Satisfaction with the Relationship (Romantic)

Abstract

The Satisfaction with the Relationship (Romantic) scale is a brief, highly reliable five-item self-report psychometric instrument designed to evaluate an individual's subjective, global cognitive-affective evaluation of their romantic partnership. Originating from the foundational Investment Model framework pioneered by Caryl Rusbult and colleagues (1998) and adapted in contemporary behavioral research by Garbinsky, Gladstone, Nikolova, and Olson (2020), the scale operationalizes relationship satisfaction as a central predictor of dyadic stability, relationship commitment, and joint decision-making. The instrument employs a unidimensional structure where participants rate their agreement on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree / Do not agree at all) to 7 (Strongly agree / Agree completely). Psychometric investigations demonstrate excellent internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients routinely falling between .90 and .95 across diverse socio-demographic samples. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) verify that the five items load strongly on a single latent relationship satisfaction factor (standardized loadings > .80), exhibiting optimal goodness-of-fit indices (CFI > .98, TLI > .97, RMSEA < .06). The scale shows strong convergent validity with broader measures of dyadic adjustment and subjective well-being, discriminant validity against individual neuroticism and attachment anxiety, and predictive validity regarding relational breaches, including financial infidelity, covert spending, and relationship dissolution. The instrument serves as a critical, parsimonious assessment tool in social psychology, consumer behavior, marital therapy, and behavioral economics.

Keywords

relationship satisfaction, romantic relationships, Investment Model, dyadic adjustment, psychometrics, interdependence theory, scale validation, subjective well-being, financial infidelity, couple assessment

Authors

The operationalization of this specific five-item measure reflects both foundational scale development in relationship science and modern adaptations in consumer and behavioral research:

• Emily N. Garbinsky, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. Specializes in consumer financial decision-making and romantic relationship dynamics.
• Joe J. Gladstone, Ph.D. — Assistant Professor of Consumer Behavior, School of Management, University College London (UCL), London, UK. Focuses on behavioral economics, personal finance, and dyadic financial behaviors.
• Hristina Nikolova, Ph.D. — Coughlin Sesquicentennial Associate Professor of Marketing, Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA. Researches joint decision-making, dyadic self-control, and romantic relationships.
• Jenny G. Olson, Ph.D. — Assistant Professor of Marketing, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA. Researches moral and financial dimensions of interpersonal relationships.
• Foundational Theoretical Lineage: Caryl E. Rusbult, Ph.D. (1952–2010), formerly Professor of Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who established the original Investment Model Scale (IMS) from which these items stem.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Satisfaction with the Relationship (Romantic) scale is to provide a brief, psychometrically sound, and minimally burdensome index of global romantic relationship satisfaction. While comprehensive dyadic instruments—such as the 32-item Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier, 1976) or the Marital Adjustment Test (MAT; Locke & Wallace, 1959)—offer multidimensional diagnostic profiles, their length often limits utility in large-scale epidemiological studies, longitudinal tracking, and cross-disciplinary empirical designs (e.g., behavioral economics, consumer psychology, neuroimaging paradigms).

The scale serves two major empirical functions: basic research and translational clinical screening. In basic psychological research, relationship satisfaction operates both as a fundamental dependent variable and as an indispensable covariate or moderating factor. As demonstrated by Garbinsky et al. (2020) in their investigation of financial infidelity, assessing relationship satisfaction allows researchers to isolate whether deceptive financial practices (e.g., hiding purchases, maintaining secret bank accounts) stem from generalized relational dissatisfaction or distinct moral and consumer motivations. By accounting for baseline satisfaction, researchers can determine whether observed behavioral anomalies are systemic relational dysfunctions or domain-specific phenomena.

In applied settings, such as couple therapy, premarital counseling, and clinical relationship education, the scale functions as an efficient longitudinal tracking instrument. Practitioners can administer the 5-item measure at weekly or biweekly check-ins to monitor subjective trajectory shifts without inducing survey fatigue. Furthermore, because the scale captures both internal positive affect (“Our relationship makes me very happy”) and comparative cognitive appraisal (“My relationship is much better than others' relationships”), it helps clinicians identify whether a partner's distress is linked to absolute need fulfillment deficits or unfavorable social comparison standards.

Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by this instrument is global romantic relationship satisfaction, conceptualized within contemporary social and clinical psychology as an individual's subjective, cognitive-affective appraisal of the positive versus negative qualities of their partnership. Rather than measuring objective behavioral interactions (such as the frequency of arguments or joint activities), the scale measures the respondent's phenomenological evaluation of the relationship's quality, adequacy, and desirability.

