Psychological Assessment 2015 American Psychological Association

2016, Vol. 28, No. 10, 12431254 1040-3590/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000256

Couple Resilience Inventory: Two Dimensions of Naturally Occurring

Relationship Behavior During Stressful Life Events
Keith Sanford, Lindsey M. Backer-Fulghum, and Chelsea Carson
Baylor University

A series of 3 studies using samples of married or cohabiting people were conducted to develop a new
scale for measuring resilience in couples. Resilience involves the extent to which couples engage in
behaviors that help each partner cope during stressful life events. In the first study, 525 people responded
to open-ended questions, and a qualitative analysis identified 49 different potential types of resilience
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

behavior that people naturally experience and notice in their relationships. In the second study, 320
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

people completed a questionnaire assessing the 49 resilience behaviors. Several items were correlated
with measures of well-being and quality of life, and results suggested that the domain of resilience items
could be reduced to 2 factors: 1 pertaining to positive behavior and the other to negative. In the third
study, 18 items were selected to create a new measure of couple resilience, and the measure was tested
with a sample of 568 people. The new measure fit an expected 2-dimensional factor structure. Scales
measuring positive and negative behavior were nearly orthogonal, but both correlated with measures of
quality of life and well-being, and most effects remained significant after controlling for relationship
satisfaction. The resilience scales had moderate cross-partner correlations when 2 partners reported on the
same stressful event. These results provide preliminary validity evidence for use of the new measure of
couple resilience.

Keywords: couples, interpersonal relationships, resilience, coping

Research regarding resilience has found that being in a support-
ive relationship with a partner can be an important protective
factor for people facing stressful life situations (Diener, Gohm,
Suh, & Oishi, 2000; Post, de Witte, van Asbeck, van Dijk, &
Schrijvers, 1998; Waite, 1995). However, the extent of protective
benefit gained from being in a relationship likely depends on the
types of interactions occurring within the relationship itself. Cou-
ple resilience is defined as a process in which a couple engages in
relationship behaviors that help each member adapt and maintain
high well-being during stressful life situations. This definition is
consistent with an interactionist framework in which resilience is
conceptualized as a context-specific process that has the potential
for both stability and change over time (Pangallo, Zibarras, Lewis,
& Flaxman, 2015). There are many situations where it would be
valuable for researchers and clinicians to assess couple resilience.
This could include, for example, research identifying types of
contexts where couple resilience is most important, or variables
that mediate the effects of resilience, or investigating ways that
couple resilience might add to or interact with other types of
resilience to predict well-being. In clinical work, a measure of
This article was published Online First November 23, 2015.
Keith Sanford, Lindsey M. Backer-Fulghum, and Chelsea Carson, De-
partment of Psychology and Neuroscience, Baylor University.
This research was supported in part by a grant from the Baylor Univer-
sity Research Committee.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Keith
Sanford, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Baylor University,
One Bear Place #97334, Waco, TX 76798-7334. E-mail: Keith_
Sanford@baylor.edu
couple resilience could be used to identify targets for intervention
and evaluate progress over time.
Toward this end, a first step is to develop a measure of couple
resilience, and an ideal measure would demonstrate several types
of validity. First, it would have content validity by including items
sampled from across the entire domain of resilience characteristics
that people naturally experience and notice in their relationships.
Second, items would be organized into a sufficient, but not exces-
sive, number of distinct scales that adequately capture the overall
factor structure of couple resilience characteristics. Third, it would
demonstrate convergent validity by having at least small correla-
tions with measures of overall life well-being during stressful life
experiences. Fourth, it would demonstrate a degree of discriminant
validity by having a lack of redundancy with measures of relation-
ship satisfaction.
Current theoretical models suggest a number of possible com-
ponents of resilience, and several of these models come from
literature on dyadic coping. For example, Bodenmann (1997,
2005) proposed a model describing how partners respond to each
other when they experience feelings of stress and when they
perceive stress in each other, and this model includes four types of
dyadic coping: common coping (behaviors that two partners do
together), supportive coping (behaviors one partner does to com-
fort, encourage, or advise the other), delegated coping (tasks that
one partner completes at the request of the other), and negative
coping (behaviors that are hostile, ambivalent, or superficial).
Coyne and Smith (1991, 1994; Coyne, Ellard, & Smith, 1990)
propose a model that distinguishes between active engagement and
a type of protective buffering where one partner attempts to
shield the other from negative information. Other models of dyadic
coping emphasize the importance of empathic responding

