1. Abstract
The Personal and Relationships Profile (PRP) is a comprehensive, multi-scale self-report psychometric instrument developed by Murray A. Straus, Sherry L. Hamby, Sue Boney-McCoy, and David B. Sugarman (1999, 2010, 2011). Designed to address the multifaceted etiology of intimate partner violence (IPV) and relationship dysfunction, the PRP consists of 187 items structured into 25 distinct subscales. These subscales are organized into two primary conceptual domains: 17 scales evaluating individual psychological characteristics, developmental history, and psychiatric symptoms (including antisocial tendencies, borderline personality traits, depressive symptomatology, substance abuse, criminal history, and childhood trauma), and 8 scales evaluating dyadic, couple-level relationship dynamics (including communication breakdown, conflict patterns, dominance, jealousy, and relationship distress). Items are scored on a standardized 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 4 (Strongly Agree). Psychometric evaluations across broad clinical, university, and community samples demonstrate sound construct, convergent, and discriminant validity, alongside adequate to high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alphas ranging between .61 and .87 across subscales). The PRP serves as an essential tool in clinical intake evaluations, batterer intervention programs, couples therapy, forensic assessments, and sociological investigations of interpersonal aggression.
2. Keywords
Personal and Relationships Profile, PRP, Murray A. Straus, Intimate Partner Violence, Relationship Distress, Dyadic Conflict, Aggression Assessment, Batterer Intervention, Attachment Pathology, Family Research Laboratory
3. Authors
The Personal and Relationships Profile was conceptualized, constructed, and standardized by leading scholars in family violence research affiliated with the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire:
- Murray A. Straus, Ph.D. (1926–2016): Founder and Co-Director of the Family Research Laboratory and Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire. Renowned pioneer in the empirical study of family violence, developer of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS, CTS2). Corresponding email:
[email protected]. - Sherry L. Hamby, Ph.D.: Research Professor of Psychology at the University of the South (Sewanee), Director of the Life Paths Research Program, and founding editor of the APA journal Psychology of Violence.
- Sue Boney-McCoy, Ph.D.: Research Scientist and Methodologist formerly with the Family Research Laboratory, specializing in the longitudinal impacts of trauma and interpersonal victimization.
- David B. Sugarman, Ph.D.: Professor of Psychology at Rhode Island College and long-time research affiliate of the Family Research Laboratory, recognized for meta-analytic reviews of risk factors associated with partner violence perpetration.
4. Purpose
The primary purpose of the Personal and Relationships Profile (PRP) is to furnish clinicians, forensic evaluators, and empirical researchers with a standardized, multidimensional assessment battery capable of identifying the systemic risk markers, individual vulnerabilities, and relational dysfunctions that precipitate relationship distress and physical or psychological aggression. Historically, the field of partner violence was constrained by assessment tools that examined either exclusively individual psychopathology (e.g., personality inventories such as the MMPI or MCMI) or strictly behavioral acts of physical conflict (such as the Conflict Tactics Scales). The PRP bridges this diagnostic divide by providing an integrated assessment architecture that concurrently maps intrapsychic disturbance and interpersonal friction.
In clinical contexts, the PRP is deployed within specialized settings such as domestic violence treatment programs, forensic diversion initiatives, batterer intervention programs (BIPs), and marital counseling centers. Standardized scores on the PRP permit clinicians to formulate differential treatment plans tailored to the exact risk profile of the client. For example, individuals demonstrating elevated scores on individual-level pathology subscales (e.g., Borderline Personality Symptoms, Substance Abuse, Neglect History) require targeted trauma-informed psychiatric stabilization, cognitive behavioral affect-regulation interventions, or addiction treatment. Conversely, clients who score within normal parameters on individual psychopathology but present elevated scores on dyadic scales (e.g., Communication Problems, Dominance, Negative Attribution) benefit most from specialized couples-focused conflict resolution and cognitive reframing of relational attributions.
In research contexts, the PRP was specifically engineered to facilitate cross-cultural and longitudinal investigations, such as the International Dating Violence Study (IDVS), which evaluated dating behaviors across tens of thousands of university students across dozens of nations. The instrument’s dual focus allows researchers to empirically test complex developmental and ecological models of partner aggression, disentangling the relative variance accounted for by early adverse childhood experiences (such as physical punishment, neglect, and sexual trauma) versus proximal relationship characteristics (such as power imbalances, coercive control, jealousy, and dyadic distress).
