The Marital Satisfaction Scale: Development of a Measure for Intervention Research Author(s): Arthur J. Roach, Larry P.

Frazier and Sharon R. Bowden Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Aug., 1981), pp. 537-546 Published by: National Council on Family Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/351755 . Accessed: 29/05/2012 23:04
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

National Council on Family Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Marriage and Family.

http://www.jstor.org

The Marital Satisfaction Scale: Development of a Measure for Intervention Research*

ARTHUR J. ROACH** Texas A. & M. University LARRY P. FRAZIER*** Southern Arizona Mental Health Center SHARON R. BOWDEN**** University ofArizona Student Counseling Services This study reviews the development of the Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS). The MSS was designed to assess one's level of satisfaction toward his or her own marriage. Marital satisfaction was defined as an attitude of greater or lesserfavorability toward one's own marital relationship. Measurement of the perception of one's marriage by means of an attitude scale was the focus of the effort. Design objectives for developing the measure were to generate a new set of items, to utilize a single-item style with an easy scoring system, to guard against contamination by marital conventionalization and social desirability, and to provide items which could reflect attitudinal change likely to occur as a result of marital intervention. Research results indicate that the instrument has very high internal consistency, sufficient test-retest reliability and validity, and a low degree of contamination with social desirability. This study is an attempt to develop a reliable and valid scale designed to measure the degree of favorableness of attitude the respon*Research on this paper was conducted from 1975 to 1980. Part of the research contributed by the second author, Larry P. Frazier, was presented at the 23rd annual convention of the Southwest Psychological Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1976. Part of the research was conducted in 1975 and 1976 as part of the second author's dissertation, and part in 1976 and 1977 as part of the third author's dissertation. **Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas 77843. ***Southern Arizona Mental Health Center, Tucson, Arizona 85721. ****University of Arizona Student Services, Tucson, Arizona 85721. Counseling

dent has toward his or her own marriage. For purposes of this study, marital satisfaction is defined as an attitude of greater or lesser favorability toward one's own marital relationship. This study also attempts to provide an ship. It is not attempt to assess the status or quality of the marital relationship. This study also attempts to provide an administratively instrument based on a clear and consistent conception of marital satisfaction. It is hoped that the instrument will be capable of reflecting changes in one's level of marital satisfaction which may occur in response to various types of helping interventions. The helping professional typically sepks to modify behaviors, especially attitudes, by means of relatively brief interventions. There is a need for effective instruments which can assess changes in the 537

August 1981

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

level of attitudes in both pretest and posttest evaluations. In marriage therapy, in particular, as well as in developmentally oriented marriage communication or enhancement workshops, effectiveness may best be measured in terms of change in attitude toward one's own marriage. NEED FOR THE STUDY Although there might seem to be a plethora of adequate instruments available as measures of marital satisfaction, actually such is not the case. Straus (1969) surveyed 319 family-related instruments published prior to 1965, of which 34 would be likely to be used in marriage counseling. Of these 34, only 14 have established reliability and validity, and of these 14, only four are related conceptually to marriage satisfaction. These four deal with marital success (Bernard, 1933), marital adjustment (Bowerman, 1957; Locke and Wallace, 1959), and marital happiness (Terman, 1938). Other surveys by Bonjean et al. (1967), Lake et al. (1973), Phillips (1973), Bowerman (1964) and Cromwell et al (1976) failed to list other measures dealing with satisfaction with one's own marriage among those instruments with acceptable validity and reliability. Frazier (1976) surveyed the best known and respected sources of test information. He listed 30 separate measures which would possibly be used in marriage counseling. Only five of these tests reported adequate data on reliability or validity. However, none of these measured marital satisfaction, adjustment, or happiness. In addition to this paucity of worthwhile instruments, the related instruments which do meet the requirement of validity and reliability fall prey to the attack of conceptual soundness. Lively (1969) deemed the continued use of the concepts of marital happiness, success, and adjustment to be detrimental to effective research. These concepts suggest static states, levels of achievement, or ultimate conditions, none of which is a realistic conceptualization of the interrelational dynamics of marriage. Moreover, the meanings of these concepts of success, adjustment, or happiness, while related, are dissimilar. Historically, most studies dealing with the quality of marriages have in actuality used inventories of marital adjustment rather than measures of attitude or satisfaction. The most 538

