Relationship satisfaction (PN-SMD)

The "positive and negative semantic dimensions of relationship satisfaction" scale uses a special way of measuring relationship satisfaction. While many relationship scales treat positive and negative attitudes as polar opposites, this might not be the best way to deal with measuring how people feel about their relationship.

From the paper by Mattson & Rogge, 2013 (p.328-329):

"" Foremost, the constructs of satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not polar opposites. Indeed, being completely satisfied with one’s relationship likely means something more than just the absence of negative evaluations. Rather, being completely satisfied (i.e., holding maximally favorable evaluations toward the relationship) is, more accurately, the opposite of being completely unsatisfied — that is, holding no favorable evaluations about the relationship. Likewise, being completely unsatisfied is not synonymous with being completely dissatisfied, as having few favorable evaluations toward a relationship is different from evaluating it as maximally bad. ""

In order to deal with this issue of how to measure satisfaction, the PN-SMD is a two-dimensional measurement of relationship satisfaction. The argument is that two-dimensional measurements of relationship satisfaction are better than one-dimensional measurements.

In a sample with 1693 adult participants who were in a romantic relationship, the average scores were as follows:

It seems that the PN-SMD can be used for research, but you need to acknowledge the authors and their research paper when writing about it (Mattson & Rogge, 2013).

This is a simple scale question.