The assessment of the marital relationship by questionnaire

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Abstract
Much criticism has been levelled at approaches to the assessment of the marital relationship by self-administered questionnaires. This largely centres upon the tendency for marital partners to distort their responses in the direction of conventionalisation. More recently developed questionnaires have attempted to take this tendency into account and a brief review of some of the more rigorous tests is presented. They vary in emphasis and complexity and, although several of the longer ones provide measures on a range of sub-scales, it is not, at this stage, easy to determine to what extent the sub-scales of different questionnaires correspond. Progress will be made with further advances in the theory of styles of relating to others and of relationships. A case is made for the separate consideration of items concerning the self, the partner, the couple and the relationship (I, He/She, We and It items) and the varying proportion of such items in different questionnaires is demonstrated. A new approach is described specifically focussing upon the three attributes of dependence, directiveness and detachment as measured separately by self (I) and partner (He/She) evaluation. These are shown to be markedly different in marriages judged to be well adjusted and maladjusted. This is an example of new measures arising out of developing theory.