notable and widely used of these inventories is the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Inventory (1959). Locke and Wallace put the capstone on the lengthy effort to develop a suitable, yet brief, instrument for such a measure. They defined marital adjustment as accommodation of a husband and wife to each other at a given time, which suggests the measurement of a dyadic process rather than that of an individual's attitude. Experience has shown, however, that it simply is not possible to assess the state of a subject's marriage from a self-report instrument, since self-reporting is strongly contaminated with the individual's perception of the state of his marriage. One solution to this conceptual bind is to measure the perception or attitude toward the marriage relationship, rather than to attempt to measure the quality of the relationship or the dyadic adjustment. Another weakness in traditional measures of marital adjustment, happiness, success, or satisfaction has been the problem of marital conventionalization or social desirability, the tendency of subjects to distort their responses in the direction of looking good. Edmonds (1967) and Crowne and Marlowe (1964) have signaled the presence of social desirability contamination and have seen it as a cause for serious concern. While the presence of social desirability contamination in self-report instruments is a fact, whether or not it should be cause for concern is a moot question. Hawkins (1966) demonstrated that social desirability accounted for only a small part of the variance and did not, therefore, preclude the use of the Locke-Wallace scale. Murstein and Beck (1972) did not find that marital conventionalization was a major contaminating factor in assessing marital adjustment. They concluded that happily married couples do exaggerate their spouses' qualities, but that this overstatement does not affect the relationship of various perception scores to marital adjustment. In spite of this disagreement regarding the ill effects of social desirability contamination, it seems appropriate to circumvent the phenomenon by careful construction of items which do not have a strong or easily apparent social desirability loading. Existing measures of marital adjustment or satisfaction lack various characteristics desired in sound psychological tests. In this August 1981

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

respect, the Locke-Wallace scale suffers from the fact that it contains three different types of item styles and involves a complicated, weighted scoring system. From a test construction standpoint, the avoidance of such characteristics would enhance the administrability of a test. There is also a marked disparity in the weight of the items. The first item is scored up to 35 points, approximately one fourth of the total possible score. Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale (1976) was an attempt to start afresh in measuring marital adjustment. Although he utilized items from all previous scales, his results seem primarily to be a revision of the LockeWallace scale and an improvement upon it. The four factors derived from the Spanier scale have greater conceptual clarity than those derived from the Locke-Wallace scale. Spanier's work was well done, and his instrument deserves greater use than is apparent from the literature. His instrument, however, by his own admission, suffers from problems of direction of wording and halo effects. Practically, from a test-taking point of view, there are six different item formats, although scoring has been simplified relative to the Locke-Wallace scale. From the point of view of attitude measurement, Spanier's instrument focuses heavily on estimates of frequency and degrees of difference. Such estimating may involve more cognitive and recall processes than affective or attitudinal responses. Recently Snyder (1979) developed the Marital Satisfaction Inventory, a multidimensional measure which includes Edmonds' Marital Conventionalization Scale (1967). While drawing from the same item pool as the Locke-Wallace and Spanier instruments, this instrument avoids one of the difficulties of previous marriage satisfaction measures by taking a measure of social desirability directly into account. By using a profile of scale scores, the marital conventionalization scale functions as a measure of truth telling, thus affecting the clinical interpretation of the remaining scales. However, the MSI may be too lengthy for some evaluative research uses. Also, some items involve historicity and recall of events and patterns of behavior. Such factual reporting items do not contain the element of opinion or projection necessary in the assessment of attitudes. Because of this, August 1981

