Commitment to Relationship (CTR)

1. Abstract

The Commitment to Relationship (CTR) scale is a psychometrically validated, three-item self-report instrument developed by Garth J. O. Fletcher, Jeffrey A. Simpson, and Geoff Thomas in 2000. Originating as an integral first-order subscale of the widely utilized Perceived Relationship Quality Components (PRQC) inventory, the CTR assesses an individual's subjective dedication, devotion, and long-term psychological attachment to their romantic partnership. The measure utilizes a 7-point Likert-type response scale ranging from 1 (Not at all) to 7 (Extremely), with item scores averaged to yield a composite index of relational commitment where higher values represent elevated psychological dedication to relationship continuity.

Extensive psychometric investigations confirm that the CTR demonstrates exceptional internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients routinely exceeding .90 across diverse adult cohorts, community samples, and cross-cultural replications. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) reveal uniform, robust factor loadings (typically ranging from .85 to .95) onto a unidimensional commitment construct, while simultaneously functioning as a vital primary indicator within hierarchical models of global relationship quality. The scale exhibits profound convergent validity with established dyadic indices—including Caryl Rusbult's Investment Model Scale—and marked discriminant validity separating commitment from adjacent constructs such as sexual passion, general satisfaction, and trust. Because of its brevity, high conceptual fidelity, and formidable predictive power regarding dyadic persistence, accommodation behaviors, and relational dissolution, the CTR remains an indispensable assessment tool in experimental social psychology, longitudinal relationship research, and clinical couple diagnostics.

2. Keywords

Commitment to Relationship, PRQC inventory, Garth Fletcher, relationship quality, interpersonal commitment, romantic dedication, relationship stability, psychometrics, confirmatory factor analysis, dyadic assessment, relationship maintenance, Investment Model

3. Authors

The Commitment to Relationship scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by a prominent research team in interpersonal relationships and evolutionary social psychology:

• Garth J. O. Fletcher, Ph.D.: Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Professor Fletcher is internationally recognized for his seminal contributions to relationship cognition, ideal partner standards, and the psychometric modeling of perceived relationship quality components.
• Jeffrey A. Simpson, Ph.D.: Distinguished University Teaching Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, United States. Dr. Simpson is a leading authority on adult attachment theory, evolutionary psychology, interpersonal trust, and dyadic interaction processes in close relationships.
• Geoff Thomas, Ph.D.: Research Psychologist formerly affiliated with the Department of Psychology at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, collaborating on advanced structural equation modeling of social cognitive architectures in romantic dyads.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Commitment to Relationship (CTR) scale is to provide a brief, psychometrically robust, and conceptually pure assessment of an individual's psychological attachment to, and intention to maintain, a specific romantic union. In social and clinical psychology, historical assessments of relationship health frequently conflated affective evaluations (e.g., subjective happiness, marital satisfaction) with structural and motivational orientations (e.g., dedication, entrapment, long-term intent). Fletcher, Simpson, and Thomas (2000) addressed this critical psychometric limitation by isolating relational commitment as an autonomous yet correlated first-order facet of overall perceived relationship quality.

In empirical research, the CTR allows investigators to evaluate commitment without burdening participants with exhaustive questionnaires. It is particularly valuable in intensive longitudinal studies, such as daily diary protocols and ecological momentary assessments (EMA), where instrument brevity is essential to reduce participant attrition and respondent fatigue. The tool assesses the extent to which a partner envisions their relationship continuing indefinitely, how intensely they prioritize relational survival over competing personal alternatives, and the psychological energy they are prepared to invest to navigate interpersonal conflict.

In clinical and counseling settings, the CTR serves an essential diagnostic purpose. Discrepancies in commitment between partners—termed asymmetric commitment—are strong indicators of chronic distress, infidelity vulnerability, and heightened probability of separation. By administering the CTR during intake, marital therapists and family clinicians can quickly gauge baseline devotion, identify unilateral disinvestment, and tailor therapeutic interventions toward either relationship revitalization or constructive dissolution discernment.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the CTR is relational commitment, defined conceptually as an internal, motivational state representing long-term orientation toward a relationship, feelings of psychological attachment, and an explicit or implicit intention to persist in the partnership across time (Rusbult, 1983). Rather than indexing fleeting emotional positivity, commitment represents a stabilizing cognitive-motivational framework through which partners interpret dyadic events and regulate behavior.

The CTR isolates three core conceptual facets within its brief operationalization:

• Global Commitment (Item 1: "How committed are you to your relationship?"): Taps into the overt cognitive resolve to preserve the union. This item reflects an overarching decision-making framework wherein an individual binds their future outcomes to their partner's outcomes, indicating a deliberate choice to maintain the dyad regardless of routine relational fluctuations.
• Relational Dedication (Item 2: "How dedicated are you to your relationship?"): Measures active motivational alignment and the psychological priority ascribed to the bond. Dedication reflects an intrinsic desire not merely to stay together out of social pressure or convenience, but to actively allocate internal resources (such as time, cognitive attention, and emotional support) to nurture dyadic welfare.
• Devotion and Emotional Attachment (Item 3: "How devoted are you to your relationship?"): Captures the profound affective loyalty and reverence one holds toward the partnership. Devotion reflects self-transcendent investment, wherein the boundaries of the self expand to encompass the romantic other, transforming individualistic self-interest into communal motivation.

