 .03 .04 .00
20. Partial scalar 385.28 101 .96 .05 .06 20 vs 18 188.23 6 .01 .01 .01 .00
Common
21. Configural 27.41 8 .99 .02 .05
22. Metric 65.24 11 .97 .03 .08 22 vs 21 37.83 3 .02 .01 .03 .00
23. Full scalar 340.65 16 .81 .04 .15 23 vs 22 275.41 5 .16 .01 .08 .00
24. Partial scalar 71.42 13 .97 .03 .07 24 vs 22 6.18 2 .00 .00 .01 .05
Note. df: degrees of freedom; CFI: comparative fit index; SRMR: standardized root mean square residual; RMSEA:
root mean square error of approximation; DC: dyadic coping; D v2: chi-square difference test.
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 17

five intercepts for DC models by self (items (21, 24, 25, 27, 1, and six inter-
cepts for models by partner (items 6, 8, 9, 11, 15, 19) were not constrained.
Three items for the common DC (items 31, 34, 35) across both men and
women models were allowed to vary freely. The results indicated that par-
tial scalar invariance could be established with the above changes in
the model.

Comparisons between the Indian and US samples

As presented in Table 8, the results of MI analysis between Indian and US
samples illustrated a good fit for configural and full metric invariance for
all the models. However, testing for scalar invariance did not show a satis-
factory fit for a full scalar invariance for most of the models. To establish
partial scalar invariance, we freed five intercepts in DC by self (items 4, 25,
26, 27, 28) and six items from DC by partner (items 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15)
in models involving men. Additionally, in models involving women, we
freed two items in DC by self (items 25, 27) and four items in DC by part-
ner (items 5, 9, 11, 12); one item for common dyadic coping (item 35) was
freed from models involving both men and women. Schwartz et al. (2014)
suggest that partial invariance is acceptable if less than half of the item
intercepts are allowed to vary freely. Hence, with our results of MI analysis,
we could conclude that partial scalar invariance could be established in all
the models comparing the Indian and Swiss and the Indian and US sam-
ples as we freed  six items against the total of 13 items in each scale.

Discussion
The purpose of the study was to validate the Tamil version of the Dyadic
Coping Inventory (DCI) for use with married individuals living in India.
Results from the confirmatory factor analysis showed that, in accord with
previous validation studies (Donato et al., 2009; Falconier et al., 2013;
Ledermann et al., 2010; Randall et al., 2016; Vedes et al., 2013; Xu et al.,
2016), a five-factor structure for dyadic coping by self and partner and a
two-factor structure for common dyadic coping fit the data well. While the
overall factor structure found for the Tamil version was similar to prior
validation studies, notable differences emerged. Specifically, previous valida-
tions (e.g., Randall et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2016), items 2, 3, 17, and 18 were
removed. Additionally, results from the current study suggest that items 7
and 22 also be removed, resulting in a 29-item scale. Furthermore, in
accordance with prior validation studies (e.g., Falconier et al., 2013;
Ledermann et al., 2010), results showed that the negative DC subscales by
self and partner yielded the lowest factor loadings. These results add to the
concerns raised by previous validations (e.g., Falconier et al., 2013) about
18 B. KANTH ET AL.