1243
 1244 SANFORD, BACKER-FULGHUM, AND CARSON
(OBrien, DeLongis, Pomaki, Puterman, & Zwicker, 2009), per-
ceived adequacy of support from a partner (Dehle, Larsen, &
Landers, 2001), congruence between partners in their coping styles
(Revenson, 1994; Revenson, Abrado-Lanza, Majerovitz, & Jor-
dan, 2005), sexual functioning (Baucom et al., 2009), communi-
cation (Heinrichs et al., 2012; Manne, Badr, Zaider, Nelson, &
Kissane, 2010), and relationship maintenance behavior (Badr &
Taylor, 2008). In addition, possible components of couple resil-
ience can be drawn from literature regarding resilience in families.
For instance, Walsh (2007) identifies nine different factors of
family resilience, which she broadly categorizes into family belief
systems, family organizational patterns, and family communica-
tion. Benzies and Mychasiuk (2009) also identified nine familial
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protective factors that include family structure, cohesion, support,
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and stability. In sum, there are a large number of possible com-
ponents of couple resilience.
In considering the different possible components of couple
resilience, it may be helpful to raise a basic question. Are there
components of resilience that people naturally experience and
notice in their relationships? Given the extent to which relation-
ships are important for human adaptation, it seems possible that
components of couple resilience include types of relationship
characteristics that are highly salient to people and that are, there-
fore, likely to be noticed when they are present. By identifying the
components of resilience that people naturally notice in their
relationships, it may be possible to define the domain of resilience
characteristics in a manner that best matches how it is actually
experienced in real life. Moreover, people may be able to provide
the most valid responses to items on a couple-resilience question-
naire if those items ask about characteristics that people naturally
notice in their relationships. Thus, one promising approach for
developing a measure of couple resilience is first to conduct a
qualitative study identifying the domain of all the potential resil-
ience components that people naturally notice in their relation-
ships, and then to select a set of items from across this domain. By
selecting a small number of items from across the entire domain,
it may be possible to maximize content validity, while at the same
time avoiding redundancy and minimizing questionnaire length.
It would also be valuable to clarify the number of different
factors, or dimensions, that are needed to capture the full domain
of couples resilience items. As described above, current theoret-
ical models propose a wide variety of different dimensions of
couple resilience and couple coping, yet it is not clear how many
of these dimensions, if any, could be identified as distinct factors
from a large pool of items reflecting naturally occurring compo-
nents of couple resilience. Information regarding factor structure
would be useful for designing a model that is parsimonious, and
that includes a sufficient but not excessive number of factors. One
possibility is that resilience can be represented by two broad
dimensions, with one including characteristics associated with
positive affect and increased resilience (such as partners encour-
aging each other to be optimistic and providing comfort to each
other), and another including characteristics associated with neg-
ative affect and decreased resilience (such as partners being short
tempered and quick to criticize each other). Research regarding
two-dimensional theories of affect finds that positive and negative
affect represent two distinct dimensions that are largely orthogonal
(Tuccitto, Giacobbi, & Leite, 2010). Similarly, several studies with
couples have found evidence that positive relationship appraisals
and negative relationship appraisals are best conceptualized as two
distinct dimensions (Fincham & Linfield, 1997; Mattson, Rogge,
Johnson, Davidson, & Fincham, 2013). The same may be true for
dimensions of couple resilience. When a couple is facing a stress-
ful life event, the process of initiating positive behavior might be
distinct from the processes of inhibiting negative behavior, and just
because a couple is successful in one area might not mean they are
successful in the other. As it stands, however, theoretical argu-
ments could be made to support several other possible factor
structures, and a factor analysis of a large pool of resilience items
would be useful for clarifying these issues.
If couple resilience is defined as the extent to which a couple
engages in behaviors that help each member adapt, then a key
criterion to use in selecting items for a couple resilience question-
