Quality of Romantic Relationships - Subject Follow-up
This measure appears in the following time-points: Follow06, Follow12, Follow18, Follow24, Follow30, Follow36, Follow48, Follow60, Follow72, Follow84.
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Related Construct
Description of Measure
The Quality of Romantic Relationships inventory was adapted for this study to evaluate the support, conflict, and depth of the adolescent's romantic relationships (Pierce, 1994; Pierce, Sarason, Sarason, Solky-Butzel, & Nagle, 1997). This scale assess the relationship along 5 dimensions: Quality of Relationship (e.g., "In general, how happy are you with your relationship?"), Knowledge of Behavior and Deviance (e.g., "How much does {Name} know who you spend time with?"), Tolerance of Deviance (e.g., "Would {Name} know if you have been using drugs?"), Antisocial Influence (e.g., "Has X suggested that you should sell drugs?"), and Antisocial Behavior (e.g., "Has X damaged/destroyed property?". The fourth and fifth subscales were derived from items mirroring the ones asked regarding peer delinquency; but using the romantic partner, not the peers, as the referent person. In addition, for those youth who live with their romantic partner, two additional questions assess how much the romantic partner monitors the behavior of the participant. For each question, the participant responds on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from "not at all" to "very much"; therefore, for the first three subscales, higher scores indicate a more symbiotic romantic relationship and for the last three subscales, more antisocial influence, antisocial behavior and more monitoring respectively.
A three factor model including the Quality of Relationship, Knowledge of Behavior, and Tolerance of Deviance subscales (the original model from Pierce et al., 1997) was fit to the baseline data using CFA. The three factor model fit the data adequately (NFI=0.89, NNFI=0.909, CFI=0.924, RMSEA=0.051). The single subscale for Quality of Relationship was also fit to the baseline data as a single scale, also showing adequate consistency and fit on its own (alpha: .69; NFI: .94; NNFI: .94; CFI: .96; RMSEA: .05). Analyses have not been done for the subscales for Antisocial Influence, Antisocial Behavior or Monitoring.
The Quality of Relationship scale was also found to have good internal consistency at the follow-up time points (6 month alpha = .78; 12 month alpha = .80; 18 month alpha = .81; 24 month alpha = .83).
We compute five scores from this measure:
- Romantic Relationship - Quality of Relationship [S#RELQLT]; mean of 7 items
- Romantic Relationship - Tolerance of Deviance [S#RELDEV]; mean of 2 items
- Romantic Relationship - Monitoring [S#RELCON]; mean of 5 items
- Romantic Relationship - Antisocial Influence, relies on items from the peer delinquency section to assess the antisocial influence from the romantic partner [S#DEL]; count of 7 items
- Romantic Relationship - Antisocial Behavior, relies on items from the peer delinquency section to assess the antisocial behavior of the romantic partner [S#SigOther_Del]; count of 13 items
Data Issues
- Questions in this measure are phrased differently depending on whether or not the subject is still with the main romantic partner at the time of the interview. If the subject is currently with the main romantic partner, questions will be phrased in the present tense. If the subject is NOT currently with the main romantic partner, questions will be phrased in the past tense.
- All summary scores will be missing if the subject was not in a steady relationship during the recall period. This status is established in the Romance Calendar; refer to this codebook section for a detailed definition of a steady partner.
- Items that make up the antisocial behavior score (s#sigother_del) were added to the interview in version 01.16. The first case that will have a score for this variable appears in the follow24 timepoint.
- Some cases are missing data for this measure as a result of a bug in the programming code. Cases with this issue are noted with a missing value code of -700.
- Some cases are missing data for this measure as a result of data cleaning changes done in order to correct an interviewer mistake. Cases with this issue are noted with a missing value code of -800.
References
- Hendrick, S. (1998) A generic measure of relationship satisfaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 50, 93-98.
- Hendrick , S.S., Dicke, A., Hendrick, C. (1998). The Relationship Assessment Scale. Journal of Social & personal relationships, 15(1), 137-142.
- Pierce, G.P. (1994). The quality of relationships inventory: assessing the interpersonal context of social support. In B.R. Burleson, T.L. Albrecht, and I.G. Sarason (eds), Communication of Social Support: Messages, Interactions, Relationships, and Community, (247-266). Newbury Park CA: Sage.
- Pierce, G., Sarason, I.G., Sarason, B.R., Solky-Butzel, J.A., and Nagle, L.C. (1997). Assessing the quality of personal relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 14, 339-356.