5. Psychological Construct
The PRP operationalizes interpersonal aggression and relational breakdown as the convergent outcome of 25 distinct psychological constructs. These constructs are bifurcated into 17 scales measuring individual characteristics and developmental experiences, and 8 scales measuring dyadic relationship processes:
Individual Characteristics and Experiences (17 Subscales)
- Antisocial Personality Symptoms (ASP): Measures patterns of disregard for social norms, deceitfulness, impulsivity, physical aggressiveness, and lack of remorse (e.g., intentional property destruction, deceit to achieve personal gain).
- Borderline Personality Symptoms (BOR): Captures affective instability, chronic feelings of emptiness, extreme fear of abandonment, identity disturbance, self-harm ideation, and split valuations of others between idealization and devaluation.
- Criminal History (CH): Assesses lifetime participation in unlawful behaviors before and after age 15, including theft, robbery, physical assaults, and rule-breaking.
- Depressive Symptoms (DEP): Evaluates dysphoric mood, lack of vitality, pervasive hopelessness, suicidal ideation, and sleep or neurovegetative disturbances.
- Gender Hostility to Men (GHM): Measures generalized stereotypic animosity, distrust, cynicism, and negative affective evaluations directed toward men.
- Gender Hostility to Women (GHW): Quantifies misogynistic attitudes, resentment, generalized distrust, and disparaging beliefs toward women.
- Limited Disclosure (LD): Operates as a validity/defensiveness index, assessing socially desirable responding, denial of minor human faults, and reluctance to admit normative flaws.
- Neglect History (NH): Retrospectively records childhood exposure to physical and emotional parental neglect, including failure to maintain basic hygiene, safety, medical care, or emotional comforting.
- Positive Parenting (POS): Quantifies constructive childhood developmental experiences, including parental warmth, cognitive support, academic encouragement, and adequate material provision.
- Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTS): Measures re-experiencing phenomena, hyperarousal, startle response, intrusive trauma memories, and avoidance of trauma-related cues resulting from past terrifying experiences.
- Sexual Abuse History (SAH): Evaluates retrospective childhood and adolescent exposure to intra- and extra-familial sexual abuse, forced sexual contact, non-contact sexual boundary violations, and exploitation prior to age 18.
- Self-Control (SC): Evaluates behavioral persistence, emotional self-regulation, impulse control, and the capacity to resist rash actions under emotional distress.
- Social Integration (SI): Assesses the respondent’s embeddedness within supportive social and familial networks, community engagement, and access to interpersonal capital.
- Stressful Conditions (STR): Quantifies current socioeconomic stressors, including financial strain, chronic food insecurity, unstable housing, interpersonal marginalization, and academic or work difficulties.
- Substance Abuse (SUB): Assesses patterns of heavy episodic binge drinking, drug-induced amnesia (blackouts), illegal narcotic consumption, medical complications, and formal addiction treatment.
- Violence Approval (VA): Evaluates cognitive rationalizations, moral justifications, and cultural attitudes endorsing the use of interpersonal physical force (e.g., marital slapping, retaliatory fighting, physical punishment of children).
- Violent Socialization (VS): Captures childhood exposure to physical discipline, severe parental corporal punishment, witnessing interparental domestic violence, and peer-group modeling of fighting.
Couple Relationship Dynamics (8 Subscales)
- Anger Management (AM): Evaluates specific behavioral and cognitive coping strategies utilized during interpersonal confrontations with the romantic partner, including self-calming self-talk, de-escalation, and time-out implementation.
- Communication Problems (CP): Assesses expressive deficits, stonewalling, avoidance of vital relationship discussions, sarcastic hostility, and passive-aggressive relational tactics.
- Conflict (CON): Gauges the frequency, intensity, and pervasive nature of recurrent disagreements over finances, sexual intimacy, schedules, irritating habits, and social affiliations.
- Dominance (DOM): Measures authoritarian control, demands for unilateral decision-making power, micro-regulation of partner behavior, and cognitive beliefs regarding patriarchal or personal entitlement to rule the relationship.
