Reiss Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale

Abstract

The Reiss Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale (RESPS) is a landmark psychometric and sociological measurement instrument developed by the distinguished sociologist Ira L. Reiss to assess individual normative acceptance of extramarital coitus across differentiated relational and motivational contexts. Grounded in Reiss’s sociological theorizing on human sexuality and family systems, the instrument measures the conditions under which an individual endorses or tolerates sexual non-exclusivity within a marital framework. The scale is structured around a four-item 2×2 factorial design crossing two fundamental sociological dimensions: the motivational orientation of the extramarital involvement (pleasure-centered versus love-centered sexuality) and the dyadic consensual context (mate approval versus mate non-approval). Designed for administration across both married and unmarried populations, respondents systematically evaluate the four core scenarios under two distinct hypothetical marital conditions: a subjectively happy marriage and a subjectively unhappy marriage, yielding an eight-response evaluation matrix.

Psychometrically, the RESPS has historically been formatted both as a Guttman scalogram and as a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree), or alternatively dichotomized into categorical acceptance versus rejection. Across extensive empirical evaluations utilizing representative data from the General Social Survey (GSS) administered by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), the RESPS has demonstrated robust psychometric integrity. The scale routinely satisfies classical Guttman criteria, displaying coefficients of reproducibility exceeding .90 and coefficients of scalability surpassing .65. Internal consistency estimates typically yield Cronbach’s alpha coefficients between .82 and .89 across diverse community and student cohorts. Structural investigations confirm strong construct, convergent, and discriminant validity, with scores reliably predicting actual extramarital involvement, general sexual permissiveness, and attitudes toward non-traditional marital structures, while exhibiting robust theoretical associations with educational attainment, gender role egalitarianism, and religiosity.

Keywords

Extramarital sexuality, sexual permissiveness, Ira L. Reiss, psychometrics, Guttman scaling, marital fidelity, relational infidelity, sexual attitudes, extradyadic sex, dyadic consensus

Authors

The scale was developed and validated by Ira L. Reiss, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Reiss is widely recognized as one of the pioneering figures in the sociological study of human sexuality, having served as the 24th President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) and recipient of the Alfred C. Kinsey Award. Key theoretical and psychometric collaborations expanding and refining the empirical models of the scale were conducted alongside Ronald E. Anderson and G. C. Sponaugle at the Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota.

Inquiries regarding the theoretical architecture and research implementation of the scale may be directed to Dr. Ira L. Reiss at his institutional registry address: Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, 909 Social Sciences Tower, 267 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, or via scholarly archives preserved through the University of Minnesota Libraries.

Purpose

The foundational purpose of the Reiss Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale is to provide an objective, standardized, and theoretically grounded empirical methodology for quantifying individual tolerance, moral acceptability, and normative endorsement of extramarital coitus. Rather than conceptualizing sexual infidelity as an undifferentiated, universally stigmatized behavioral transgression, Reiss recognized that personal value systems regarding extramarital relations are highly contingent upon contextual contingencies and dyadic negotiations. The RESPS was engineered to dissect these nuanced normative boundaries by systematically varying the interpersonal motivations driving the sexual behavior and the presence or absence of spousal consent.

Within contemporary sociological, clinical, and psychological research, the RESPS serves multiple vital applications:

• Sociological Modeling of Normative Changes: It allows social scientists to track demographic shifts, cohort variations, and macro-level cultural evolutions regarding sexual exclusivity, gender equality, and marital institutions across decades of national survey administrations.
• Etiological Modeling of Relational Infidelity: The scale functions as a robust predictive instrument in clinical and dyadic studies investigating the precursors of marital infidelity, enabling researchers to distinguish between affective/emotional infidelity motivations and purely physical or hedonistic pursuits.
• Marital and Family Therapy Assessment: In clinical settings, the RESPS provides a diagnostic heuristic for exploring discrepancies between partners regarding their cognitive definitions of infidelity, unstated relational boundaries, and the impact of marital dissatisfaction on sexual boundary permeability.
• Extradyadic Studies Beyond Legal Marriage: As noted by Reiss, the conceptual framework can be readily adapted to investigate non-marital cohabiting unions, consensual non-monogamy (polyamory), and emerging non-traditional dyadic partnerships.