naire is the extent to which items correlate with outcomes such as
well-being and quality of life during times of stress. In this regard,
the approach for validating a measure of couple resilience might be
slightly different from the approach for validating a measure of
dyadic coping. The concept of dyadic coping pertains to all the
ways that couples respond to each other when stress is perceived
(Bodenmann, 2005), and presumably, a measure of dyadic coping
could be valid regardless of whether scales correlate with aspects
of well-being or quality of life. Along this line, research regarding
dyadic coping has focused primarily on the extent to which this
variable predicts relationship satisfaction (e.g., Bodenmann, 1997;
Bodenmann, Pihet, & Kayser, 2006; Brock & Lawrence, 2008;
Revenson, Kayser, & Bodenmann, 2005), and only a handful of
studies have investigated correlations between dyadic coping and
measures of life well-being (Badr, Carmack, Kashy, Cristofanilli,
& Revenson, 2010; Bodenmann, Meuwly, & Kayser, 2011; Coyne
& Smith, 1991; Dehle et al., 2001). In contrast, if the goal is to
develop a measure of resilience, then correlations with well-being
and quality of life during times of stress would need to take
precedence, and could not be regarded merely as ancillary find-
ings.
Although only a few studies have investigated associations
between dyadic coping and well-being, results from these studies
are informative. Specifically, these studies indicate that this type of
effect is likely to be small and difficult to detect. In a study of
community couples (Bodenmann et al., 2011), and also in a study
of couples with a wife facing metastatic breast cancer (Badr et al.,
2010), researchers investigated associations between several di-
mensions of dyadic coping and a set of well-being outcomes
ranging from depression and social dysfunction, to cancer-related
distress. In both studies, the average standardized effect was .08
and only half the coefficients tested were significant. Slightly
larger effects are found in studies showing that well-being is
positively associated with perceiving adequate support from a
partner (Dehle et al., 2001), and negatively associated with pro-
tective buffering (Coyne & Smith, 1991). The fact that many
effects are small in size should not be surprising or discouraging,
and the fact that some studies find significant results should be
regarded as promising. There are likely a large number of variables
that determine well-being, and many predictors of well-being are
likely to be moderated by contextual factors. It would be unreal-
istic for any single type of variable to produce large effects in
predicting an outcome as complex and multidetermined as well-
being. Thus, measures that show even small correlations with
well-being have the potential to be important variables. In sum, it
 COUPLE RESILIENCY INVENTORY
may be particularly challenging to identify relationship behaviors
that correlate with well-being during times of stress because these
effects are likely to be small, yet this step is crucial for the
development of a valid measure of couple resilience.
Another important step in developing a measure of resilience is
to demonstrate that the measure is distinct from relationship sat-
isfaction. There is already a body of research indicating that
relationship satisfaction correlates with a range of outcomes such
as posttraumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders (Allen,
Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2010; Overbeek et al., 2006;
Whisman, 2007), depression (Beach, Katz, Kim, & Brody, 2003),
bipolar disorder (Whisman, 2007), substance dependence (Over-
beek et al., 2006; Whisman, 2007; Whisman, Uebelacker, &
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Bruce, 2006), tolerance for pain (Johansen & Cano, 2007; Kiecolt-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
Glaser & Newton, 2001), and physical health (Kiecolt-Glaser &
Newton, 2001). If couple resilience is merely redundant with
relationship satisfaction, then it is unlikely to contribute something
new to this body of research, and there is no need for a separate
scale measuring resilience. This issue is important because people
often respond to relationship questionnaires on the basis of senti-
ment override (Weiss, 1980), where all responses reflect general
levels of relationship satisfaction rather than specific item content.
However, couple resilience presumably involves more than mere
relationship satisfaction. For example, couple resilience may in-
clude interactions where partners encourage each other to be
optimistic, or where they help each other by employing special
skills they possess; and these types of interactions may be separate
from a couples level of relationship satisfaction. Thus, while a
measure of resilience may correlate with relationship satisfaction,
