Relationship quality


Relationship quality refers to the perceived quality of a close relationship.
Relationship quality, in the context of close interpersonal relationships is generally defined as a reflection of a couple's overall feelings towards their relationship. More simply, it is the extent to which members in a relationship view their relationship as positive or negative.
The determinant of relationship quality is often a variety of self-reported evaluations of traits that make up relationship quality. For instance, feelings of closeness may be measured via questions that ask an individual to rate the extent to which they identify with statements. I.e., "I feel close to my partner", "I am comfortable sharing personal thoughts and feelings with my partner", etc. These questions are typically asked on a Likert scale and the average of those scores represents an individual's feelings of closeness toward their partner. Some scales are considered unidimensional and attempt to directly measure the construct of relationship quality. Other scales, considered multidimensional, repeat this process for other hypothesized components before aggregating dimensions into a representative "relationship quality" score.
Historically, relationship quality has been the most commonly studied in the context of intimate romantic relationships. More recently, the study of relationship quality has extended to include other types of close relationships. There is not always agreement among scholars about what domains should be included in the measurement of relationship quality, even within the different types of close relationships. Despite this, relationship quality and its predictors have been of popular interest to relationship scholars due to the range of psychological and relational outcomes that high quality relationships have been positively linked and associated with.

Relationship quality in romantic partners

Measuring relationship quality

Most early literature attempted to measure romantic relationship quality by centering around two approaches. While both used self-reports of how individuals perceived their relationships, the first attempted to quantify observable behaviors of relationship quality while the second focused on assessing internal perceptions of the relationship. Today, many scales measuring relationship quality focus on the second approach, attempting to identify different psychological 'domains', 'dimensions', or 'constructs' that represent relationship quality as a whole when combined.

Proposed dimensions of romantic relationship quality

Though there is differing agreement among scholars, some of the common dimensions thought to underlie relationship quality include: satisfaction, commitment, trust, closeness, intimacy, passion, independence, and relationship flourishing.
Some of the psychometric scales most commonly used by scholars to measure relationship quality in romantic couples include:
  1. Quality of Marriage Index :
  2. # A unidimensional scale of relationship quality which uses 6 questions designed to directly measure relationship quality. Example items include: "My relationship with my partner is very stable", "We have a good relationship", "I really feel like part of a team with my partner".
  3. Perceived Relationship Quality Components :
  4. # A multidimensional scale that conceptualizes relationship quality as being made up of relationship satisfaction, commitment, intimacy, trust, passion, and love.
  5. Relationship Flourishing Scale :
  6. # Developed by Blaine J. Fowers and others in order to address concerns that measures of relationship quality overly focused on individual perceptions of closeness or satisfaction without considering the growth of the relationship. The Relationship Flourishing Scale contains 12 questions used to assess meaning, personal growth, relational giving, and goal sharing within the relationship.
  7. Couple Satisfaction Index :
  8. # A 32 question measure of overall relationship satisfaction that also has shorter 16 item and 4 item versions. Example items include: "Do you enjoy your partner's company?", "How rewarding is your relationship with your partner?", "In general, how often do you think that things between you and your partner are going well?".

    Outcomes of relationship quality in romantic couples

A substantive body of work has focused on the importance of high quality romantic relationships being linked to physical and physiological health outcomes. Those in high quality relationships are less likely to be diagnosed with or symptomatic for generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, or bipolar disorder. Those who perceive their relationship as being higher quality are typically happier, less stressed, and more satisfied with life when compared to those in low quality relationships. Relationships have also been consistently shown to contribute strongly to physical health with higher relationship quality in couples being associated with positive outcomes ranging from increased self-reported health ratings to decreased mortality, increased cardiovascular functioning, and increased wound healing rates.

Relationship quality in friendships

Like the composition of romantic relationship quality, friendship quality refers to the quality of a person's individual friendships. While friendship quality has not been studied as extensively as research on romantic relationship quality, studies have been conducted to define friendship quality and examinations on its psychological and physiological benefits.
As is the case in the study of romantic relationships, the precise components of friendship quality are not unanimously agreed upon by friendship researchers. Generally, a high-quality friendship is conceptualized as a friendship where both members engage in high, approximately equal, levels of prosocial behavior and feel comfortable in relying on one another as sources of social support. Research on friendship quality tends to be separated into the study of adolescent friendships and the study of adult friendships.

Adolescent friendships

The most common scale of adolescent friendship quality, the Friendship Qualities Scale, is composed of five dimensions: companionship, conflict, help, security, and closeness. Friendship quality in adolescents has been linked with increased self-esteem, decreased loneliness, better peer adjustment in schools, and more ability to cope with stress. One investigation of adolescent friendships found that adolescents, age 12, who felt they had a high-quality best friend showed better sympathetic nervous system reactions to social rejections than those with lower quality friendships. Other studies have further shown the importance of high-quality adolescent friendships to mental health, with children in high-quality friendships consistently reporting better mental health outcomes such as increased psychological well-being, increased psychological resilience, reduced anxiety, and reduced depressive symptoms.

Adult friendships

Measuring friendship quality in adults

Research on friendship quality in adults bears many similarities with studies of romantic quality. Indeed, some studies measuring friendship quality directly adapt measures of romantic quality like the Marriage Quality index to a friendship context. One of the only scales created specifically for the measurement of adult friendship quality that has seen widespread academic use is the McGill Friendship Questionnaire, published by Mendelson and Aboud in 1999. The scale conceptualizes friendship quality as the extent to which a friend is able to fulfill the following functions:
  1. Stimulating companionship
  2. Help
  3. Intimacy
  4. Reliable Alliance
  5. Self-Validation
  6. Emotional Security
Later work has examined the quality of an individual's network of friends, as opposed to satisfaction with a singular friend. Victor Kaufman at UCLA's Marriage and Close Relationships Lab developed the Friendship Network Satisfaction Scale in 2022. The FNS has two subscales of overall Friendship Satisfaction: closeness and socialization. The scale is used to measure an individual's satisfaction with their network of friends, rather than their satisfaction with any individual friend.

Outcomes of Friendship Quality in Adults

Friendship quality has shown to be a predictor of psychological well-being, happiness, and life satisfaction. Individuals in high-quality friendships report reduced feelings of loneliness and depression. University students with friendships of high quality have reported better adjustment to campus life and general psychosocial adjustment to adulthood.
Individuals who reported greater satisfaction with their friendship networks also reported feeling more satisfied with life, having higher quality relationships with romantic partners and family members, and greater psychological well-being.

Relationship quality in family relationships

Measurements of relationship quality in family relationships sees a similar range of proposed methods and dimensions as romantic and friendship quality measurements. The number of questionnaires, indexes, and other scales used to assess children and their relationships is vast. Some researchers measure overall family quality, or the felt satisfaction with the family as a whole. Others have attempted to study relationship quality in the context of more specific familial ties, distinguishing between parent-child relationship quality and sibling-sibling relationship quality.
One commonly used measure of assessing overall Family Quality is the Family Assessment Measure developed by Skinner, Steinhauer, and Santa-Barbara in 1983. It consists of three general components that are meant to be completed by all members of a family.
  1. A General Scale that focuses on the function and health of the family as a system
  2. A Dyadic Relationships Scale that examines the relationships between specific pairs of family members
  3. A Self-Rating scale which evaluates self-ratings of functioning in the family.
As a whole, the quality of family relationships has been found to influence family members' psychological well-being. Those with better family relationships have been found to have reduced psychological distress, stronger resilience, more self-compassion, optimism, self-esteem, and a greater overall satisfaction.