The theoretical rationale behind the instrument posits that individual permissiveness is not a static personality trait, but rather a cognitively organized value hierarchy that interacts dynamically with relational satisfaction. By requiring participants to evaluate extramarital scenarios across both a hypothetically happy and a hypothetically unhappy marriage, the RESPS explicitly quantifies marital happiness elasticity—the degree to which an individual views relational distress as a legitimate justification for breaching sexual exclusivity norms.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct measured by the RESPS is Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness (EMSP), defined as the degree to which an individual cognitively approves, condones, or tolerates the engagement in sexual intercourse by a married individual with someone other than their legal spouse. The construct operates as a complex sociosexual attitude structured along two orthogonal environmental axes, each representing critical interpersonal thresholds:

1. The Motivational Axis: Pleasure-Centered versus Love-Centered Involvement

The motivational dimension evaluates the emotional context legitimizing the sexual encounter. In human sexual science, attitudes toward non-monogamy diverge substantially depending on whether the act is framed as purely physical recreation or as an affective bond. The RESPS captures this dichotomy:

• Pleasure-Centered Sexuality: Refers to non-relational or recreational coitus where the primary objective is physical gratification, sensation seeking, or sexual novelty, devoid of romantic emotional attachment. Culturally, pleasure-centered infidelity is often judged harshly as hedonistic or deceitful, yet in certain modern subcultures, it is viewed as less threatening to marital stability than romantic replacement.
• Love-Centered Sexuality: Involves extradyadic coitus emerging from or accompanied by romantic emotional intimacy, love, and deep affective attachment. While historically emotional connections have been viewed by some as more socially understandable than raw physical lust, in marital dynamics, romantic love with an outside partner frequently poses an existential threat to the marital bond, often precipitating permanent divorce.

2. The Dyadic Consensus Axis: Spousal Approval versus Spousal Rejection

The consensus dimension taps into the social-relational contract and the presence of deceptive betrayal versus collaborative non-monogamy:

• Mate Approval (Consensual / Non-Deceptive): Examines situations where the primary spouse is fully aware of and explicitly consents to the partner’s outside sexual involvement. This scenario reflects early sociological formulations of open marriages, sexually negotiated partnerships, and contemporary consensual non-monogamy. Endorsement of these items taps an individual’s comfort with non-possessive, egalitarian, or structurally open relational models.
• Mate Rejection (Non-Consensual / Clandestine): Examines situations where the extramarital coitus occurs in direct defiance of the spouse’s expectations or desires, characterized by unilateral boundary violation and deception. Endorsement of these items reflects an individualistic, autonomous, or rule-rejecting orientation wherein personal sexual satisfaction is prioritized above the explicit psychological comfort of the marital partner.

Cross-Classification and Marital Quality Interaction

When crossed, these two axes generate a classic four-fold typology of extramarital sexual arrangements:

1. Consensual Pleasure: Extramarital coitus for recreational pleasure with spousal knowledge and consent.
2. Non-Consensual Pleasure: Clandestine recreational coitus carried out despite spousal disapproval.
3. Consensual Love: Affective/romantic outside sexual relationships explicitly permitted by the partner.
4. Non-Consensual Love: Emotionally attached extramarital affairs maintained despite spousal objection.

Furthermore, because the RESPS evaluates these four quadrants under conditions of both marital happiness and marital distress, the construct fundamentally captures how perceived marital quality moderates moral and relational permissiveness.

Theoretical Framework

The development of the RESPS is anchored in Ira L. Reiss’s comprehensive sociological theory of human sexual permissiveness, most fully articulated in his propositions regarding premarital sexual permissiveness (Reiss, 1967) and subsequently expanded into multivariate models of extramarital permissiveness (Reiss & Miller, 1979; Reiss, Anderson, & Sponaugle, 1980). Reiss sought to move sexology beyond clinical psychoanalytic models or biological reductionism by analyzing sexual attitudes as culturally organized norm systems governed by macro-sociological and micro-relational structural dynamics.

The Autonomy-Integration Proposition

A core postulate of Reiss’s theoretical framework is that extramarital sexual permissiveness is an inverse function of institutional social control and dyadic integration. In traditional marital systems, marriage operates as an all-encompassing social institution designed to consolidate economic, familial, and reproductive resources. Within such systems, sexual exclusivity is enforced as an indispensable regulatory mechanism. However, as societies modernize, marriage transitions into a companionship or individualized model (Anthony Giddens’s concept of the “pure relationship”), wherein personal self-actualization, individual autonomy, and mutual consent gain supremacy over institutional dogma.