this correlation should not be large. Moreover, a measure of
resilience should explain unique variance in measures of well-
being after controlling for relationship satisfaction.
Study 1
Study 1 was the first in a series of three studies designed to
develop a new measure of couple resilience. All three studies used
a similar procedure in that married or cohabiting participants were
asked to recall the most stressful life event they experienced in the
course of their relationship and to provide retrospective self-
reports regarding their experiences. Study 1 was a qualitative study
designed to identify all the ways people naturally perceive and
experience resilience in their relationships during stressful life
events. The goal of this study was to generate a large pool of items
that covers the entire domain of resilience as it is naturally expe-
rienced.
Participants
Participants included 525 people in heterosexual marriages or
cohabitation relationships. A total of 488 were married, and the
remaining 37 were cohabiting. Ages of participants ranged from 18
to 87 years (M 40.45, SD 13.32). The sample was 65%
female, and it included 9% Asian, 7% Black or African American,
11% Hispanic, 71% White (non-Hispanic), and 2% other races.
Annual family income ranged from less than US$10,000 to more
than US$500,000 (median US$93,000, M US$117,000, SD
US$104,000). The sample included 244 people who were mem-
bers of couples with two participating partners and 281 people who
1245
participated without their partners. Given the qualitative nature of
analyses in Study 1, no steps were taken to address independence
between cases.
Procedure
Participants visited an interactive website that allowed them to
complete an anonymous relationship questionnaire that included
the target questions for this study. It also included scales unrelated
to the present study regarding relationship functioning and conflict
resolution, and participants automatically received their scores on
these scales at the end. Approximately 60% of the participants
were recruited by psychology students, who invited their married
relatives and acquaintances to participate. The remaining partici-
pants discovered the online assessment while searching the Inter-
net and were presumably incentivized by the opportunity to re-
ceive scores at the end of the assessment. To be included in the
dataset, participants needed to complete the entire questionnaire,
respond affirmatively to a question about providing valid answers,
and provide intelligible responses to written prompts. Before com-
pleting the target questions for this study, participants were given
a list of examples of possible stressful life situations (e.g., hospi-
talization, natural disaster, loss of employment). They were then
asked to identify their own most stressful life situation that they
experienced during the time they have been together with their
current partners and to write a description in a text box. Partici-
pants then gave written answers to a series of five open-ended
questions asking about: (a) how things would have been different
if they were unable to have contact with their partners at the time
of the event, (b) how their relationship interactions either made
things better or worse, (c) how long-term relationship character-
istics either helped or hindered their ability to cope, (d) how
specific relationship activities made things better or worse, and (e)
ways that the partners either provided support or failed to provide
support.
Qualitative Analyses Results
Qualitative analyses of the written responses were conducted by
a seven-member research team. Members of the research team first
read the written responses and then met as a group to develop a
preliminary set of codes to capture all the types of behaviors that
couples described. Next, each team member individually coded a
set of cases from the dataset using the preliminary codes. The
procedure involved first reading all the written responses for a
given case and then identifying one or more codes that fit the case.
After this preliminary coding, the research team met and revised
the list of codes by adding new codes, deleting unnecessary codes,
and editing code descriptions. This process was repeated in a series
of iterations until the team converged on a final list of codes
judged to be adequate and parsimonious in capturing all the types
of behaviors. This list included 49 codes, which were organized
under six broad category headings, and is printed in the first
column of Table 1. For the sake of parsimony, the table does not
include separate codes to classify both the presence and absence of
the listed positive behaviors; however, it is worth noting that
participants occasionally gave written responses describing the
absence of positive behaviors.
 1246 SANFORD, BACKER-FULGHUM, AND CARSON

