Ideal partner rating scale (IPRS): translation, adaptation and validation for Russian culture

<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Context and relevance.</strong> Current demographic changes and people’s growing awareness of the complexities of living together make choosing a partner a more conscious and demanding process. In the context of cultural differences and the need for cross-cultural comparisons, it is important to adapt instruments such as the IPRS to study preferences in romantic relationships in the Russian context. <br><strong>Objective. </strong>The objective of this study is to adapt the Russian-language version of the Ideal Partner and Relationship Rating Scale (IPRS) developed by J. Fletcher and colleagues, with subsequent verification of its psychometric properties (reliability and validity) in the Russian cultural context.<strong> <br>Hypothesis. </strong>It is assumed that the Russian-language adaptation of the IPRS scale will demonstrate structural compliance with the original English-language version of the questionnaire. <br><strong>Materials and methods.</strong> The study involved 709 people aged 16 to 63 years, mainly students and university graduates, 60% of whom were women. The analysis of the questionnaire structure was carried out through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested using Cronbach’s and McDonald’s α indicators. Data processing and analysis were performed in the statistical environment RStudio (R v1.1.456) and JASP 0.19.3. <br><strong>Results.</strong> The results of the study demonstrated that the Russian-language adaptation of the modified version of the ideal partner assessment scale corresponds to the empirical data of the Latvian and Colombian samples. However, despite the high psychometric indicators of the original model, adjustments were made: the scale "Good sense of humor" was excluded due to low factor loading and substantive error covariances between the items were taken into account. <br><strong>Conclusions.</strong> The study showed that, although the basic parameters of the ideal partner demonstrate cross-cultural similarity, modification of the diagnostic tools is required taking into account cultural characteristics. In further studies, it is advisable to focus on a detailed analysis of the impact of socio-demographic variables on the formation of the ideal partner, as well as on the creation of methodological recommendations for the application of this approach in counseling work.</p>