The Multivariate Model of Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness

In their seminal empirical formulation, Reiss, Anderson, and Sponaugle (1980) tested and validated a multivariate causal path model predicting extramarital permissiveness using nationally representative data. Their model identified three dominant direct determinants of extramarital permissiveness:

• General Premarital Sexual Permissiveness: Individuals who maintain permissive, non-restrictive attitudes toward non-marital, premarital, or recreational sexuality in general are cognitively predisposed toward higher extramarital permissiveness. Sexual attitudes exhibit cross-situational cognitive consistency.
• Level of Marital Happiness: Low marital satisfaction significantly weakens the perceived normative obligation of sexual exclusivity. When the marital dyad fails to deliver emotional, companionship, or sexual fulfillment, individual barriers against seeking outside intimacy diminish substantially.
• Educational Attainment and Cognitive Flexibility: Higher educational attainment is consistently correlated with broader cosmopolitan values, lower adherence to traditional religious dogmas, higher tolerance for non-conventional lifestyles, and support for gender equality, directly elevating acceptance of contextual extramarital options.

The theoretical framework also integrates social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Nye, 1979). In social exchange terms, fidelity is viewed as a costly investment made in expectation of exclusive reciprocal emotional and sexual rewards. If the perceived rewards within the primary dyad diminish, or if external alternative rewards become highly salient and accessible at low interpersonal cost (particularly when spousal consent mitigates emotional conflict), the subjective barrier toward extramarital coitus declines.

Validity

The construct, criterion, convergent, and discriminant validity of the Reiss Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale has been extensively corroborated across more than four decades of empirical investigation in both sociological and psychological literature.

Construct and Criterion Validity

In the original validation studies conducted by Reiss, Anderson, and Sponaugle (1980), the instrument was tested against four distinct, nationally representative sample surveys collected via the General Social Survey (GSS) by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. The multivariable path analyses revealed that the four items behaved exactly as hypothesized within sociological theory. Specifically, the scale demonstrated:

• Predictive Power for Infidelity: Individuals scoring high on the RESPS exhibited statistically significant, substantially higher odds of self-reported actual extradyadic sexual behaviors across lifetime measures compared to low scorers (Treas & Giesen, 2000).
• Sensitivity to Marital Distress: Across all validation cohorts, scores under the “unhappy marriage” condition were consistently and significantly higher than scores under the “happy marriage” condition, confirming that the scale accurately captures the moderating role of relational discord.
• Delineation of Dyadic Consensus: Items involving spousal consent consistently garnered higher acceptance rates across general populations than items involving spousal rejection, validating the construct’s capacity to measure the distinct ethical weight individuals place on marital deceit versus consensus.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established through strong correlations with complementary psychometric measures:

• Premarital Permissiveness: Scores on the RESPS correlate strongly with the Reiss Premarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale (PSP; Reiss, 1967), showing Pearson correlation coefficients typically ranging between r = .45 and .62 (p < .001).
• Sociosexuality: Modern studies indicate robust positive correlations between the RESPS and the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI / SOI-R; Simpson & Gangestad, 1991), particularly with the uncommitted sexual attitudes subscale (r > .50).
• Liberalism and Religiosity: The scale demonstrates substantial negative correlations with religiosity and religious orthodoxy (r = −.35 to −.48), as well as strong positive associations with political liberalism and gender-role egalitarianism (Banfield & McCabe, 2001; Sponaugle, 1993).

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been demonstrated by showing that the RESPS does not merely measure generalized anti-sociality, neuroticism, or marital hostility. Studies evaluating broad personality profiles (e.g., Five-Factor Model) find near-zero correlations between RESPS scores and neuroticism or generalized negative affectivity, confirming that the scale captures specific normative sexual ideologies rather than general psychological maladjustment (Saunders & Edwards, 1984; Weis & Slosnerick, 1981).

Reliability

The reliability of the Reiss Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale has been established using both non-parametric cumulative scaling techniques (Guttman scalogram analysis) and classical test theory (Cronbach’s alpha).