Table 1
Pool of Resilience Items, Factor Loadings, and Shared Variance (R2) With Well-Being and Quality of Life Controlling for
Event Stressfulness

Resilience items Factor 1 Factor 2 R2

Emotional support
[A partnera] helped the other view the situation from a good perspective. .66 .03 .12
[A partnera] was attentive to the others needs. .72 .17 .08
[A partnera] said or did things that provided motivation, reassurance, or encouragement. .68 .14 .07
[A partnera] was patient with the other. .77 .10 .06
[A partnera] demonstrated a determination to be honest. .65 .02 .05
[A partnera] showed respect for the other. .74 .07 .04
[A partnera] was available and present in a way that made the other feel supported. .72 .11 .04
[A partnera] made the other feel appreciated. .77 .09 .04
[A partnera] took time to listen and understand and was empathic. .73 .12 .03
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[A partnera] demonstrated commitment, faithfulness, or loyalty. .69 .07 .03

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[A partnera] demonstrated kindness or compassion. .73 .03 .02

[A partnera] provided comfort to the other. .73 .10 .02
[A partnera] demonstrated forgiveness. .48 .33 .01
[A partnera] gave a gift to the other. .41 .34 .01
Active coping
[A partner helpedb] by maintaining a positive attitude and being optimistic. .68 .01 .21
[A partner helpedb] by remaining calm, stable, and strong in the face of a difficult situation. .62 .00 .08
[A partner helpedb] by using special skills or abilities for addressing the situation. .53 .02 .08
[A partner helpedb] by having experience, knowledge, or education that was useful. .46 .05 .07
[A partnera] provided advice, shared wisdom, or suggested good solutions. .75 .01 .04
[A partnera] completed helpful chores or tasks. .64 .04 .03
[A partnera] provided protection and safety. .59 .14 .03
[A partnera] demonstrated perseverance and determination. .71 .19 .03
[A partnera] made the situation better by taking a leadership role in the relationship. .58 .06 .03
[A partnera] was flexible or made a compromise. .60 .21 .02
[A partnera] made a personal sacrifice to make the situation better. .50 .32 .01
Communication
[Partnersc] were clear and accurate in [theire] communication. .67 .27 .09
[Partnersc] worked together like a team. .73 .19 .08
[Partnersc] had good quality conversations and spent time talking to each other. .75 .19 .06
[Partnersc] shared a common interest or goal. .73 .04 .06
[Partnersc] resolved conflicts, effectively negotiated, and reached agreement on issues. .69 .14 .05
[Partnersc] viewed the situation as something [theyf] were experiencing together. .69 .16 .03
[Partnersc] worked together to make plans for solving problems, achieving goals, and identifying priorities. .65 .14 .02
[Partnersc] had conversations in which [theyf] directly discussed the topic of the stressor itself. .62 .06 .01
[Partnersc] had conversations in which [theirf] emotions about a stressor were openly expressed or discussed. .63 .04 .00
Intimacy
[Partnersc] laughed together or enjoyed humor together. .71 .12 .10
[Partnersc] spent time together doing things as a couple. .59 .10 .08
[Partnersc] experienced friendship, intimacy, or closeness with each other. .72 .07 .07
[Partnersc] felt comforted by having confidence in the stability of [theire] relationship. .71 .25 .07
[Partnersc] felt comforted by the knowledge that [theyf] love each other. .72 .12 .05
[Partnersc] trusted each other. .71 .20 .05
[Partnersc] hugged, or touched, or shared physical affection together. .57 .01 .02
[Partnersc] told each other how much [theyf] loved each other. .66 .01 .02
Religion
[Partnersc] did religious activities together (praying, attending religious services). .37 .16 .02
[Partnersc] relied upon religious faith. .41 .10 .02
Negative behaviors
[A partnerd] withdrew from communication. .03 .73 .11
[A partnerd] was abusive. .23 .52 .08
[A partnerd] denied, ignored, or downplayed the seriousness of a problem. .08 .70 .06
[A partnerd] was critical, or hostile, or blamed the other. .06 .71 .06
[A partnerd] decided that it was best to avoid discussing a topic. .04 .66 .05
Note. To transform codes into questionnaire items, each behavioral description was preceded by the phrase At the time of your stressful event, and the
text in brackets was reworded as follows: a either you or your partner, b one partner helped the other (or both partners helped each other), c
you and your partner, d either you or your partner, e your, f you. Items in bold were included on the final version of the Couple Resilience
Inventory.

