title: Assessing how much couples work at their relationship: the behavioral self-regulation for effective relationships scale.
abstract: It is widely believed that satisfying couple relationships require work by the partners. The authors equated the concept of work to relationship self-regulation and developed a scale to assess this construct. A factor analysis of the scale in a sample of 187 newlywed couples showed it comprised 2 factors of relationship strategies and effort. The factor structure was replicated in an independent sample of 97 newlywed couples. In both samples the scale had good internal consistency and high convergent validity between self- and partner-report forms. Self-regulation accounted for substantial variance in relationship satisfaction in both newlywed samples and in a 3rd sample of 61 long-married couples. The self-regulation and satisfaction association was independent of mood or self-report common method variance.
authors.affiliation: School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia. K.L.Wilson@griffith.edu.au
authors.forename: Keithia L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Charker
authors.forename: Alf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lizzio
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Halford
authors.forename: Siobhan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kimlin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012737:Sex Factors; D012919:Social Behavior; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*; D013997:Time Factors