Developing a Test Battery to assess Determinants of Marital Relationship Satisfaction in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

A sample of 50 wives and 50 husbands from Saudi Arabia completed a battery of scales assessing different aspects of couple relationship functioning which had been translated from English to Arabic. The selection of measures was based on the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model (VSA, Karney & Bradbury, 1995) and included measures of partner attachment, conflict behaviour, and relationship with members of the family-in-law as predictors and marital satisfaction as criterion variable. All scales of the test battery showed acceptable reliability. The newly developed conflict behaviour scale consisted of three theoretically meaningful factors (Positive behaviour, Negative behaviour, and Abuse). All instruments showed evidence for convergent validity and contributed significantly to the prediction of relationship satisfaction. The results showed in general a similar pattern of correlations in Saudi Arabia as previous studies in Western countries.

Keywords

• Attachment style
• conflict behaviour
• marital satisfaction
• arranged marriage
• Saudi Arabia