Snyder's MSI may be measuring something other than attitude toward one's own marriage. Nevertheless, Snyder's instrument is based on careful research and holds promise for the future. Existing measures of marital quality suffer from an array of conceptual difficulties, contamination with social desirability, and lack of sufficient reliability and validity. The use of behavioral measures has certainly done much to offset such ills. The fact remains, however, that in most studies of effectiveness of marital intervention, present behavioral approaches are impractical. Rather than argue for the complete dismissal of these selfreport instruments, it seems more practical to place greater emphasis on their careful construction and evaluation and to establish firmly their reliability and validity. THE SCALE Design The concept of attitude toward one's own marriage utilized in the present study represents an attempt to measure a changeable perception or readiness to respond in the individual, not an assessment of the state of the individual's marriage. For purposes of this study, marital satisfaction is defined as the perception of one's marriage along a continuum of greater or lesser favorability at a given point in time. Satisfaction is by definition an attitude, which like any perception, is subject to change over time, and especially in relation to significant life experiences. Considering marital satisfaction as an attitude is in contrast to past trends in the literature which attempted to measure marital adjustment, success, or happiness as relatively fixed properties or behavior states. One objective in the development of the MSS was to develop a single-factor measure of favorability of attitude toward one's marriage. The major previously established measures of marital adjustment have attempted to assess the dyadic relationship, have drawn from essentially the same item pool, and have yielded four or more factors. Especially, these three characteristics are found in the Locke-Wallace, Spanier, and Snyder instruments. In each of these instruments, there is one factor which seems related to global satisfaction with the marriage, although in some of these instruments, the 539

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

factor comprises so few items that reliability of the measure is at risk. An objective of the present study was to focus on developing an effective measure of this single factor. Orden and Bradburn (1968) found separate clusters of items for marital satisfaction and marital tension or dissatisfaction and concluded that marital happiness is a twodimensional structure. Their findings make it clear that a measure of marital satisfaction alone is not a sufficient predictor of marital happiness, although it is a necessary one. The present effort is geared only toward developing a measure of marital satisfaction, leaving the adequate measurement of marital tensions to further research. Since the purpose of the study was to treat marital satisfaction as an attitude, Edwards' (1957) guidelines for constructing Likert-type attitudinal scales were selected as a design model. One important design consideration affected by this selection is scale length. Increasing the number of items will increase reliability of the measure. A longer measure also allows finer discriminations where data may at least be assumed to be continuous. Increasing scale length also enables sufficient sampling of the pool of topics generally considered to be related to marital satisfaction. On the other hand, the feasibility of using the scale in connection with typical marital intervention efforts precludes undue length. In the development of attitude scales, the procedure outlined by Edwards is to begin with a large selection of about 70 items and to retain only those 20 or so which contribute most effectively to the performance of the total instrument. A major set of design considerations relates to item characteristics. Attitude scale items are appropriately comprised of items which evoke affect or opinion rather than cognition. When each item in a scale evokes an affective response toward some aspect of the attitudinal object, the total scale cumulatively and effectively samples the attitude or affectional orientation toward the object. Traditional marital satisfaction measures have included some items which involve historical recall and estimation of amounts and frequencies of behavior. One design criterion for constructing the MSS was to avoid cognitive or recall items and to require that they deal with opinion toward some aspect of one's 540

