C. Rebecca Oldham
@mtsu.edu
Assistant Professor
Middle Tennessee State University
Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
Sylvia Niehuis, Karsen Davis, Alan Reifman, Kenzi Callaway, Ali Luempert, C. Rebecca Oldham, Jayla Head, and Emma Willis-Grossmann
SAGE Publications
Issues in applied survey research, including minimizing respondent burden and ensuring measures’ brevity for smartphone administration, have intensified efforts to create short measures. We conducted two studies on the psychometric properties of single-item satisfaction, love, conflict, and commitment measures. Study 1 was longitudinal, surveying college-age dating couples at three monthly waves ( n =121, 84, and 68 couples at the respective waves). Partners completed single- and multi-item measures of the four constructs, along with other variables, to examine test–retest reliability and convergent, concurrent, and predictive validity. Single-item measures of satisfaction, love, and commitment exhibited impressive psychometric qualities, but our single-item conflict measure performed somewhat less strongly. Study 2, a cross-sectional online survey ( n = 280), showed strong convergent validity of the single-item measures, including that of conflict.
Samantha Joel, Paul W. Eastwick, Colleen J. Allison, Ximena B. Arriaga, Zachary G. Baker, Eran Bar-Kalifa, Sophie Bergeron, Gurit E. Birnbaum, Rebecca L. Brock, Claudia C. Brumbaugh,et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Given the powerful implications of relationship quality for health and well-being, a central mission of relationship science is explaining why some romantic relationships thrive more than others. This large-scale project used machine learning (i.e., Random Forests) to 1) quantify the extent to which relationship quality is predictable and 2) identify which constructs reliably predict relationship quality. Across 43 dyadic longitudinal datasets from 29 laboratories, the top relationship-specific predictors of relationship quality were perceived-partner commitment, appreciation, sexual satisfaction, perceived-partner satisfaction, and conflict. The top individual-difference predictors were life satisfaction, negative affect, depression, attachment avoidance, and attachment anxiety. Overall, relationship-specific variables predicted up to 45% of variance at baseline, and up to 18% of variance at the end of each study. Individual differences also performed well (21% and 12%, respectively). Actor-reported variables (i.e., own relationship-specific and individual-difference variables) predicted two to four times more variance than partner-reported variables (i.e., the partner’s ratings on those variables). Importantly, individual differences and partner reports had no predictive effects beyond actor-reported relationship-specific variables alone. These findings imply that the sum of all individual differences and partner experiences exert their influence on relationship quality via a person’s own relationship-specific experiences, and effects due to moderation by individual differences and moderation by partner-reports may be quite small. Finally, relationship-quality change (i.e., increases or decreases in relationship quality over the course of a study) was largely unpredictable from any combination of self-report variables. This collective effort should guide future models of relationships.