More Than Half of Americans in Happy Relationships
HOLLYWOOD, FL (August 21, 2013) — More than half of Americans are either “satisfied,” 36 percent, or “thrilled,” 18 percent, with the quality of their intimate relationships, according to a study of 10,548 people in the continental United States conducted over more than two years by the nonprofit PAIRS Foundation in Hollywood, Florida.
PAIRS CEO Seth Eisenberg released findings from the 26-month American Relationship Survey today that also revealed 27 percent of people to be navigating significant relationship challenges with 18 percent facing high risk of separation or divorce. Four percent of the total study group were at the highest risk for separation or divorce.
Eisenberg said findings showed national relationship satisfaction to be fairly even throughout the year, with a small peak in March/April (+2 percent) and seasonal declines in November (-3 percent), December (-4 percent), January (-5 percent) and June (-3 percent).
While Eisenberg said the initial study was not designed to evaluate geographic differences, he said preliminary findings indicate higher levels of relationship satisfaction for people living in Idaho, Montana, Mississippi, West Virginia, Oklahoma, New York, Ohio, Minnesota, Kentucky, Delaware and Colorado. Lower levels were reported by participants in the District of Columbia, Oregon, New Mexico, Maine, Missouri and Rhode Island. Future studies, he said, will be designed to more carefully evaluate geographic differences in relationship satisfaction.
About the Study
This research study was conducted online between June 2011 and August 2013 using the Relationship Pleasure Scale (RPS).
The RPS is an objective six-item self-report measure of general relationship satisfaction. Developed by the PAIRS Foundation approximately 20 years ago, the instrument has been used as a pre-post measure of relationship satisfaction in association with the PAIRS marriage and relationship education courses. Each question asks the user to rate their relationship in the following areas: Sensuality, sexuality, intellectuality, emotionality, friendship & trust, and what has been built together.
Response options are on a five-item Likert scale (0 to 4) for the first five questions and a six-item Likert scale (0 to 5) for the last item. The scores are summed and multiplied by 4 for a total score ranging from 0 to 100. Higher scores correspond to greater levels of relationship pleasure and satisfaction.
The University of Central Florida’s Marriage & Family Research Institute (MFRI) validated the Relationship Pleasure Scale in 2008 as a reliable measure or relationship satisfaction and pleasure.
MFRI’s extensive review found that each of the following areas were found to be important in relationship quality and satisfaction:
- Sensuality (Guerrero & Anderson, 1991; Joanning & Keoughan, 2005; Kaslow & Robinson, 1996)
- Sexuality (Cllymer, Ray, Trepper, & Pierce, 2006; Joanning & Keoughan, 2005; Sprecher, Mettes, Burleson, Hatfield, & Thompson, 1995)
- Intellectuality (Bailey & Mettal, 1997; Ketchler, 2006; Meeks, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 1998)
- Emotionality (Croyle & Waltz, 2002; Katz & Joiner, 2002; Prager & Buhrmester, 1998)
- Friendship & Trust (Erickson, 2001; Johnson, Amoloza, & Booth, 1992; Vanderbleek, 2005)
- What Has Been Built Together (Hatch & Bulcroft, 2004; Jacobson & Addis, 1993; Stafford & Canary, 1991)
Under the direction of Andrew Daire, Ph.D., UCF Professor and Assistant Dean for Research, the MFRI research team also conducted a reliability and validity analyses of the Relationship Pleasure Scale. To evaluate the dimensions that underlie the RPS, a principal component factor analysis with a varimax rotation was conducted using 1,387 PAIRS participants who completed the assessment prior to entering the marriage and relationship education course between February 2007 and May 2008. A one factor solution was confirmed that accounted for 62.71% of the variance explained. The component values for each area were: Sensuality – .82, Sexuality – .76, Intelligence – .82, Emotionality – .86, Friendship & Trust – .85, and Built Together – .62. Results of these analyses provide strong support for the one factor structure for the Relationship Pleasure Scale.