marriage. An additional requirement was that each item have the anticipated probability of evoking divided agreement and disagreement from subjects in a normal population. At the same time, following Edwards' suggestion, items eliciting extreme favorability and unfavorability would be preferred to more neutral items. Other item.-characteristic design considerations required that each item be capable of reflecting change between pretest and posttest usage. A test item could not reflect change if the same response were required on both the pretest and the posttest. (For example, an item which asked whether either partner had experienced an affair, if answered affirmatively on the first usage, could not be answered differently in a posttest situation even if the respondent's attitude toward his/her marriage had changed in a positive direction.) Only where there is the possibility that the posttest response can be different from the pretest response can the test item detect attitude change between two points in time. Another item design criterion was to select items which prevented contamination with social desirability or marital conventionalization as much as possible. Items should not tend to evoke unreasonable responses in the subject. Attributions of perfection to the spouse or the relationship should be avoided. An additional requirement was that the items should be fresh and not drawn from the traditional item pool used by Locke and Wallace, Spanier, and Snyder. The intent here was to emphasize the switch from marital adjustment and concern with the quality of the relationship toward the respon(dent's attitude toward his marital relationship by generating new items. Yet another design characteristic was to produce a scale which had a single-item style throughout and which would have as simple a scoring scheme as possible. Both these requirements were met by adopting the Likert-type attitude scale format. D)evelopment In keeping with the desired design characteristics outlined above, items pertaining to satisfaction with various aspects of marriage were generated. Content for these items was suggested by the literature on marriage relaAugust 1981

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

tionships and by the senior author's experience in marital therapy and marital enhancement workshops. Seventy-three suitable items were collected and formed into an initial version of the scale, which was originally entitled The Marital Satisfaction Inventory (MSI). Response categories were: strongly agree, agree, neutral (undecided), disagree, and strongly disagree. Items were phrased positively (favorable toward marriage) and negatively (unfavorable toward marriage) in approximately equal proportions. Three experienced judges agreed completely on the favorability or unfavorability of the items. These statements were assembled in random order, and a set of introductory instructions was supplied in order to complete the inventory. Scoring on each item ranged from 1-5, with 5 indicating the most favorable attitude toward one's marriage and 1 the least favorable attitude. For the 73 items, the maximum possible score was 395 (Roach, 1975). The development of the scale and the ensuing pilot study were the work of the senior author. STUDIES BASED ON THE INVENTORY The Pilot Study An initial administration of the inventory utilized 88 volunteer subjects, ranging in age between 20 and 65, with the largest proportion (44 percent) being in the 30-39 age group. Two thirds of this initial group were females, and the majority (80 percent) of subjects were professionals in education. About half of these subjects (48 percent) were black. The subjects consisted in part of a group of Texas school counselors, attending their annual statewide conference, and another group of students in counselor education classes both on and off the campus of Prairie View A & M University. Total scores of this initial study group ranged from 138 to 361. The mean was 282.46, and the standard deviation was 54.81. Eighty percent of the scores were indicative of satisfaction (256 or above). The results were skewed, with the majority of scores being high and indicating satisfaction. Item analysis of the data obtained in this pilot administration indicated that all but three items (7, 16, and 43) were correlated with the total score within the .05 level of August 1981

confidence. Of these 70 significantly related items, all but 10 were related within the .01 level of confidence. Cronbach's alpha, which is similar to KR20 as a measure of internal consistency and which considers all possible split halves, was .982. This measure provided an initial indication of very high internal consistency. A factor analysis of the data was conducted using the 70 items surviving the item analysis. Results indicated one dominant factor accounting for 40.33 percent of a trace of 70.00 on a principal axis rotation. This factor had 57 items with loadings above a conservative criterion of .50. Although 15 other factors with eigenvalues above 1.0 were extracted mathematically, only two factors had three item loadings above the criterion level and another two had only two item loadings above criterion. This initial study of the instrument indicated that the items constituted a singlefactor scale. Of the 70 items subjected to factor analysis, all were significantly related to the single factor at the .01 level of confidence, with the exception of four items. Thus, including the three items failing the item analysis, only seven of the original 73 items could be considered insufficiently related to a single factor. Results of this initial study indicated that, in general, items correlated well with the total scale, that there was a very high level of internal consistency, and that the scale involved a single factor. These findings justified further study of the instrument. The Frazier Study A subsequent investigation of the 70-item MSI (omitting items 7, 16 and 43) was conducted by Frazier (1976). He employed a sample of 309 individuals, including the 88 in the previous study. The majority of the sample were young white adults in their twenties, college educated, and married 1-4 years with no children; 19 percent were black and 8 percent were Mexican-American. The majority had a family income of less than $6,000. There were 139 males and 170 females included in this study. Subjects were volunteers from a variety of settings, mostly academic, in southeast and central Texas. The largest segment consisted of graduate students and faculty from the 541