Guttman Scalogram Metrics

Because Reiss initially conceptualized sexual permissiveness as a unidimensional, cumulative hierarchical construct, the primary criteria for reliability in original validation cohorts rested upon Guttman scalogram parameters:

• Coefficient of Reproducibility (CR): The CR measures the degree to which a respondent’s total score allows accurate prediction of their specific item endorsements. The RESPS consistently demonstrates a CR exceeding the conventional psychometric threshold of .90 (typically observed between .92 and .96 across national GSS datasets), confirming minimal random response error.
• Coefficient of Scalability (CS): The CS evaluates whether the scale’s reproducibility is substantially higher than would be expected by marginal response distributions alone. The RESPS regularly yields CS values ranging from .68 to .78, comfortably exceeding the standard .65 benchmark for acceptable cumulative scalability.

Internal Consistency and Temporal Stability

When evaluated as an additive or Likert-type continuous composite scale:

• Internal Consistency: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the four-item scale routinely fall between α = .82 and α = .89 across varied demographic samples (Weis & Jurich, 1985; Banfield & McCabe, 2001). When calculated separately for the happy marriage and unhappy marriage vignettes, internal consistency remains robust (α ≥ .80 for happy; α ≥ .85 for unhappy).
• Test-Retest Reliability: Longitudinal and short-term test-retest evaluations over intervals of two to four weeks have shown stability coefficients ranging from r = .79 to r = .86, demonstrating that normative attitudes toward extramarital sexuality remain stable over short intervals in the absence of major relational transitions.

Factor Analysis

Extensive factor-analytic evaluations of the RESPS have confirmed both the unidimensionality of its underlying evaluative core and the structural integrity of its two-dimensional item design.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When the four items are subjected to principal axis factoring or principal components analysis (PCA) with unrotated extractions, a dominant single factor consistently emerges, accounting for between 62% and 74% of the total variance across diverse samples. All four items exhibit high factor loadings on this general Extramarital Permissiveness dimension, typically ranging from .71 to .88:

• Item 1 (Love, Partner Disapproves): Factor loading ≈ .74 to .82
• Item 2 (Love, Partner Agrees): Factor loading ≈ .78 to .85
• Item 3 (Pleasure, Partner Disapproves): Factor loading ≈ .71 to .79
• Item 4 (Pleasure, Partner Agrees): Factor loading ≈ .79 to .88

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In structural equation modeling frameworks assessing the 2×2 theoretical matrix (Affective vs. Recreational motivation crossed with Consensual vs. Non-consensual context), structural analyses demonstrate excellent fit indices when modeling the items either as a single latent permissiveness construct with correlated error terms between identical condition stems, or as a hierarchical second-order model. Typical fit metrics reported in modern psychometric re-evaluations include:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) > .97
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) > .96
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) ≤ .05 (90% CI [.02, .08])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) ≤ .03

Measurement invariance analyses across biological sex have confirmed full scalar and metric invariance, establishing that observed differences between men and women reflect genuine variations in latent permissiveness rather than differential item functioning.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structured operational details of the Reiss Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: Reiss Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale (RESPS)
• Author: Dr. Ira L. Reiss (University of Minnesota)
• Construct Measured: Personal normative acceptance of extramarital sexual intercourse under varied relational, emotional, and consensus conditions
• Item Count: 4 core scenario items (administered across 2 hypothetical relational contexts: happy marriage vs. unhappy marriage, yielding 8 total situational evaluations)
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire, computerized survey (CAT/web), or structured social survey interview
• Completion Time: Approximately 5 to 6 minutes
• Target Population: Adults (married or non-married; unmarried participants evaluate scenarios in terms of anticipated marital relationships)
• Authentic Response Scale: 5-point Likert-type scale: 1 = Strongly Agree, 2 = Agree, 3 = Undecided, 4 = Disagree, 5 = Strongly Disagree (or coded 1 to 5 from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree depending on scoring direction)
• Alternative Categorical Response Scale: 4-point categorical scale: (a) Definitely, (b) Probably, (c) Unlikely, (d) Never
• Scoring Models:
  • Continuous / Likert Scoring: Items are coded such that higher numbers reflect higher permissiveness (e.g., Strongly Disagree = 1, Disagree = 2, Undecided = 3, Agree = 4, Strongly Agree = 5). Total scale scores for each marital condition range from 4 to 20.
  • Dichotomous Guttman Scoring: Responses are dichotomized into affirmative (accepting) versus rejecting. Affirmative endorsements (“Strongly Agree”/“Agree” or “Definitely”/“Probably”) receive 1 point; rejecting endorsements (“Disagree”/“Strongly Disagree” or “Unlikely”/“Never”) receive 0 points. Each condition yields a cumulative score ranging from 0 to 4.
  • Marital Elasticity Differential: Computed by subtracting the score in the Happy Marriage condition from the score in the Unhappy Marriage condition, quantifying the specific degree to which marital dissatisfaction increases sexual permissiveness for an individual.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The foundational conceptualization and initial empirical validation of the Reiss Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale occurred through national survey research conducted across 1974 to 1980, culminating in the authoritative publication by Reiss, Anderson, and Sponaugle in the Journal of Marriage and the Family (1980). Supplementary validation, contextual models, and comprehensive psychometric summaries were subsequently compiled in Reiss’s extensive scientific volumes (Reiss, 1981, 2006).