Table 8 Model Indices for Measurement Invariance across the Indian-US Sample.
Goodness-of-fit indices Comparison of nested model
Invariance types v2 df CFI SRMR RMSEA Contrast D v2 Ddf DCFI DSRMR DRMSEA p
Men
DC by Self
1. Configural 150.60 88 .98 .04 .03
2. Metric 164.18 95 .97 .04 .03 2 vs 1 13.58 7 .01 .00 .00 .06
3. Full scalar 466.13 107 .86 .04 .07 3 vs 2 301.95 12 .11 .01 .04 .00
4. Partial scalar 170.76 102 .97 .04 .03 4 vs 2 6.58 7 .00 .00 .00 .47
DC by Partner
5. Configural 207.35 88 .96 .04 .04
6. Metric 237.52 95 .95 .05 .05 6 vs 5 30.17 7 .01 .01 .01 .00
7. Full scalar 603.17 107 .84 .07 .08 7 vs 6 365.65 12 .11 .02 .03 .00
8. Partial scalar 248.31 100 .95 .05 .05 8 vs 6 10.79 5 .00 .00 .00 .06
Common
9. Configural 14.24 8 .99 .01 .03
10. Metric 21.29 11 .99 .02 .04 10 vs 9 7.05 3 .00 .01 .01 .07
11. Full scalar 77.70 16 .96 .02 .07 11 vs 10 56.41 5 .03 .00 .03 .00
12. Partial scalar 29.98 15 .99 .02 .04 12 vs 10 8.69 1 .00 .00 .00 .07
Women
DC by Self
13. Configural 183.15 88 .98 .04 .03
14. Metric 195.79 95 .97 .04 .03 14 vs 13 12.64 7 .01 .00 .00 .08
15. Full scalar 790.53 107 .82 .09 .07 15 vs 14 594.74 12 .15 .05 .03 .00
16. Partial scalar 580.33 105 .96 .06 .06 16 vs 14 384.54 10 .01 .02 .03 .00
DC by Partner
17. Configural 207.80 88 .98 .04 .03
18. Metric 235.93 95 .98 .04 .04 18 vs 17 28.13 7 .00 .00 .01 .00
19. Full scalar 611.82 107 .92 .05 .06 19 vs 18 375.89 12 .06 .01 .02 .00
20. Partial scalar 445.85 103 .97 .05 .05 20 vs 18 209.92 8 .01 .01 .01
Common
21. Configural 25.11 8 .99 .02 .04
22. Metric 49.46 11 .99 .04 .06 22 vs 21 24.35 3 .00 .02 .02 .70
23. Full scalar 145.63 16 .95 .05 .08 23 vs 22 96.17 5 .04 .02 .02 .00
24. Partial scalar 76.38 15 .98 .04 .06 24 vs 22 26.92 4 .01 .00 .00 .00
Note. df: degrees of freedom; CFI: comparative fit index; SRMR: standardized root mean square residual; RMSEA:
root mean square error of approximation; DC: dyadic coping; D v2: chi-square difference test.

“the extent to which the items of the negative dyadic coping subscale are
indicators of the same underlying construct” (p. 462). Future studies using
DCI and any revision of the DCI might consider these results as important
areas for conceptual revision, especially among diverse cultural contexts.
The descriptive results showed that men and women reported similar
dyadic coping behaviors; however, men reported more perceived partner
stress communication, whereas women reported greater perceived partner
negative DC. Furthermore, descriptive results comparing DC across the
type of marriage (love and arranged) showed comparable DC levels, which
indicates that married couples in India cope similarly irrespective of the
type of marriage. However, participants in love marriages reported greater
negative DC by both self and partner. They demonstrated more perceived
problem-focused supportive DC by partner and stress communication by
self compared to participants who had an arranged marriage. These results
indicate that although partners in love marriages exhibit more negative
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 19

dyadic coping behaviors, they display more stress communication and

problem-focused orientation in coping together.

Convergent validity
The Tamil version of the DCI showed convergent validity with relationship
satisfaction in the expected direction. Specifically, the positive DC subscales
of the Tamil version of the DCI correlated positively with relationship sat-
isfaction, which is in line with the previous validation studies (e.g.,
Bodenmann et al., 2006; Ledermann et al., 2010; Randall et al., 2016; Vedes
et al., 2013). Although these results suggest that the Tamil version of the
DCI shows convergent validity, additional research is needed on the associ-
ations between the Tamil version of the DCI and other related constructs,
such as marital communication patterns, marital quality, marital conflict,
capitalization among couples etc. However, such attempts to establish con-
vergence of the DCI in Tamil with those constructs would require scales
measuring these constructs first to be translated and validated in Tamil.
Furthermore, correlations between the positive forms of DC (stress com-
munication, emotion-focused and problem-focused supportive DC) and
relationship satisfaction were slightly greater for women compared to men,
except for delegated DC (by self) and negative DC (by self and partner),
for which the correlations were slightly more for men. These findings sug-
gest that, compared to men, women in this sample reported being more
satisfied in their relationship when they and their partner exhibited open
communication about their stressors as well as offering emotional and
problem-focused support. These results align with cultural ideals that sug-
gest Indian women emphasize mutual support from the partner in tackling
familial affairs (Rajadhyaksha & Bhatnagar, 2000; Sandhya, 2009). On the
other hand, men associated their relationship satisfaction in terms of how
coping involving delegation and negative tactics indicates that these forms
of DC are more salient for men in relationships.