p .05. p .01. p .001 (and Bonferroni corrected p .05).
 COUPLE RESILIENCY INVENTORY
Evaluating Code Distinctiveness
To be of maximum value, each of the codes listed in Table 1
should be reasonably distinct. That is, a code should not be so
general that it could reasonably describe a substantial portion of
cases, and it should be sufficiently clear so that coders can make
reliable judgments about which cases exemplify the code. To test
the distinctiveness of the codes, each case in the sample was coded
by five research assistants. For each of the 49 codes, a score of 1
was assigned when the code fit a given case, and otherwise, a score
of 0 was assigned. On average, each code was assigned to only 6%
of the cases (averaged across 5 coders and 49 codes), indicating
that the codes were not overly general in scope. Reliability was
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estimated by treating each coder as a separate indicator and cal-
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culating Cronbachs alphas. Across all 49 categories, the average
alpha was .84 (SD of alphas .16), suggesting that codes were
sufficiently clear to be reliably identified.
Study 2
In Study 2, the 49 codes identified in Study 1 were turned into
a pool 49 questionnaire items. A new sample of married and
cohabiting people were asked to identify a stressful life event and
then complete a questionnaire including the entire pool of items.
Study 2 was designed to provide information that would guide the
development of a new measure of couple resilience. This included
identifying a set of factor dimensions that adequately captured the
domain of resilience items, identifying items that functioned as
good indicators of those dimensions, and identifying the extent to
which potential items were associated with important criterion
variables involving well-being and quality of life.
Participants
Participants for Study 2 included 320 people in either hetero-
sexual marriages (98%) or cohabitation relationships (2%). Age of
participants ranged from 18 to over 80 years (M 42.84, SD
14.82). The sample was 61% female, and it included 12% Asian,
2% Black or African American, 15% Hispanic, 67% White (non-
Hispanic), and 3% other races. Annual family income ranged from
less than US$10,000 to more than US$500,000 (median
US$95,000, M US$115,000, SD US$98,000). Participants in
Study 2 were drawn from a larger data pool of 402 people that
included 82 couples with two participating partners. Because this
study involved analytic techniques that were not easily adapted for
modeling dependence between cases, one member from each cou-
ple was randomly dropped, producing a dataset of 320 independent
cases.
Procedure
The participants in Study 2 were all recruited by psychology
students who invited their married relatives and acquaintances to
complete an anonymous, online questionnaire. Participants were
asked to identify a target stressful life situation using the same
instructions as in Study 1 and then complete questions about their
experiences at the time of the situation.
1247
Measures
Resilience questions. Each of the 49 codes identified in Study
1 represent different types of behaviors that respondents may (or
may not) notice in their relationships, and these were turned into
questionnaire items by asking respondents to rate the extent to
which they noticed each behavior occurring in their relationships
at the time of a stressful event. Notably, the questionnaire included
only a single item for each behavior in a relationship, and not
separate items for self behavior and partner behavior. It was
constructed this way because: (a) separate items would have dou-
bled questionnaire length, (b) it was assumed that couple resilience
would be indicated by the presence of behaviors in a relationship
regardless of which partner engaged in the behavior, and (c) the
division of roles might be dictated more by the nature of the
stressors than by levels of resilience. Items from Table 1 were
presented to each participant in a random order. Participants rated
each item using a single response scale assessing the extent to
which they noticed each behavior occurring in their relationships.
Specifically, the scale assessed two components of behavior no-
ticeability: (a) a persons level of certainty about whether the
behavior occurred, and (b) the number of specific memories of the
behavior that a person could recall. The rating scale had six levels:
1 definitely did NOT happen, 2 probably did NOT happen,
3 might have happened, 4 certainly happened but I cannot
recall specific examples, 5 certainly happened and I can think
of one example, and 6 certainly happened and I can think of two
or more examples.
Well-being. Participants completed the WHO-5 Well-being
Index (Bech, 2004), modified so that items pertained to the time of
the stressful life event and not the present time. This instrument
includes five items, each rated on a 6-point scale. Items measure
overall perceptions of well-being and thereby an absence of de-
pression or anxiety. A sample modified item used in the present
study is, At that point in my life, I felt cheerful and in good
spirits. Total scores were calculated by averaging across items
(M 3.32, SD 1.23) and Cronbachs alpha was .92.
Quality of life. Participants completed the 16-item Quality-
of-Life Inventory (Frisch, 1994), modified so that it pertained to
the time of the stressful life event. This questionnaire lists and
defines 16 different domains where people potentially experience
satisfaction in life (such as work, health, play, money, and neigh-
borhood), and in the present study, participants used a 6-point
scale to rate feelings of satisfaction in each domain at the time of
the stressful life event. Total scores were calculated by averaging