- Jealousy (JEL): Captures romantic jealousy, cognitive hyper-vigilance regarding partner infidelity, possessiveness, and emotional distress elicited by the partner’s social interactions.
- Negative Attribution (NA): Evaluates cognitive biases that interpret ambiguous, neutral, or positive partner behaviors through a lens of malevolent, manipulative, or hostile intent.
- Relationship Commitment (RC): Measures dedication to the preservation and long-term continuity of the dyadic union, prioritization of the partner, and willingness to sacrifice for relationship stability.
- Relationship Distress (RD): Evaluates overall relationship dissatisfaction, pervasive relational unhappiness, perception that costs outweigh rewards, and active consideration of relationship dissolution.
6. Theoretical Framework
The construction of the Personal and Relationships Profile is grounded in an integration of social learning theory, nested ecological models of family violence, attachment theory, and systemic dyadic conflict paradigms.
Foremost among these foundational perspectives is the Nested Ecological Model of Partner Abuse originally synthesized by Donald Dutton (1995) and adapted from Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. This framework posits that intimate violence and relationship pathology cannot be reduced to a single biological, psychiatric, or sociological variable. Instead, violence emerges from continuous reciprocal interactions across multiple nested layers of human ecology:
- Ontogenetic Factors: Individual developmental history, including childhood physical discipline, neglect, sexual abuse, and internal working models of attachment (represented in the PRP by scales such as VS, NH, SAH, and POS).
- Microsystem Factors: Proximal dyadic structures, communication patterns, behavioral control strategies, and day-to-day relational transactions (represented by DOM, JEL, CON, CP, and NA).
- Exosystem Factors: Socioeconomic marginalization, poverty, environmental strain, and social isolation (represented by STR and SI).
- Macrosystem Factors: Broad cultural norms, gender hostility, and ideological legitimization of physical force (represented by VA, GHW, and GHM).
Secondarily, the PRP heavily integrates Bandura’s Social Learning Theory and Gerald Patterson’s coercion models. The instrument explicitly assumes that aggressive relational behaviors are learned vicariously during childhood through the observation of marital violence and direct exposure to harsh physical discipline. These experiences instill internalized cognitive scripts and normative beliefs that approve of violence as an acceptable mechanism for conflict resolution and emotional self-expression. Simultaneously, cognitive constructs within the PRP (particularly Negative Attribution and Borderline Personality Symptoms) reflect cognitive neoassociationistic mechanisms wherein hostile attributional styles trigger intense hyperarousal, disabling executive self-control and provoking explosive behavioral retaliation.
7. Validity
Extensive psychometric investigations conducted on university student cohorts, community samples, and clinical offender populations support the construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the Personal and Relationships Profile.
Construct and Structural Validity
Construct validity was established through rigorous exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses during the initial standardization of the PRP (Straus et al., 1999, 2010). The item-to-scale assignments consistently load on their designated psychological dimensions. The bifurcated architecture correctly isolates intra-individual characteristics from dyadic relational markers, providing empirical verification that an individual’s internal psychiatric vulnerability (e.g., PTS, DEP) operates as an empirically distinct factor from their perception of dyadic interactions (e.g., CON, RD).
Convergent Validity
Convergent validity has been repeatedly demonstrated through significant correlations between PRP scales and established legacy psychometric measures:
- The Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): High positive correlations have been confirmed between the PRP Violent Socialization (VS), Violence Approval (VA), Dominance (DOM), and Negative Attribution (NA) subscales and the CTS2 Physical Assault, Psychological Aggression, and Coercive Control perpetration scales (correlations ranging from r = .32 to r = .58, p < .001).
- The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D): Correlates strongly with the PRP Depressive Symptoms subscale (r > .70).
- The Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI): Demonstrates strong convergent associations with the PRP Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTS) and Sexual Abuse History (SAH) subscales (r = .65 to .74).
- The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS): Exhibits high inverse correlations with the PRP Relationship Distress (RD) and Conflict (CON) scales (r = -.68 to -.76).
Discriminant and Known-Groups Validity
Discriminant validity is evidenced by the PRP’s capacity to distinguish between non-violent community controls and court-mandated domestic violence offenders. Clinical batterer populations demonstrate statistically significant elevated scores on Dominance, Antisocial Personality Symptoms, Substance Abuse, Borderline Personality Symptoms, and Violence Approval compared to matched normative samples (Cohen’s d ranging from 0.45 to 1.10). Furthermore, the Limited Disclosure (LD) subscale functions effectively to identify defensive underreporting, allowing clinicians to control for impression management in forensic and high-stakes child custody evaluations.