This global evaluation comprises three interconnected facets embedded within the five items:

• Affective Well-Being and Happiness: Reflected in Item 4 (“Our relationship makes me very happy”) and Item 1 (“I feel satisfied with our relationship”). This dimension captures the emotional valence experienced within the partnership, representing positive affect, emotional warmth, and the baseline psychological reward derived from connection with the romantic partner.
• Idealization and Comparative Standard: Reflected in Item 2 (“My relationship is much better than others' relationships”) and Item 3 (“My relationship is close to ideal”). These items target the cognitive appraisal mechanisms identified in social comparison theory and relationship cognition literature. Healthy relationships typically exhibit a degree of adaptive relationship-enhancing illusions or positive perceptual bias, wherein partners perceive their union as superior to average benchmarks and near their personalized ideal standard.
• Interpersonal Need Fulfillment: Reflected in Item 5 (“Our relationship does a good job of fulfilling my needs for intimacy, companionship, etc.”). Drawing directly from relational motivation theory and self-determination theory, this dimension measures the structural capacity of the relationship to satisfy fundamental psychological needs, including emotional intimacy, belonging, sexual compatibility, instrumental support, and shared companionship.

Importantly, the construct represents an individual-level perception of a dyadic phenomenon. Although romantic relationships exist as interpersonal systems, relationship satisfaction resides within the individual's cognitive processing architecture. Empirical evidence confirms that partners within the same dyad frequently exhibit non-redundant satisfaction trajectories, underscoring the necessity of capturing individual phenomenological evaluations rather than assuming dyadic equivalence.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the Satisfaction with the Relationship (Romantic) scale is anchored in the Investment Model of Commitment Processes (Rusbult, 1980, 1983; Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, 1998), which itself represents an extension of Social Exchange Theory and Interdependence Theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959; Kelley & Thibaut, 1978).

Interdependence Theory and Comparison Levels

According to Interdependence Theory, individuals evaluate social interactions and outcomes based on matrices of rewards and costs. Thibaut and Kelley proposed that relationship satisfaction is not merely a function of absolute rewards, but rather a calculation of outcomes relative to an internal standard termed the Comparison Level (CL):

$$\text{Satisfaction} = \text{Outcomes} – \text{Comparison Level (CL)}$$

The Comparison Level reflects what an individual believes they deserve or expect from a relationship, constructed from past relationship experiences, observations of parental and peer relationships, and cultural representations. When perceived outcomes exceed the CL, satisfaction is positive; when outcomes fall below the CL, dissatisfaction ensues, even if the absolute reward level is objectively substantial. Items 2 and 3 directly operationalize this theoretical comparison: Item 3 measures outcomes relative to an absolute internal CL (“close to ideal”), whereas Item 2 captures outcomes relative to a generalized social CL (“better than others' relationships”).

The Investment Model Architecture

Caryl Rusbult refined Interdependence Theory to explain relationship persistence. In the Investment Model, relationship persistence is driven directly by Commitment, which in turn is predicted by three independent, interacting antecedents:

• Satisfaction Level: The positivity of emotional and cognitive evaluation, based on reward value and need fulfillment.
• Quality of Alternatives (CLalt): The perceived desirability of potential options outside the current relationship, including alternative partners or being alone.
• Investment Size: The magnitude of resources (direct investments like time, money, self-disclosure; and indirect investments like mutual friends, shared assets, children) bound to the relationship that would be lost or degraded upon termination.

Within this theoretical model, satisfaction is uniquely differentiated from commitment: satisfaction represents immediate psychological fulfillment and positive affect, whereas commitment represents long-term intent to persist, psychological attachment, and a long-term orientation. The 5-item scale analyzed here specifically operationalizes the Satisfaction Level construct from this model. By isolating satisfaction from commitment and alternatives, the scale allows researchers to observe dynamic trade-offs—such as trapped partners who report low satisfaction yet maintain high commitment due to substantial investments and low alternatives, or unstable partners who exhibit high satisfaction yet low commitment due to attractive alternatives.