The internal consistency for the six-items on the Relationship Pleasure Scale was evaluated using the Chronbach’s alpha coefficient. The overall alpha coefficient was. 88. Additionally, the alpha for males (n=617) was .86 and the alpha for females (n=770) was .88. For White participants (n=355), the alpha was .88,.88 for Hispanic/Latino participants (n=624), and .87 for Black/African-American participants (n=346). Concurrent validity was established by conducting bivariate correlations with the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1988; Spanier, 1989; and Spanier & Thompson, 1982). Correlations between the RPS total score and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) Total and subscale scores were all significant at the .01 level (<.01): Dyadic Satisfaction (.74), Affectional Expression (.63), Dyadic Cohesion (.66), Dyadic Consensus (.66), and Dyadic Total Score (.80).
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What is PAIRS?
Intimacy is critical to the process of developing and sustaining close relationships, now a major concern in our culture. Modernization has shifted the primary function of marriage from providing security, stability, and raising children to developing a lifetime of love and intimacy. In previous generations successful marriages depended upon duty and role competence. Modern marriages require greater interpersonal competence as well as equality between partners. Relationships are sought that not only create stable families but also provide partners with a lifetime of love and companionship.
The PAIRS (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills) programs, developed by Lori H. Gordon, Ph.D., provide a comprehensive system to enhance self-knowledge and to develop the ability to sustain pleasurable intimate relationships. Gordon's approach integrates a wide range of theories and methods from psychology, education and psychotherapy and presents them in an educational format. PAIRS acts to bridge therapy, marital enrichment, and marriage and family development.
Programs: Courses and Workshops
PAIRS offers programs to the public led by PAIRS Trained Professionals (licensed health care professionals), and PAIRS Instructors (certified clergy and educators), trained under the auspices and supervision of Gordon and the PAIRS Foundation, the organization that officially oversees PAIRS programs, products and licensing worldwide. There are PTPs and facilitators around the world. Check “Finding an Educator” to find one near you or near one you love who may need PAIRS.
PAIRS is effective in all populations for which it has been adapted. PAIRS has relationship skills training programs for children and youth, PAIRS for PEERS, that are taught in schools, churches and agencies. PAIRS has programs for the Military, for use by chaplains and family service workers. PAIRS has faith-based programs for the Jewish, Catholic, and Christian church communities. PAIRS is currently developing programs and program delivery systems for disadvantaged youth, unmarried families, single parents, domestic violence, prison parolees, and related groups who can benefit from relationship skills training. PAIRS provides a vital ingredient to build stable marriages and healthy families with more hopeful futures for children. These programs for special groups will be taught by local agency workers and by specially trained community teachers and mentors. Research on PAIRS has demonstrated that PAIRS works for all groups under all circumstances evaluated. PAIRS is a modern technology adapted to our rapidly changing society in behalf of creating a saner, safer more loving world.
What you will learn in PAIRS
Sustaining a pleasurable intimate relationship does not work by magic. It depends upon a set of skills and understanding that can be learned. We learned most of what we know about intimate relationships through our early experiences in our families. Our personal history has a great deal of influence on what happens in our current relationships - on our behavior, our feelings, our expectations. We can change these influences if we become aware of them and wish to. It is well worthwhile to sort through what we inherited, keeping what fits for today and changing what does not.
PAIRS Competencies are specific skills that you will learn from PAIRS. These competencies focus in three areas: 1) emotional literacy; 2) conjoint partner skills for building and maintaining intimacy; and 3) practical knowledge, strategies and attitudes for sustaining positive marriage and family life. You may click on the above links to see a listing of the skills taught in PAIRS.
The Goal of PAIRS is a relationship that both partners can live with joyfully. For this to happen, each partner must become able to identify his or her own feelings and needs, and learn to communicate them in such a way that they can get met. This means communicating one's needs and desires without making the other partner feel resentful, smothered, burdened, manipulated, or inadequate. Easily and fully meeting each others' needs is the foundation of intimacy, fulfillment, and happiness.
PAIRS teaches specific easily learnable tools for successful communication such as confiding, complaining, and clarifying and for effective problems solving such as managing anger, expressing anger safely, fighting fairly for change and eliminating dirty fighting. PAIRS also guides the vast deepening of self-knowledge and develops emotional literacy. PAIRS addresses pleasure and satisfaction by teaching skills to enhance bonding, sensuality and sexuality in marriage. PAIRS teaches a profound but simple model, the Relationship Roadmap, to understand relationship success and to understand relationship mishaps and know what to do about them. PAIRS teaches over 60 skills that, after PAIRS, become the participants' PAIRS Tool Box for ongoing relationship maintenance.
