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Susceptibility to Infidelity Instrument

Infidelity is a major cause of divorce and spousal battering. Little is known, however, about which individuals are susceptible to infidelity, or about the relationship contexts that promote infidelity. Personality factors most strongly linked to susceptibility to infidelity according to the study from which this instrument was created, were low Conscientiousness, high Narcissism, and high Psychoticism. Relationship contexts most strongly linked to susceptibility to infidelity include sexual dissatisfaction, and specific sources of conflict such as partner complaints about jealousy. For the...

Author of Tool: 
Buss, D.M., & Shackelford, T.K

Characteristics Desired in Friend

The authors of this scale hypothesized that people form opposite-sex friendships (OSFs), in part, to acquire long-term mates (both sexes), to gain short-term sexual access (men more than women), and to gain physical protection (women more than men). They hypothesized that men and women have evolved psychological mechanisms that are designed to guide the initiation, selection, and dissolution of opposite sex friendships. This hypothesis assumes that opposite sex friendships solved specific adaptive problems that ancestral men and women faced recurrently over the course of human...

Author of Tool: 
Bleske, A.L., & Buss, D.M.

Costs and Benefits of Friendship

Friends do not share copies of our genes, nor do we generally reproduce with our friends. Around the world, however, people form friendships that last for days, years, and even a lifetime. One of the complexities of friendship is that some characteristics of friendship are perceived as both beneficial and costly. The friendship literature, for example, is inconsistent on the role of sexuality in opposite-sex friendship. More than half of men and some women report sexual attraction to their friends (Kaplan & Keys, 1997), and both sexes experience ambiguity about the sexual boundaries...

Author of Tool: 
Bleske, A.L., & Buss, D.M.

Reasons for Dissolving a Friendship

An evolutionary psychological perspective on friendship suggests that sex and relationship status may predict people’s motivations for initiating, selecting, and dissolving opposite-sex friendships. Men and women are predicted to differ psychologically in domains in which they recurrently faced different adaptive problems over human evolutionary history (Buss, 1995). Women, for example, have faced a 9-month obligatory investment to produce a child. Men have not. Historically, the direct reproductive benefits in offspring production from gaining sexual access to a variety of mates would...

Author of Tool: 
Bleske, A.L., & Buss, D.M.

Mate Poaching Inventory

A critical adaptive problem is that sometimes, desirable mates are already mated and therefore not available in the eligible mating pool. Some researchers have argued, on the basis of analyses of traditional cultures, that in human ancestral conditions, most women became married at or shorty after puberty. This mating context would have severely exasperated the adaptive problem of finding a mate for those who were not already mated, particularly for men. Any degree of polygyny, a possible reoccurring feature of our past, would have further intensified the problem. The authors of this scale...

Author of Tool: 
Schmitt, D.P., & Buss, D.M.

An Adjective Measure of Sexual Strategies

According to evolutionary personality theory, variation in sexuality and human mating tendencies may be especially important dimensions of individual differences (Buss, 1991). Differences in sexuality acquire importance from an evolutionary perspective because events that surround reproduction are pivotal in shaping our evolved psychology. Individual differences in sexuality, because of their proximity to reproductive events, are often the targets of selection, have consequences for solutions to the specific adaptive problems of mating, and likely affect the course of current evolution. ...

Author of Tool: 
Schmitt, D.P., & Buss, D.M.

Reasons for Having Sex Questionnaire (YSEX)

Historically, the reasons people have sex have been assumed to be few in number and simple in nature–to reproduce, to experience pleasure, or to relieve sexual tension. Several theoretical perspectives suggest that motives for engaging in sexual intercourse may be larger in number and psychologically complex in nature. Reasons vary with gender, with relationship status, with societal status etc. The Reasons for Having Sex Questionnaire (YSEX) attempts to measure the applicability of reasons for having sex, the response choices being listed on a 5-point Likert scale, with scale interval...

Author of Tool: 
Meston, C., & Buss, D.M.

Regulatory Fit Induction (RFI) Instrument

The preposition is that the fit between an action's strategic orientation and the actor's regulatory state can influence the amount of enjoyment the action provides. Regulatory fit can be manipulated both incidentally and integrally. Incidental regulatory fit involves activating fit separately from the context of the task of interest. Integral regulatory fit involves activating fit within the context of the task of interest; there are many ways to induce integral fit (see for example Cesario, Higgins, & Scholer, 2007). Regulatory fit, whether manipulated incidentally or integrally, can...

Author of Tool: 
Higgins, E. T.

Intimate Partner Violence Attitude Scale (Revised)

With 5.3 million incidents of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women each year, and 3.2 million against men, IPV is a substantial public health problem in the United States. This violence results in nearly 2.0 million injuries and 1,300 deaths annually (Centers for Disease Control, 2007). In addition to the human suffering caused and the untold intangible costs, it is estimated that the economic costs of IPV amount to $5.8 billion each year (Arias & Corso, 2005). This is why it is so important to further study this issue. The Intimate Partner Violence Attitude Scale (IPVAS)...

Author of Tool: 
Fincham, Cui, Braithwaite, & Pasley

Marital Offense –Specific Forgiveness Scale

The exponential growth of research on forgiveness reflects, in part, its presumed beneficial effects on relationship well-being, an idea reinforced by the fact that spouses themselves rate the seeking and granting of forgiveness as important for marital longevity and marital satisfaction (Fenell, 1993). Available research is consistent with this view in that forgiving the spouse enhances relationship intimacy and commitment, promotes effective conflict resolution,and has a positive influence on marital quality over time (Fincham& Beach, 2007; Fincham, Beach, & Davila, 2007; Paleari...

Author of Tool: 
Paleari, F. G, Regalia, C., & Fincham, F.D.

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