Estudo nacional dos atributos psicométricos da Escala Triangular do Amor de Sternberg

Abstract

Even though Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale (STLS) has been increasingly used in Brazilian research, all the relevant studies have been conducted at a state level. The objective of this study was to investigate the psychometric attributes of the scale at a national level. The STLS was applied to a sample of 1,549 participants from 13 Brazilian states. The results suggest that STLS is an excellent test, with the three-factor structure predicted by the theory and a high level of reliability (α = 0.98). The Item Response Theory showed that STLS has highly discriminative items, assessing a large share of the population, although low difficulty was applied. We suggest keeping complex items in the scale in order to maintain a reliable and valid measure of love.