INDEX OF MARITAL SATISFACTION (IMS) This questionnaire is designed to measure the degree of satisfaction you have with your present marriage. It is not a test, so there are no right or wrong answers. Answer each item as carefully and as accurately as you can by placing a number beside each one as follows. = None of the time 2. ENRICH marital Satisfaction Scale: A Brief Research and Clinical Tool Journal of Family Psychology‚ 7(2); 176-185 Tzeng‚ O. Measurement of love and intimate relations. MARITAL SATISFACTION INVENTORY. This inventory consists of statements about you and your relationship with your partner. Your may complete the form in one of two ways. The printable version can be printed, completed, and brought with you to your next session.

Marital Satisfaction Inventory Free Download

50 couples from the general population were interviewed conjointly using the Marital Satisfaction Inventory (MSI), and spouses were rated separately on a 76-item checklist pertaining to various.
This video is an assessment of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory - Revised (MSI-R).

Marital Satisfaction Definition

Marital satisfaction is a mental state that reflects the perceived benefits and costs of marriage to a particular person. The more costs a marriage partner inflicts on a person, the less satisfied one generally is with the marriage and with the marriage partner. Similarly, the greater the perceived benefits are, the more satisfied one is with the marriage and with the marriage partner.

Marital Satisfaction Components and Mechanisms

Cognition

In perceiving whether a spouse’s behavior is costly or beneficial, cognitions, or thoughts about the behavior, are important. If one’s spouse performs a negative (costly) behavior, this may be attributed either to characteristics of the spouse (for example, he or she is lazy), or instead to circumstances surrounding the spouse’s behavior (for example, it was an especially taxing day at work, and he or she doesn’t feel like making dinner). In the case of marital satisfaction, attributing costly behavior to characteristics of one’s spouse, rather than to circumstances surrounding his or her behavior, is associated with decreased marital satisfaction, as well as marital deterioration. These mal-adaptive attributions occur more often with negative behaviors in marital problem-solving discussions, and these attributions do not appear to be a result of either partner being depressed, having a neurotic personality, or tending toward physical aggression. The way people interpret behavior appears to be related to how satisfied they are with their marriage.

Intimately related to an individual’s thoughts about behaviors are the individual’s feelings about behaviors, or affect. Research on affect and marital satisfaction is not conclusive yet; some studies have shown that negative affect is related to decreased marital satisfaction, whereas others have shown it has no effect or even increases it. Future research needs to clarify more specifically how negative affect is related to marital satisfaction.

Physiology

There is a well-established relationship between being married and maintaining physical well-being. This, in the most immediate sense, is established by the physiological functioning of the two married individuals. Recent research has indicated that married couples who are more satisfied with their relationship also exhibit greater synchrony among their physiological systems compared with those married couples who are less satisfied. That is, maritally satisfied couples are more likely to maintain synchrony among each partner’s electrodermal (or electrical resistance of the skin) and heart rate systems, which may be a mechanism by which married couples maintain greater physical well-being than unmarried individuals.

Interaction Patterns

Patterns of interaction between spouses can affect how satisfied they are with their marriage. The pattern most often related to marital dissatisfaction is one of demand/withdrawal. In this pattern, one partner (often the wife) criticizes or nags the other about change, while the other partner (usually the husband) evades the confrontation and discussion. It operates such that initial criticism leads to disengagement, which leads to further confrontation and even further disengagement. This pattern has clear implications for marital satisfaction, with both parties developing dissatisfaction.

Social Support

Another component of satisfaction within a marriage is the degree of social support for each of the partners and for the relationship. Support processes are reliably associated with good marital functioning, as well as with healthful outcomes within families. A marriage partner who provides good social support for his or her spouse contributes to the spouse’s marital satisfaction.

Violence

Physical violence also is closely linked with marital satisfaction. Individuals involved in physically abusive relationships are more likely to be dissatisfied with their marriage than are individuals not involved in abusive relationships. Escalation to physical violence can result from many factors, one of which is alcohol use. And somewhat surprisingly, some form of physical aggression is present in 57% of newlywed marriages, indicating that the relationship between violence and marital satisfaction may not be as straightforward as is often presumed.

Contextual Factors in Marital Satisfaction

Many factors enter into assessments of marital satisfaction: a spouse’s personality, his or her performance of mate-guarding behaviors, his or her likelihood of infidelity, the desirability of each partner, the presence of children, and others. If one partner perceives that the other is inflicting costs (or being troublesome) in these domains, he or she may move to address them through discussions with the partner, or by seeking a new or additional partner who may better suit the person.

Spousal Personality Characteristics

How satisfied a person is with his or her marriage seems to be related to, in part, the personality characteristics of his or her spouse. Personality is often gauged by five dimensions, including Extraversion (surgency, dominance, extraversion vs. submissiveness, introversion), Agreeableness (warm, trusting vs. cold, suspicious), Conscientiousness (reliable, well organized vs. undependable, disorganized), Neuroticism (emotional stability, secure, even-tempered vs. nervous, temperamental) and Openness to Experience (intellect, perceptive, curious vs. imperceptive). Marital dissatisfaction is most often related to a spouse’s emotional instability, but dissatisfaction is also related to having a partner who is low in Conscientiousness, low in Agreeableness, and low in Openness/intellect. People married to those with these personality characteristics often complain that their spouses are neglectful, dependent, possessive, condescending, jealous, unfaithful, unreliable, emotionally constricted, self-centered, sexualizing of others, and abusive of alcohol. Thus, the personality characteristics of each spouse contribute greatly to the relationship, culminating in satisfying marriage or its ending in divorce.

Spousal Mate Guarding

Even after finding a suitable partner and forming a lasting relationship, challenges associated with maintaining that relationship ensue. Men and women often attempt to prevent another person from encroaching on their marriage by performing mate-guarding behaviors. Some of these behaviors can actually inflict costs on the spouse and, consequently, are related to lessened marital satisfaction. These mate-guarding behaviors include monopolizing the partner’s time (for example, she spent all of her free time with him so he could not meet other women), threatening or punishing infidelity (for example, he hit her when he caught her flirting with someone else), and being emotionally manipulative (for example, she threatened to harm herself if he ever left). Marriages in which one or both partners frequently perform these costly guarding behaviors are more often dissatisfied marriages.

Spousal Susceptibility to Infidelity

Being unfaithful can unmistakably cause problems in marriages. Discovered infidelities raise issues of honesty, trust between the partners, commitment, and, ultimately, love. Because a spouse’s infidelity has the potential to inflict these emotional costs, marital satisfaction appears to be negatively related to the likelihood that a spouse will be unfaithful. That is, the more likely one’s partner is to be unfaithful, the less satisfied one is with his or her marriage and marriage partner.