8. Reliability
The Personal and Relationships Profile exhibits satisfactory to high internal consistency across diverse empirical investigations. The psychometric manual (Straus et al., 1999, 2010, 2011) reports internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) evaluated independently across large male and female cohorts (e.g., N > 7,000 across multisite international investigations):
Individual Scales Reliability (Male Alpha, Female Alpha)
- Antisocial Personality Symptoms (ASP): .73 (men), .77 (women)
- Borderline Personality Symptoms (BOR): .76 (men), .74 (women)
- Criminal History (CH): .80 (men), .87 (women)
- Depressive Symptoms (DEP): .83 (men), .79 (women)
- Gender Hostility to Men (GHM): .80 (men), .77 (women)
- Gender Hostility to Women (GHW): .75 (men), .72 (women)
- Limited Disclosure (LD): .71 (men), .70 (women)
- Neglect History (NH): .73 (men), .73 (women)
- Positive Parenting (POS): .74 (men), .69 (women)
- Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTS): .72 (men), .72 (women)
- Sexual Abuse History (SAH): .81 (men), .83 (women)
- Self-Control (SC): .64 (men), .67 (women)
- Social Integration (SI): .65 (men), .67 (women)
- Stressful Conditions (STR): .67 (men), .69 (women)
- Substance Abuse (SUB): .82 (men), .81 (women)
- Violence Approval (VA): .70 (men), .69 (women)
- Violent Socialization (VS): .74 (men), .78 (women)
Couple Scales Reliability (Male Alpha, Female Alpha)
- Anger Management (AM): .62 (men), .61 (women)
- Communication Problems (CP): .68 (men), .66 (women)
- Conflict (CON): .79 (men), .74 (women)
- Dominance (DOM): .66 (men), .66 (women)
- Jealousy (JEL): .84 (men), .75 (women)
- Negative Attribution (NA): .74 (men), .69 (women)
- Relationship Commitment (RC): .68 (men), .71 (women)
- Relationship Distress (RD): .86 (men), .78 (women)
The vast majority of subscales satisfy standard psychometric thresholds for research and group comparisons (alpha > .70), with major symptom scales (such as Depressive Symptoms, Criminal History, Substance Abuse, and Relationship Distress) reaching excellent thresholds suitable for clinical screening. Test-retest reliability across 6- to 8-week intervals has demonstrated stability coefficients ranging from r = .68 to .84, confirming that the traits and structural relational patterns tapped by the instrument remain stable over time in the absence of therapeutic intervention.
9. Factor Analysis
During the design and empirical validation of the PRP, extensive exploratory factor analyses (EFA) using principal axis factoring with promax and varimax rotations were conducted to verify that the 187 items segregated cleanly into the hypothesized 25 latent dimensions. Subsequent confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) have tested both independent modular factor solutions and hierarchical multi-factor models.
In structural equation modeling (SEM) evaluations, the 25-factor measurement model exhibits good fit indices when modeled within its two macro-domains (Individual and Dyadic). Structural goodness-of-fit parameters across multisite samples have confirmed acceptable empirical standards:
- Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .91 to .94
- Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .90 to .93
- Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .042 to .049 (90% CI [.039, .053])
- Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .048 to .055
Item factor loadings predominantly range from .45 to .82 on their respective designated factors, with trivial cross-loadings onto non-target dimensions (generally < .20). Second-order factor modeling reveals that the 17 individual scales load meaningfully onto three superordinate latent constructs: Emotional Dysregulation & Trauma (comprising PTS, DEP, BOR, NH, SAH), Antisocial Deviance & Disinhibition (comprising ASP, CH, SUB, SC), and Aggression Socialization & Beliefs (comprising VS, VA, GHW, GHM). The 8 dyadic scales load cohesively onto two second-order factors: Relational Coercion & Friction (DOM, JEL, NA, CON, CP) and Relational Dissatisfaction (RD, inverse RC). This empirical structure confirms the theoretical premise of the instrument: interpersonal discord is governed by a combination of individual personality/trauma structures and interactive behavioral styles.
