Purpose

The questionnaire assesses the views or interpretations (attributions) that an individual constructs regarding their partner’s negative behaviors in a relationship or marriage.

Brief Description

The Relationship Attribution Questionnaire includes six hypothetical negative behaviors, such as “My partner begins to spend less time with me.” Its aim is to give participants the opportunity to imagine this negative behavior from their romantic partner and to think about the reason behind it.
Participants are then asked to indicate the degree of their agreement with six statements on a six-point Likert scale, where 1 corresponds to “Strongly disagree” and 6 to “Strongly agree.”
Of these statements, three concern the cause attribution of the negative behavior, focusing on the reason behind the partner’s behavior (e.g., “My partner’s behavior is due to something about him/her – what kind of person he/she is, his/her character, his/her mood, etc.”). The other three statements focus on responsibility attribution for the negative behavior, asking participants to evaluate how much their partner is to blame for it (e.g., “My partner is to blame for behaving this way.”).

Scoring Method

The Relationship Attribution Questionnaire analyzes responses across two subscales related to cause (RAQ-C) and responsibility (RAQ-R) regarding negative behavior. Each subscale (RAQ-C and RAQ-R) consists of 18 items in total (6 behaviors with 3 items per behavior). Scoring is based on the mean of these items.

Validity

Research data from Greece have shown that the use of more negative evaluations or interpretations concerning a partner’s actions is associated with reduced relationship satisfaction and the use of more non-functional strategies to cope with these behaviors.

Reliability

The Cronbach’s alpha value for the Greek version is 0.88 for the RAQ-C subscale and 0.91 for the RAQ-R subscale.

Key References

Tsagkarakis, M., & Stalikas, A. (2005, December). Interpretations of romantic partners’ negative behaviors: The effect of positive emotions and adult attachment. Paper presented at the 10th Panhellenic Conference of Psychological Research, Ioannina.
Fincham, F. D., & Bradbury, T. N. (1992). Assessing attributions in marriage: The relationship attribution measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 457–468.