Measurement invariance (MI)

Using three separate confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs), we identified the
best-fitting model to test whether MI could be established across genders
in the Indian sample and the three cultural groups (Indian, Swiss, and the
US). Multiple-group CFAs demonstrated invariant factor structure, item
loading, intercepts and residual variances across gender for the three mod-
els (DC by self, DC by partner and common dyadic coping) in the Indian
sample. These results suggest that Indian men and women exhibited similar
levels of stress communication, perceived and reported dyadic coping
behaviors, and common dyadic coping behaviors, which likely reflects the
20 B. KANTH ET AL.

shift in hierarchical family role structures prevailing in India (Desai et al.,

2011; Kalliath et al., 2011).
MI analysis across culture demonstrated configural, full metric and par-
tial scalar invariance across Indian and Swiss sample and Indian and US
sample comparisons. Establishing configural invariance across these sam-
ples suggests that the same pattern of indicators and factors (five-factors
for self and partner except item 7 and 22; two-factor for common dyadic
coping) are observed across groups. Full metric invariance across groups
indicated that the factor loadings were similar across cultural comparisons
(India and Swiss and India and the US). The results of scalar invariance
showed that some of the intercepts did not meet the criteria for full scalar
invariance in both comparisons. Although some of the intercepts were not
invariant across groups, following the suggestion of Schwartz et al. (2014),
partial scalar invariance may be tenable if less than half of the intercepts
are variant, we could conclude that our measurement invariance is still
robust. The non-invariant intercepts indicate that the means of those items
are not equivalent across cultures. Such non-invariance at the mean level is
not uncommon in cross-cultural comparisons of measurement instruments
(Gere & MacDonald, 2013; Knight et al., 2010; White et al., 2011). While it
is difficult to be certain of what causes such non-invariance of items, trans-
lation issues may have occurred (Byrne & Campbell, 1999; Gere &
MacDonald, 2013). However, even when the translation errors are ruled
out, the non-invariance could be due to the conceptual nonequivalence of
the items across culture—the behaviors tapped by the items may not be
equally appropriate across cultures under examination (Byrne et al., 2009).
For example, in the present study, the non-invariance of intercepts in both
the cultural comparisons (India and Swiss sample and India and US sam-
ple) were found in most of the items in the negative DC scales for self
(e.g., “I do not take my partner’s stress seriously”) and partner (e.g.,
“When I am stressed, my partner tends to withdraw”). Specifically, inter-
cepts of negative DC items were higher among Indian samples compared
to both Swiss and US samples. These trends in our data indicate that
Indian participants report more neglect and withdrawal by oneself and by
their partner. Some evidence supports such differences in the dynamics of
couples’ interaction across individualistic and collectivistic countries (Chen,
2007; Marshall, 2008; Xu et al., 2016). Thus, the lack of full scalar invari-
ance might be due to the differential level of endorsement of negative DC
behavior among couples across cultures. Hence, mean level comparisons
across cultures involving these items may not be appropriate if the goal of
the study is to compare the means scores across cultures. Although scalar
invariance is necessary to conduct research studies comparing mean differ-
ences (Borsboom, 2006; Byrne & Campbell, 1999), for comparisons of
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 21

relationships between constructs across culture—the focus of many investi-

gations in relationship literature, conditions of full metric invariance are
sufficient (Meredith, 1993; Gere & MacDonald, 2013). Overall, the MI ana-
lysis across genders and cultures demonstrated that the Tamil version of
the DCI could be used for all kind of comparisons between married men
and women in India as well as comparing the associations of dyadic coping
of individuals from individualistic and collectivistic cultures, which is simi-
lar to results from prior validations (Randall et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2016).