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

Texas A & M University campus and from the Bryan-College Station area. Item discrimination was studied on the basis of item-total score correlation. All items were significant at or beyond the .01 level of confidence, and 52 of the items had a discrimination index above .50. The internalconsistency reliability as calculated by Cronbach's alpha formula was .9699, which was slightly less than in the initial study (.982), but still quite high. Subjects who had requested feedback on their responses to the original testing were asked to retake the MSI after a period of three weeks, for the purpose of estimating test-retest reliability. Twenty subjects responded a second time. The test-retest coefficient was .76. This coefficient is probably a conservative estimate, since some of the subjects took as long as seven months to respond a second time. The standard error of measurement based on internal consistency reliability was 7.01, and based on test-retest reliability, it was 19.49. To determine concurrent validity of the MSI, the Marital Adjustment Test (MAT) (Locke and Wallace, 1959) was used as a criterion variable and administered at the same time as the the MSI to the 221 subjects who were not also in the pilot study. The concurrent validity coefficient was .7851, a relatively high figure for this type of psychological measure. In order to assess contamination of MSI scores with social desirability, 20 subjects who responded to the retesting for determining test-retest reliability also responded to two measures of social desirability, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SD) (Crowne and Marlowe, 1964) and the Edmonds Marital Conventionalization Scale (MC) (Edmonds, 1967). The correlation between the MSI and the Marlowe-Crowne SD was .33, which is not significant. This result suggests that the MSI is low on contamination with social desirability. This compares suitably with Hawkins' (1966) reported correlation between the Locke-Wallace MAT and the Marlowe-Crowne SD of .31 for husbands and .37 for wives. In this instance, Hawkins found that social desirability, while significantly correlated with the MAT, did not preclude the use of the MAT, since SD accounted for only a small portion of the variance. 542

The correlation between the MSI and the Edmonds MC scale was -.13 (sic). However, this result seems too specious to warrant any conclusions. The subsample of 20 respondents may have been unique in regard to marital conventionalization. Further and careful sampling would be required before supportable conclusions can be drawn. By way of comparison, Edmonds (1967) reported a correlation of .63 between his scale and the Locke-Wallace MAT. To check for sex bias in responses, an analysis of variance was calculated. There was no sex difference for scores on the MSI (F ratio = 0.000, df = 1,307, p = 1.000). In a factor analysis of the MSI results, only one factor, which accounted for 36 percent of the variance, was significant. Although 14 factors with an eigenivalue of 1.0 were extracted, only this one had item loadings of .5 or better, the criterion used by Kimmel and van der Veen (1974) in their factor analysis of the MAT. The Bowden Studv A third study was conducted by Bowden (1977) to determine the validity of the MSI. In order to assess concurrent validity, criterion groups of satisfied and dissatisfied couples were identified by peer ratings and by professional marriage counselors. Thirty married couples (15 satisfied and 15 dissatisfied) volunteered and completed the instruments involved. Satisfied couples were married for at least one year, and dissatisfied couples were not divorced for more than one year. The sample was predominantly 20-39 years of age, white, college educated, with family incomes beyond $8,000 per year, while 30 percent had incomes of $20,000 or more per year. Subjects in this study consisted of couples in therapy with private practitioners in Austin and College Station, Texas, and of volunteer couples in the same geographic location. None of these couples had participated in the pilot or Frazier studies. The mean satisfaction score for the satisfied group was 306.27 with a standard deviation of 22.33. The dissatisfied group had a mean score of 221.30 with a standard deviation of 30.91. The t-test for difference between means was significant (t = 112.204, df' = 58, p < .0001). A correlation of MSI scores and scores on the Marriage Problem Checklist (MPC), an August 1981