By focusing specifically on commitment, dedication, and devotion, the scale avoids confounding personal dedication with structural constraints (e.g., financial entanglements, legal barriers, fear of social disapproval) or moral obligations (e.g., religious proscriptions against divorce). It targets what Michael P. Johnson (1991) designated as personal commitment—the internal psychological desire and active will to stay coupled.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture underpinning the CTR is rooted in Interdependence Theory (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978) and Caryl Rusbult's seminal Investment Model of Relationship Processes (Rusbult, 1980, 1983). Interdependence theory posits that human behavior in dyads is governed by the structural matrix of rewards, costs, and outcome dependencies exchanged over time. Over repeated interactions, partners shift from immediate self-centered evaluations (given matrices) to broader, relationship-enhancing transformations of motivation (effective matrices).

Rusbult built upon this framework by conceptualizing commitment as the central psychological mechanism mediating the impact of three distinct factors on relationship persistence: satisfaction level (reward-to-cost evaluation relative to expectations), quality of alternatives (perceived viability of options outside the current bond), and investment size (resources inextricably bound to the union). In this framework, commitment acts as a psychological stabilizing anchor that promotes active relationship-maintenance mechanisms, such as:

• Accommodation: Responding constructively rather than destructively when a partner engages in hurtful or thoughtless behavior.
• Willingness to Sacrifice: Foregoing personal desires or goals for the long-term benefit of the partner or the partnership.
• Derogation of Attractive Alternatives: Automatically downplaying or cognitively devaluing potential alternative romantic partners to protect the existing relationship.
• Cognitive Interdependence: Experiencing a mental shift from thinking in terms of "I" and "Me" to a collective mental representation of "We" and "Us" (Agnew et al., 1998).

Fletcher, Simpson, and Thomas (2000) incorporated these theoretical tenets into their multidimensional conceptualization of Perceived Relationship Quality Components (PRQC). Recognizing that perceived relationship quality is inherently multifaceted, they utilized CFA modeling to demonstrate that while commitment is correlated with satisfaction, intimacy, trust, passion, and love, it occupies a distinct structural niche. In their hierarchical formulation, commitment functions as both a distinct first-order dimension and an essential indicator of a higher-order, overarching relationship quality construct.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the CTR has been demonstrated through rigorous construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validation studies across diverse cultural and demographic populations.

Construct and Convergent Validity

In the foundational validation studies conducted by Fletcher, Simpson, and Thomas (2000), construct validity was confirmed through structural equation modeling. The CTR demonstrated high convergent validity with established, longer multi-item inventories. It correlated substantially (typically r = .70 to .82) with the commitment subscale of Rusbult, Martz, and Agnew's (1998) Investment Model Scale and the decision/commitment scale of Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale. Furthermore, the scale correlated positively with general indices of marital and dyadic satisfaction, such as the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) and the Quality Marriage Index (QMI), with correlations consistently falling in the .60 to .75 range.

Discriminant Validity

Confirmatory factor analyses in Fletcher et al. (2000) provided strong evidence for discriminant validity. Competing structural models that collapsed the three commitment items with adjacent dimensions—such as relationship satisfaction, intimacy, or trust—demonstrated significantly worse model fit compared to models that preserved commitment as an autonomous first-order factor (Δχ² values were statistically significant at p < .001). Despite substantial inter-correlations among relationship components, commitment retained distinct latent variance, demonstrating that dedication and long-term intent are empirically separable from momentary happiness, sexual passion, or perceived interpersonal trust.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

The CTR exhibits strong predictive validity with respect to key behavioral and longitudinal outcomes. In longitudinal tracking ranging from 6 months to several years, baseline scores on the CTR reliably forecast relationship survival versus breakup; individuals scoring in the lowest quartile display significantly elevated hazard rates of relationship termination (Arriaga & Agnew, 2001). Furthermore, higher CTR scores predict pro-relationship behavioral responses in observed laboratory problem-solving paradigms, including lowered retaliatory negativity during conflict discussions, enhanced empathy, and greater willingness to make substantial personal sacrifices.

8. Reliability

The reliability of the CTR scale has been demonstrated across multiple independent samples, diverse relationship stages (dating, cohabiting, married), and varied linguistic adaptations.

Internal Consistency

Despite consisting of only three items, the CTR consistently yields high internal consistency estimates:

• In the original Fletcher, Simpson, and Thomas (2000) validation sample (comprising dating university students), the CTR exhibited a Cronbach's alpha (α) of .93.
• Subsequent cross-validation on an independent sample of long-term cohabiting and married couples yielded a Cronbach's alpha of .95.
• McDonald's omega coefficients (ω), which provide a more robust index of composite reliability when item-to-factor loadings vary slightly, routinely exceed .92, indicating that measurement error accounts for less than 8% of the total scale variance.
• Corrected item-total correlations across published literature consistently range between .81 and .91, confirming that all three indicators contribute uniformly to the underlying latent construct.

