A Generic Measure of Relationship Satisfaction

TLDR

Contemporary society’s diverse interpersonal relationships require brief, reliable satisfaction measures applicable across many close relationships. The article develops a brief, generic measure of relationship satisfaction. The authors administered a 7‑item Relationship Assessment Scale to 125 individuals in love and to 57 couples in ongoing relationships to evaluate its structure and reliability. The scale exhibited a unifactorial structure, strong loadings, α = .86 reliability, significant correlations with love, sexual attitudes, self‑disclosure, commitment, investment, and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, and effectively distinguished couples who stayed together from those who broke up.

Abstract

The variety of interpersonal relationships contemporary society necessitates the development of brief, reliable measures of satisfaction that are applicable to many types of close relationships. This article describes the development of such a measure. In Study I, the 7-item Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS) was administered to 125 subjects who reported themselves to be in love. Analyses revealed a unifactorial scale structure, substantial factor loadings, and moderate intercorrelations among the items. The scale correlated significantly with measures of love, sexual attitudes, self-disclosure, commitment, and investment a relationship. In Study II, the scale was administered to 57 couples ongoing relationships. Analyses supported a single factor, alpha reliability of .86, and correlations with relevant relationship measures. The scale correlated .80 with a longer criterion measure, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), and both scales were effective (with a subsample) discriminating couples who stayed together from couples who broke up. The RAS is a brief, psychometrically sound, generic measure of relationship satisfaction.