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

instrument for identifying marital problems (Roach, 1977), was calculated as a measure of discriminant validity. Mean scores on the MPC were 4.10 for the satisfied group and 14.17 for the dissatisfied. Standard deviations were 3.16 and 5.35, respectively. The correlation coefficient was -.73. Thus, more satisfied couples reported fewer problems, and dissatisfied couples reported more problems. The Thompson Study After an instrument is developed and its reliability and validity are established, its research practicality must also be demonstrated. The MSI was designed to measure change in marital satisfaction as a result of an intervention such as marital therapy or a marriage communication workshop. One indication of its proper development should be that it will function appropriately when used as intended. Thompson (1978) used the original 73-item MSI to study change in the level of marital satisfaction related to a sex therapy treatment program. The principle component of the treatment utilized a weekend sex therapy workshop format with nine couples. Subjects in this study consisted of volunteers in Corpus Christi, Texas. They were predominantly Anglo-American, well educated and middle class, and ranged in age from 22 to 50 years of age. Thompson reported means and standard deviations for MSI scores as follows: pretest, M = 277.39, SD - 32.47; posttest M = 301.44, SD = 30.83; post-posttest M = 295.89, SD = 31.37. MSI scores showed significant change between the pretests and posttests, which were administered three weeks apart (t = -2.86, df = 17, p<.01). When a post-posttest was conducted eight weeks later, there was no significant difference between MSI scores on the two posttests (t = .76, df= 17, n.s.). However, there continued to be a difference between the pretest and post-posttest measures of marital satisfaction (t = -2.39, df= 17, p < .05). These results indicate that the MSI can reflect the types of attitudinal change likely to occur in a relatively brief marital intervention, while not reflecting significant change during a period of nonintervention. August 1981

Revised Forms As part of his reliability study, Frazier (1976) studied the internal consistency of the MSI, eliminating 20 items with item-whole score correlations of less than .50. Cronbach's alpha for this short form was .9713, which was higher than for the total 73-item instrument. An editorial check of these items with whole-score correlations of less than .50 indicated that they did indeed fail to fit the same conceptual pattern of items correlating with the total score beyond .50. In the revised form, these items have been eliminated. Four other items have been eliminated, three because they were quite similar to others, and one because it seemed inconsistent with the definition of marital satisfaction as an individual perception. In addition, some of the items have been slightly edited for greater clarity and brevity. This shorter form is now under study to determine its reliability and validity. However, the preceding research on which it is based strongly suggests that it is at least of the same quality as its parent instrument. Frazier's study (1976) indicated that an even briefer version of the scale would still retain a high degree of the scale characteristics. Edwards (1957) suggests that a scale length of approximately 20 items is adequate. Research with an even shorter form, Marital Satisfaction Scale, Form B, involving only the 20 items with the highest item-whole score correlations is also underway. Since this is the scale length suggested by Edwards, it is hoped that this form will have the greatest practicability as a research measure. TITLE CHANGE Snyder's article introducing his Marital Satisfaction Inventory (1979) appeared in print while the present report was being prepared. Up to that point, the instrument being developed in the present study bore the same title as Snyder's instrument. Although appropriate copyright protection extended back to 1975, the title of the revised, shorter form of the scale developed in the present research has been changed to avoid needless confusion. As a result, the research studies involved in developing the instrument now called the Marital Satisfaction Scale have potentially confusing references to the 543