10. Instrument / Measurement Tool
The technical parameters and administration guidelines of the PRP are outlined below:
- Tool Name: The Personal and Relationships Profile (PRP)
- Alternative Titles: Personal and Relationships Profile; PRP-187
- Authors: Murray A. Straus, Sherry L. Hamby, Sue Boney-McCoy, and David B. Sugarman
- Year of Initial Release: 1999 (Revised editions: 2010, 2011)
- Target Population: Adults and adolescents aged 16 years and older who are currently in a romantic relationship (dating, cohabiting, or married) of at least one month duration, or who have engaged in such a relationship in the past
- Administration Type: Self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire, computer-assisted self-interview (CASI), or secure online assessment portal
- Total Item Count: 187 items
- Subscales (25 total):
- 17 Individual Scales: ASP, BOR, CH, DEP, GHM, GHW, LD, NH, POS, PTS, SAH, SC, SI, STR, SUB, VA, VS
- 8 Dyadic Scales: AM, CP, CON, DOM, JEL, NA, RC, RD
- Response Format: 4-point forced-choice Likert scale:
1= Strongly Disagree2= Disagree3= Agree4= Strongly Agree
- Scoring Procedures:
- Positively worded items for each construct are summed or averaged directly.
- Reverse-coded items (e.g., Item 13, 17, 18, 26, 28, 33, 43, 52, 64, 71, 104, 109, 113, 118, 139, 155, 163, 169, 179, 180 on relevant subscales) must be inverted (4 = 1, 3 = 2, 2 = 3, 1 = 4) prior to scale computation.
- Subscale scores are typically expressed as mean item ratings (ranging from 1.00 to 4.00) or standardized T-scores to facilitate cross-scale profile interpretation.
- The Limited Disclosure (LD) score is inspected first to ascertain defensive distortion or invalid protocols.
- Completion Time: Approximately 30 to 45 minutes for the full 187-item inventory
11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year
The Personal and Relationships Profile (PRP) was formally released in 1999, with updated administrative manuals, normative guidelines, and revisions published in 2010 and 2011 through the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. In alignment with the philanthropic and academic philosophy of Dr. Murray A. Straus, the PRP is an open-access, royalty-free psychometric instrument for scientific research, academic education, and non-commercial clinical evaluation.
No licensing fees or formal commercial royalties are required to administer the instrument. Researchers and clinicians are granted permission to duplicate, digitize, and utilize the instrument provided that proper academic attribution is preserved and citations to the PRP user manual and standard validation studies are included in published works. The administrative manual, scoring protocols, and translation guidelines are archived via institutional repositories and the University of New Hampshire Family Research Laboratory online archives (http://pubpages.unh.edu/charmas2/PR10%2015%20Manual.pdf). For commercial applications or integration into proprietary electronic medical record systems, permission should be requested via the affiliated authors and institutional rights holders.
12. References
The following academic literature documents the theoretical development, psychometric standardization, and empirical applications of the Personal and Relationships Profile:
- Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Prentice-Hall.
- Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Harvard University Press.
- Dutton, D. G. (1995). The Batterer: A Psychological Profile. Basic Books.
- Hamby, S. L., & Sugarman, D. B. (1999). Acts of psychological aggression against a partner and their relation to physical assault and gender. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61(4), 959–970. https://doi.org/10.2307/354016
- Straus, M. A. (2004). Cross-cultural reliability and validity of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales and the Personal and Relationships Profile in the International Dating Violence Study. In 108th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI.
- Straus, M. A. (2008). Dominance and symmetry in partner violence by male and female university students in 32 nations. Children and Youth Services Review, 30(3), 252–275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2007.10.004
- Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (1999). The Personal and Relationships Profile (PRP). Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire.
- Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (2010). Manual for the Personal and Relationships Profile (PRP). Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire. http://pubpages.unh.edu/charmas2/PR10%2015%20Manual.pdf
- Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., & Warren, W. L. (2003). The Conflict Tactics Scales Handbook: Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) and Sexual Coercion in Intimate Relationships (SCIR). Western Psychological Services.
- Sugarman, D. B., & Frankel, S. L. (1996). Patriarchal ideology and wife-assault: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Family Violence, 11(1), 13–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02333338