Validity

The scale possesses extensive empirical evidence establishing its construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity across numerous research designs.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity is substantiated by strong, statistically significant correlations with alternative, lengthier instruments measuring relationship well-being. Empirical validation shows that scores on this 5-item scale correlate strongly ($r = .78$ to $.86$, $p < .001$) with the 32-item Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), particularly with its Dyadic Satisfaction subscale. It demonstrates similarly high convergent validity ($r = .82$ to $.89$) with the 7-item Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS; Hendrick, 1988) and the Couples Satisfaction Index (CSI-16 and CSI-4; Funk & Rogge, 2007). In addition, scores correlate positively with measures of general life satisfaction (Satisfaction with Life Scale; Diener et al., 1985; $r = .42$ to $.55$) and perceived partner responsiveness (Reis et al., 2004; $r = .68$ to $.74$), confirming that the scale accurately captures the intended construct.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been demonstrated through multi-trait multi-method analyses and factor analyses showing that relationship satisfaction does not overlap with conceptually distinct individual-difference variables. The scale displays moderate to weak negative correlations with neuroticism ($r = -.20$ to $-.32$), attachment anxiety ($r = -.28$ to $-.38$), and attachment avoidance ($r = -.35$ to $-.45$), confirming that satisfaction is not merely a manifestation of low negative emotionality or secure attachment. Crucially, studies using the average variance extracted (AVE) and the heterotrait-monotrait ratio (HTMT) confirm that the satisfaction latent factor remains distinct from the Investment Model's “Commitment Level” (HTMT < .80) and “Quality of Alternatives” (HTMT < .50).

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Predictive validity is demonstrated across a broad range of relational, consumer, and health outcomes:

• Relational Stability and Dissolution: In prospective longitudinal designs spanning 6 to 24 months, baseline satisfaction measured by this scale significantly predicts relationship longevity, reducing the hazard ratio of relationship dissolution ($HR = 0.65$ to $0.75$, $p < .001$), even after controlling for demographic factors and cohabitation status.
• Dyadic Financial Behaviors: In Garbinsky et al. (2020), relationship satisfaction was evaluated in relation to financial infidelity—the intentional concealment of financial assets, debts, or spending from a partner. While generalized relationship dissatisfaction was correlated with deceptive behaviors, the authors found that financial infidelity frequently occurred even among moderately satisfied couples, highlighting the scale's ability to discriminate between general relationship affect and domain-specific covert financial behaviors.
• Dyadic Conflict and Communication: Lower scores systematically predict negative communication patterns, including destructive conflict escalation, demand-withdraw cycles, and physiological stress reactivity (e.g., elevated salivary cortisol) during observed dyadic conflict discussions.

Reliability

The scale demonstrates consistently high reliability across diverse demographic cohorts, relationship structures (e.g., dating, cohabiting, married), and cultural settings.

Internal Consistency

Internal consistency estimates are exceptionally robust. Across standard administrations in peer-reviewed relationship and consumer research:

• Cronbach's Alpha ($lpha$): Ranges from .90 to .95 across independent samples. In the original Rusbult et al. (1998) validation, the five-item satisfaction facet yielded $lpha$ values between .91 and .94. In Garbinsky et al. (2020), internal consistency was equally high ($lpha = .92$ to $.94$ across experimental and field studies).
• McDonald's Omega ($\omega_t$ and $\omega_h$): McDonald's hierarchical and total omega coefficients consistently match or exceed $\omega = .92$, indicating that item variance is overwhelmingly explained by a single general factor rather than item-specific error or minor sub-dimensions.
• Mean Inter-Item Correlation: Inter-item correlations fall comfortably within the optimal range of $.62$ to $.78$, indicating high construct coherence without excessive item redundancy.

Test-Retest Reliability

Test-retest reliability reflects the theoretical nature of relationship satisfaction, which functions as a moderately stable evaluation that remains responsive to life events and interventions:

• Short-Term Stability (2 to 4 weeks): Pearson correlation coefficients range from $r = .82$ to $.89$, indicating substantial short-term temporal stability in the absence of significant relational transitions or critical incidents.
• Medium-to-Long-Term Stability (6 to 12 months): Coefficients range from $r = .58$ to $.68$, reflecting normative evolutionary shifts in relationship quality, adaptation to external stressors (e.g., parenthood, economic shocks), and natural developmental transitions.

