Shortening the Relationship Disillusionment Scale to a three-item measure (RDS-3)

Relationship disillusionment—perceiving that one’s romantic relationship is not meeting expectations and getting worse and viewing one’s spouse/partner in an increasingly negative light—has been shown to predict likelihood of relationship breakup, independent of relationship satisfaction, commitment, and duration. Current versions of the Relationship Disillusionment Scale (RDS), the leading measure in this area, have 11 or more items. The present research examined properties (factor loadings, internal consistency and test-retest reliability, convergent and concurrent criterion validity, and dyadic correlations) of full-length RDS measures in three datasets to identify a small number of items that could comprise a psychometrically sound short form of the RDS. A three-item RDS version emerged, which performed comparably well to full-length versions. Hence, we recommend the RDS-3 for use in future research when survey length is an issue (e.g., daily diary studies; surveys taken on mobile phones).