Test-Retest Stability

In longitudinal assessments assessing dyadic stability over moderate timeframes (e.g., 3 to 12 weeks), the CTR demonstrates robust test-retest reliability, with stability coefficients typically ranging between r = .78 and r = .86 among stable couples. Over multi-year intervals, test-retest coefficients exhibit expected moderate shifts reflecting true developmental changes in relationship trajectories, while retaining the relative ranking stability expected of an enduring psychological state.

9. Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the CTR was rigorously analyzed and validated by Fletcher, Simpson, and Thomas (2000) using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) within a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework.

Original Factor Structure and Item Loadings

Initial exploratory factor extractions using maximum likelihood analysis on large item pools of relationship components consistently extracted a distinct commitment factor characterized by high eigenvalues and substantial variance explained. In the subsequent confirmatory stage, a dedicated first-order latent commitment variable was modeled using the three CTR items. Standardized factor loadings (λ) on this single latent construct are exceptionally strong:

• Item 1 (How committed are you to your relationship?): λ = .91 to .94
• Item 2 (How dedicated are you to your relationship?): λ = .93 to .96
• Item 3 (How devoted are you to your relationship?): λ = .86 to .91

Hierarchical and Multidimensional Model Fit

Fletcher et al. (2000) tested several nested and alternative structural models to understand how commitment integrates into perceived relationship quality as a whole. A six-factor first-order model (separating Commitment, Satisfaction, Trust, Love, Passion, and Intimacy) yielded excellent fit to the empirical data:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .97
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .96
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .052 (90% CI [.041, .063])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .031

In their final second-order hierarchical model, the first-order Commitment factor loaded strongly onto a higher-order general "Perceived Relationship Quality" latent factor with a standardized path coefficient of approximately .88, confirming that while commitment is conceptually and statistically distinct, it serves as one of the primary pillars defining global relationship quality.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Commitment to Relationship (CTR) Scale (Commitment Subscale of the Perceived Relationship Quality Components [PRQC] Inventory)
• Authors: Garth J. O. Fletcher, Jeffrey A. Simpson, and Geoff Thomas (2000)
• Assessment Type: Self-report psychological questionnaire
• Format / Medium: Paper-and-pencil, computer-assisted self-interview (CASI), online surveys, mobile daily diary applications
• Total Number of Items: 3 items
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = Not at all to 7 = Extremely
• Administration Time: Under 1 minute (approximately 30 to 45 seconds)
• Scoring Procedure: Responses are averaged across the 3 items to calculate an overall commitment score. Higher scores indicate greater relationship commitment. No items are reverse-scored.
• Target Population: Individuals currently involved in romantic relationships (dating, cohabiting, civilly partnered, or married); suitable for ages 18 and older.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Commitment to Relationship (CTR) scale was first published in 2000 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), published by SAGE Publications. In accordance with standard academic conventions, the instrument is widely accessible in the public scientific domain for non-commercial, empirical research and educational training purposes without payment of licensing royalties, provided appropriate scholarly citation is attributed to Fletcher, Simpson, and Thomas (2000).

Researchers intending to incorporate the items into commercial software, fee-for-service clinical assessment platforms, or for-profit mobile applications must obtain formal copyright clearance and licensing permissions from SAGE Publications or the original copyright holders. No specialized certification is required to administer or score the inventory in academic settings; however, clinical interpretation of asymmetric commitment within couple therapy should be guided by qualified mental health practitioners.

12. References

• Agnew, C. R., Van Lange, P. A., Rusbult, C. E., & Langston, C. A. (1998). Cognitive interdependence: Commitment and the mental representation of close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(4), 939–954. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.4.939
• Arriaga, X. B., & Agnew, C. R. (2001). Being committed: Affective, cognitive, and conative components of relationship commitment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(6), 1190–1203. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.4.654
• Fletcher, G. J. O., Simpson, J. A., & Thomas, G. (2000). The measurement of perceived relationship quality components: A confirmatory factor analytic approach. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(3), 340–354. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167200265007
• Johnson, M. P. (1991). Commitment to personal relationships. In W. H. Jones & D. Perlman (Eds.), Advances in personal relationships (Vol. 3, pp. 117–143). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
• Kelley, H. H., & Thibaut, J. W. (1978). Interpersonal relations: A theory of interdependence. John Wiley & Sons.
• Rusbult, C. E. (1980). Commitment and satisfaction in romantic associations: A test of the investment model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16(2), 172–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(80)90007-4
• Rusbult, C. E. (1983). A longitudinal test of the investment model: The development (and deterioration) of satisfaction and commitment in heterosexual involvements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(1), 101–117. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.1.101
• Rusbult, C. E., Martz, J. M., & Agnew, C. R. (1998). The Investment Model Scale: Measuring commitment level, satisfaction level, quality of alternatives, and investment size. Personal Relationships, 5(4), 357–391. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.1998.tb00177.x

13. Items of the Scale