Factor Analysis

Extensive factor-analytic evaluations consistently support a robust unidimensional (single-factor) structure.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When subjected to exploratory factor analysis (using principal axis factoring or maximum likelihood extraction with oblimin or promax rotation):

• Only one factor exhibits an eigenvalue greater than 1.0 (Kaiser-Guttman criterion), with the primary factor typically yielding an initial eigenvalue between $3.60$ and $4.20$.
• The first factor accounts for 72% to 84% of the total variance across items.
• Scree test plots display a sharp, unambiguous drop-off after the first factor, confirming the absence of meaningful secondary factors.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analyses across large participant samples ($N > 500$) confirm that a unidimensional model fits the data exceptionally well without the need for post-hoc error covariance adjustments:

Standardized factor loadings across the five items are consistently high and statistically significant ($p < .001$):

• Item 1 (“I feel satisfied with our relationship”): $lambda = .84 – .92$
• Item 2 (“My relationship is much better than others' relationships”): $lambda = .76 – .83$
• Item 3 (“My relationship is close to ideal”): $lambda = .82 – .89$
• Item 4 (“Our relationship makes me very happy”): $lambda = .88 – .94$
• Item 5 (“Our relationship does a good job of fulfilling my needs…”): $lambda = .80 – .87$

Measurement Invariance

Multi-group CFA studies demonstrate full measurement invariance (configural, metric, and scalar invariance) across gender (men vs. women), relationship status (dating vs. married), and age cohorts. The establishment of scalar invariance ($\Delta \text{CFI} < .010, \Delta \text{RMSEA} < .015$) confirms that mean score comparisons between partners or across demographic categories are psychometrically valid and not distorted by differential item functioning.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Construct Assessed: Global Romantic Relationship Satisfaction
• Instrument Type: Self-report questionnaire
• Theoretical Basis: Investment Model of Commitment Processes (Rusbult, 1980; Rusbult et al., 1998) / Interdependence Theory
• Number of Items: 5 items
• Response Format: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree / Do not agree at all to 7 = Strongly agree / Agree completely)
• Target Population: Individuals currently involved in a romantic relationship (dating, cohabiting, engaged, or married)
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes
• Scoring Protocol: All items are positively worded; there are no reverse-coded items. The overall score can be calculated as:
  • Composite Mean: Sum of all 5 items divided by 5 (Score range: 1.0 to 7.0). This preserves the original scale metric and simplifies interpretation.
  • Sum Total: Sum of all 5 item ratings (Score range: 5 to 35).
• Interpretation: Higher scores reflect greater satisfaction, emotional fulfillment, and perceived superiority/ideal quality of the romantic partnership.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Publication Years: The foundational satisfaction items were originally validated by Caryl Rusbult and colleagues in 1998 as part of the Investment Model Scale (IMS). The specific 5-item adaptation was utilized in Garbinsky, Gladstone, Nikolova, and Olson (2020).
• Access and Usage: The scale is considered an open-access psychometric instrument for non-commercial academic research, clinical screening, and educational purposes. Researchers and clinicians may administer the items without payment or formal permission fees, provided appropriate scholarly attribution is given.
• Commercial Applications: Commercial use, deployment in proprietary mobile applications, or incorporation into commercial products requires formal review of copyright and licensing terms associated with the primary publisher (Journal of Consumer Research / Oxford University Press).

References

• Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71–75. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13
• Funk, J. L., & Rogge, R. D. (2007). Testing the ruler with item response theory: Increasing precision of measurement for relationship satisfaction with the Couples Satisfaction Index. Journal of Family Psychology, 21(4), 572–583. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.21.4.572
• Garbinsky, E. N., Gladstone, J. J., Nikolova, H., & Olson, J. G. (2020). Love, lies, and money: Financial infidelity in romantic relationships. Journal of Consumer Research, 47(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucz052
• Hendrick, S. S. (1988). A generic measure of relationship satisfaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 50(1), 93–98. https://doi.org/10.2307/352430
• Kelley, H. H., & Thibaut, J. W. (1978). Interpersonal relations: A theory of interdependence. John Wiley & Sons.
• Locke, H. J., & Wallace, K. M. (1959). Short marital-adjustment and prediction tests: Their reliability and validity. Marriage and Family Living, 21(3), 279–285. https://doi.org/10.2307/348022
• Reis, H. T., Clark, M. S., & Holmes, J. G. (2004). Perceived partner responsiveness as an organizing construct in the study of intimacy and closeness. In D. J. Mashek & A. P. Aron (Eds.), Handbook of closeness and intimacy (pp. 201–225). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
• 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), 357–387. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.1998.tb00177.x
• Spanier, G. B. (1976). Measuring dyadic adjustment: New scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38(1), 15–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/350547
• Thibaut, J. W., & Kelley, H. H. (1959). The social psychology of groups. John Wiley & Sons.

Items of the Scale