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

Marital Satisfaction Inventory in their titles. It should be made clear that these references are to the parent instrument of the Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS) and not to Snyder's instrument. Items retained in the revised, shorter form, now entitled the Marital Satisfaction Scale, are presented in Table 1. Coefficients of correlation with the whole-scale scores of the original, 73-item scale, which provided the research base for their retention, are also included in the table.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS An instrument in the form of a Likert-type attitudinal scale was developed for the purpose of assessing marital satisfaction. Originally entitled the Marital Satisfaction Inventory, it was administered to a total of 369 subjects. Items had very high discrimination, and the instrument proved to be of sufficient reliability and of high internal consistency. The original items were found to constitute a single-factor scale which possesses
Correlationa

TABLE 1. WHOLE-SCORE CORRELATIONS OF ITEMS IN THE MARITAL SATISFACTION SCALE Item 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

I know what my spouse expects of me in our marriage. .518 My spouse could make things easier for me if he/she cared to. ..582 1 worry a lot about my marriage. .687 If I could start over again, I would marry someone other than my present spouse. .662 .596 I can always trust my spouse. .522 My life would seem empty without my marriage. .661 My marriage is too confining to suit me. .714 I feel that I am "in a rut" in my marriage. .676 I know where I stand with my spouse. .633 My marriage has a bad effect on my health. .550 I become upset, angry, or irritable because of things that occur in my marriage. I feel competent and fully able to handle my marriage. .649 .622 My present marriage is not one I would wish to remain in permanently. .559 I expect my marriage to give me increasing satisfaction the longer it continues. .747 I get discouraged trying to make my marriage work out. .754 I consider my marital situation to be as pleasant as it should be. .638 My marriage gives me more real personal satisfaction than anything else I do. .688 I think my marriage gets more difficult for me each year. .710 My spouse gets me badly flustered and jittery. .626 My spouse gives me sufficient opportunity to express my opinions. .717 I have made a success of my marriage so far. .571 My spouse regards me as an equal. .630 I must look outside my marriage for those things that make life worthwhile and interesting. .635 My spouse inspires me to do my best work. .613 My marriage has "smothered" my personality. The future of my marriage looks promising to me. .816 I am really interested in my spouse. .714 .769 I get along well with my spouse. .566 I am afraid of losing my spouse through divorce. .565 My spouse makes unfair demands on my free time. .613 My spouse seems unreasonable in his/her dealings with me. .718 My marriage helps me toward the goals I have set for myself. .688 My spouse is willing to make helpful improvements in our relationship. .511 My marriage suffers from disagreement concerning matters of recreation. Demonstrations of affection by me and my spouse are mutually acceptable. .606 An unhappy sexual relationship is a drawback in my marriage. .522 .513 My spouse and I agree on what is right and proper conduct. .569 My spouse and I do not share the same philosophy of life. .535 My spouse and I enjoy several mutually satisfying outside interests together. .676 I sometimes wish I had not married my present spouse. .572 My present marriage is definitely unhappy. .605 I look forward to sexual activity with my spouse with pleasant anticipation. .691 My spouse lacks respect for me. .644 I have definite difficulty confiding in my spouse. Most of the time my spouse understands the way I feel. .638 .608 My spouse does not listen to what I have to say. I frequently enjoy pleasant conversations with my spouse. .559 I am definitely satisfied with my marriage. .792 altem score correlations are with whole scores on the original 73-item MSI for 309 subjects in the Frazier study. All correlations are significant beyond the .01 level of confidence.

544

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

August 1981

both concurrent and discriminant validity. These findings indicate that the scale has merit and deserves further investigation. A shorter, revised form of the scale was developed based on research involving the original, 73-item scale. The resulting 48-item scale is now entitled the Marital Satisfaction Scale. Additional study is now being devoted to further establishing the reliability and validity of the instrument with different population samples, especially since the validity studies of the instrument to date have been with nonrandom samples. Further study of validity and of possible distortion by social desirability is also being pursued, and a number of correlational studies utilizing the revised instrument are nearing completion. An even briefer scale would be more desirable and practical in field situations. Development of an even shorter form (Form B) is currently underway.