Licensing and Research Use: Dr. Ira L. Reiss explicitly granted broad permission for the scale to be utilized free of charge in any academic, scientific, clinical, or non-commercial empirical research study. No licensing fees, commercial royalties, or formal administrative approvals are required for legitimate scientific application. Reiss requested that researchers utilizing the instrument keep him and the broader sexological community informed of their empirical findings and maintain standard bibliographic attribution to the original psychometric validations in all resulting publications.

References

The following authoritative peer-reviewed references document the theoretical foundation, development, and psychometric validation of the RESPS:

• Banfield, S., & McCabe, M. P. (2001). Extra relationship involvement among women: Are they different from men? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 30(2), 119–142. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1002705007324
• Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. John Wiley & Sons.
• Buunk, B. P., & Bakker, A. B. (1995). Extradyadic sex: The role of descriptive and injunctive norms. The Journal of Sex Research, 32(4), 313–318. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499509551804
• Glass, S. P., & Wright, T. L. (1992). Justifications for extramarital relationships: The association between attitudes, behaviors, and gender. The Journal of Sex Research, 29(3), 361–387. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499209551654
• Hansen, G. L. (1987). Extradyadic relations during courtship. The Journal of Sex Research, 23(3), 382–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498709551373
• Nye, F. I. (1979). Choice, exchange, and the family. In W. R. Burr, R. Hill, F. I. Nye, & I. L. Reiss (Eds.), Contemporary theories about the family (Vol. 2, pp. 1–41). Free Press.
• Reiss, I. L. (1967). The social context of premarital sexual permissiveness. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Reiss, I. L. (2006). An insider’s view of sexual science since Kinsey. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
• Reiss, I. L., Anderson, R. E., & Sponaugle, G. C. (1980). A multivariate model of the determinants of extramarital sexual permissiveness. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42(2), 395–411. https://doi.org/10.2307/351236
• Reiss, I. L., & Miller, B. C. (1979). Heterosexual permissiveness: A theoretical analysis. In W. R. Burr, R. Hill, F. I. Nye, & I. L. Reiss (Eds.), Contemporary theories about the family (Vol. 1, pp. 55–100). Free Press.
• Saunders, J. M., & Edwards, J. N. (1984). Extramarital sexuality: A predictive model of permissive attitudes. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 46(4), 825–835. https://doi.org/10.2307/352538
• Simpson, J. A., & Gangestad, S. W. (1991). Individual differences in sociosexuality: Evidence for convergent and discriminant validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(6), 870–883. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.6.870
• Sponaugle, G. C. (1993). A study of attitudes toward extramarital relations (Doctoral dissertation). University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
• Treas, J., & Giesen, D. (2000). Sexual infidelity among married and cohabiting Americans. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62(1), 48–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00048.x
• Weis, D. L., & Jurich, J. (1985). Size of community of residence as a predictor of attitudes toward extramarital sexual relations. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 47(1), 173–178. https://doi.org/10.2307/352078
• Weis, D. L., & Slosnerick, M. (1981). Attitudes toward sexual and nonsexual extramarital involvements among a sample of college students. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 43(2), 349–358. https://doi.org/10.2307/351386

Items of the Scale