Implications for cross-cultural research and practice

The present study offers a number of implications for future research and
the practice of couple therapy, especially within India. Research involving
empirical validation and testing the cross-cultural equivalence of the mari-
tal and family relationship measures is rarely taken up in India, although
research in family psychology is growing steadily (Carson et al., 2009; Jared
DuPree et al., 2013). We believe that the current study is one of the few
attempts reported in India’s limited family relationship literature (Chekki,
1988; Rajadhyaksha & Smita, 2004) wherein a measure developed in the
Western cultural context is translated and validated to suit the Indian cul-
tural context. The validated Tamil version of the DCI can be added to the
small repository of psychological measures validated in the Indian context,
which can be used in future research to understand perceptions of married
individuals in India. Additionally, this validation may open new avenues
for researchers, especially in assessing and exploring stress and coping
mechanisms of couples and their association with relational well-being, in
the face of shifting cultural values. Furthermore, future studies might
involve immigrant Tamil speaking participants across the world (e.g., other
Asian countries, Europe, and the USA) and examine the dyadic coping pat-
terns with the present sample of Tamil speaking participants in India.
Although there had been a strong need for family involvement in mental
health services for several years in India (Kashyap, 2004), the availability of
such services had never been enough to cater to the need of the 1.3 billion
people living in India (Carson et al., 2009). Couple and family researchers
have pointed out that one of the impediments to the promotion of family
therapy in India is the non-availability of culturally sensitive tools, models
and interventions that works in the Indian cultural context (e.g., Juvva &
Bhatti, 2006). As such, the validation of the Tamil version of the DCI in
the current study would help mental health practitioners working with cou-
ples gain a deeper understanding of the conjoint stress coping mechanisms
of the married couples in India.
22 B. KANTH ET AL.

Limitations and future directions

Limitations of the current study must be noted. First, our study used cross-
sectional self-report data, which limits us from testing the reliability of the
Tamil version of the DCI across time. Future studies are encouraged to
apply a longitudinal design to examine the predictive validity of the Tamil
version of the DCI across different life stressors and challenges faced by
Indian couples, such as how partners may cope when faced with the stress
of both partners working outside the home. Furthermore, future studies
might examine the different types of stressors relating to diverse exposure
to globalization across different locations in India (e.g., metropolitan cities,
urban and semi-urban regions). Second, our study participants included
married individuals, which limits the generalizability of these results to the
couples in other forms of committed relationships such as dating and/or
and cohabiting couples. Third, given that the current study translated the
DCI into Tamil and included participants who could read and write Tamil,
the use of this version of the DCI is limited to those who are fluent in
Tamil. Given the wide sub-cultural and linguistic diversity in India
(Sengupta & Kumar, 2008; Sonntag, 2016), no single language is spoken in
the entire nation. As such, validating the DCI is one language for use
across the whole country is not possible. Given this, careful consideration
is required while generalizing the findings across different regions of India.
Future research interested in examining dyadic coping behaviors for indi-
viduals living in other parts of India might translate the DCI in other lan-
guages and examine its psychometric properties as well as compare them
against the Tamil version validated in this study. Given that in the present
study, we could use relationship satisfaction alone for examining the con-
vergence with DCI, future studies could translate other relational measures
(e.g., marital communication pattern, perceived capitalization in couples) in
Tamil and extend the convergent validity of the Tamil version of the DCI.
Besides, consistent with previous validation of the DCI, the poor loadings
and internal consistencies of negative DC items warrants revision of the
factor structure of the DCI.

Conclusion
The Tamil version of the Dyadic Coping Inventory provides a validated
and useful measure of examining perceptions of stress communication and
coping behaviors for married living in India. The results of the study
showed that the properties of the measures are comparable across Western
and Indian cultural contexts, which lays the foundation for cross-cultural
research on stress and coping processes between married couples.
Additionally, this study may help clinicians working with individuals
 MARRIAGE & FAMILY REVIEW 23

seeking treatment for relational concerns in developing therapeutic inter-

ventions and relationship education programs in the Indian cultural con-
text, grounded in the systemic transactional model (Bodenmann,
1997, 2005).

Note
1. Indian constitution has not recognized same-gender marriage yet; until the Judgment
by the Supreme Court of India in 2018, same-sex relationships were a punishable
crime in India (see Vanita, 2008).

Ethical standards
This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.
Approval was granted by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Indian University
(HEC/2018/03, dt. 25/09/18).

Patient consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual adult participants included in the study.

Disclosure statement
The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the
corresponding author on reasonable request.

ORCID
Barani Kanth http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2811-5833
Ashley K. Randall http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3794-4163
Guy Bodenmann http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0964-6409

Data availability statement

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict
of interest.

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