REFERENCES Bernard, J. 1933 "An instrument for measurement of success in marriage." Publication of the American Sociological Society 27 (May):94-106. Bonjean, C. N., R. J. Hill, and S. D. McLemore 1967 Sociological Measurement: An Inventory of Scales and Indices. San Francisco:Chandler Publishing Company. Bowerman, C. E. 1957 "Adjustment in marriage: Overall and in specific areas." Sociology and Social Research 42 (March-April):257-263. 1964 "Prediction studies." Pp. 215-246 in H. T. Christensen (Ed.), Handbook of Marriage and the Family. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company. Bowden, S. R. 1977 An Assessment of the Validity of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A & M University. Dissertation Abstracts International, 38, 4671 A. (University Microfilms No. 77-32141, 74.) Cromwell, R. E., D. H. Olson, and D. G. Fournier 1976 "Tools and techniques for diagnosis and evaluation in marital and family therapy." Family Process 15 (March):1-32. Crowne, D., and D. Marlowe 1964 The Approval Motive: Studies in Evaluative Dependence. New York:John Wiley and Sons.

Edmonds, V. H. 1967 "Marital conventionalization: Definition and measurement." Journal of Marriage and the Family 29 (November):681-688. Edwards, A. L. 1957 Techniques of Attitude Scale Construction. New York:Appleton-Century Crofts. Frazier, L. P. 1976 An Evaluation of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A & M University. Dissertation Abstracts International, 37, 5062 A. (University Microfilms No. 77-02620, 61.) Hawkins, J. L. 1966 "The Locke marital adjustment test and social desirability." Journal of Marriage and the Family 28 (May):193-195. Kimmel, D., and F. van der Veen 1974 "Factors of marital adjustment in Locke's Marital Adjustment Test." Journal of Marriage and the Family 36 (February):57-63. Lake, D. G., M. B. Miles, and R. B. Earle 1973 Measuring Human Behavior. New York: Teachers College Press. Lively, E. L. 1969 "Toward a concept clarification: The case of marital interaction." Journal of Marriage and the Family 31 (February):108-114. Locke, H. J., and K. M. Wallace 1959 "Short marital-adjustment and prediction tests: Their reliability and validity." Marriage and Family Living 21 (August):251-255. Murstein, B. I., and G. D. Beck 1972 "Person perception, marriage adjustment, and social desirability." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 39 (3):396-403. Orden, S. R., and N. A. Bradburn 1968 "Dimensions of marriage happiness." American Journal of Sociology 73 (May):715-731. Phillips, C. 1973 "Some useful tests for marriage counseling." The Family Coordinator 22 (January):43-53. Roach, A. J. 1975 "The Marital Satisfaction Inventory." Pp. 4550 in L. P. Frazier, An Evaluation of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A & M University, 1976. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1976, 37, 5062 A. (University Microfilms No. 77-02620, 61.) 1977 "Marriage Problem Checklist." Pp. 62-63 in S. R. Bowden, An Assessment of the Validity of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A & M University, 1977. Dissertation Abstracts International, 38, 4671 A. (University Microfilms No. 77-32141, 74.) Snyder, D. K. 1979 "Multidimensional assessment of marital satisfaction." Journal of Marriage and the Family 41 (November):813-823. 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 (February):15-38.

August 1981

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

545

Straus, M. H. 1969 Family Measurement Techniques. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press. Terman, L. M. 1938 Psychological Factors in Marital Happiness. New York:McGraw-Hill.

Thompson, R. R. 1978 "Effects of a sex therapy treatment program on couple relationships." Unpublished master's thesis, Texas A & I University, Kingsville.

SAVE THESE DATES November 18-21, 1981

Pa. Philadelphia,

Seventh
NASW

National

Professional
Symposium
Social Practice Work inaTurbulent World
Forinformation write: Symposium National Association of SocialWorkers Suite600 1425HSt., NW. D. Washington, C. 20005

IN

I SW

546

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

August 1981