across items (M 4.44, SD .88) and Cronbachs alpha was .87.
Stressfulness rating. Participants provided written descrip-
tions of their stressful events, and each description was coded by
eight research assistants. Each coder assigned a single rating to
each written description using a rating scale that included seven
levels of event stressfulness. The lowest level was defined as a
level of stress that most people might experience several times in
a single year, and the highest level was defined as a level of stress
so horrendous that most people might never experience it in their
lifetimes. For each participant, the scores for all eight coders were
averaged together to produce a total stressfulness score (M 3.54,
SD 1.25). Using the eight coders as eight indicators, Cronbachs
alpha was .95.
 1248 SANFORD, BACKER-FULGHUM, AND CARSON
Results
To identify a factor model that adequately captured the entire
pool of items, a principal axis exploratory factor analysis was
conducted. This analysis produced six factors with eigenvalues
greater than one; however, only two eigenvalues exceeded a value
falling at the 95th percentile of eigenvalues generated by a parallel
analysis. In addition, a scree plot strongly suggested that two
factors would be adequate, with the first factor explaining 40%, of
the variance, the second explaining 7%, and all the remaining
factors explaining 3% or less. Accordingly, two factors were
extracted with oblique rotation, and loadings for the resulting
pattern matrix are printed in Table 1. The loadings were theoret-
ically sensible with one factor defined primarily by positive items
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and one defined primarily by negative items. The correlation
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between the two factors was .04. For the sake of comparison,
another analysis was conducted, this time extracting three factors.
However, this solution produced one factor that was largely un-
defined with no loadings exceeding .5 in absolute value, and
hence, it failed to make a theoretically meaningful improvement to
the original two factor solution.
To provide information on the potential utility of each item, an
analysis was conducted to estimate the extent to which each item
shared variance with criterion variables regarding well-being and
quality of life. To conserve space and to simplify item comparison,
a single R2 value was calculated for each item. In the first step of
a regression analysis, each item was regressed on the stressfulness
rating, and then in a second step, well-being and quality-of-life
were added as predictors. The R2 value at the second step
indicated the percent of variance an item shared with the two
criterion variables after controlling for variance explained by event
stressfulness. Results of this analysis are listed in Table 1. Most
effects were significant, and it was notable that five of the six
broad category headings identified in Study 1 each included at
least two indicators that shared at least 8% of its variance with the
criterion measures. The one exception pertained to a category
called Religion, which included two items that appeared to func-
tion differently from all the others, with neither item producing
strong loadings on a factor and neither sharing substantial variance
with the criterion measures.
To provide information on the ways people were interpreting the
response option anchors, mean scores were calculated for each
item. The results revealed a difference between positive items and
negative items. There were 38 items with loadings greater than .5
on the positive behaviors factor, and the mean of the means for
these 38 items was 4.71 (SD of the Ms .28). Given that the scale
ranged from one to six, this indicates that people were primarily
using the upper end of the scale, and variance on these items may
have been limited by ceiling effects. In contrast, there were five
items with loadings greater than .5 on the negative behaviors
factor, and the mean of the means for these five items was 2.29
(SD of the Ms .46).
Study 3
In Study 3, a new measure of couple resilience was created and
tested. In creating the new measure, the goals were to: (a) select
items that were good indicators of the two dimensions of resilience
identified in Study 2, (b) maximize content validity by including
items from across several of the broad category headings identified
in Study 1, (c) maximize criterion validity by selecting items
sharing the most variance with the criterion measures in Study 2,
(d) create response options that would reduce potential ceiling
effects for the positive items, and (e) select enough items per scale
to ensure reliability while limiting each scale to approximately 10
items or fewer to ensure practicality.
The validity of the new instrument was tested in several ways.
First, the expected two-dimensional factor structure was tested in
a confirmatory factor analysis, and the correlation between the two
factors was expected to be low. Second, the new scales were
expected to produce at least small correlations with measures of
well-being and quality of life at the time of a stressful event. Third,
although the resilience scales and satisfaction were likely to be
moderately correlated, the resilience scales were expected to be
distinct from satisfaction and to explain variance in outcome
variables that could not be explained merely by satisfaction alone.
In addition, Study 3 included a small subsample of couples with
two participating partners. In some of these couples, both partners
identified the same stressful event, and in other couples, each
partner identified a different event. The cross-partner correlations
in this subsample were informative for two reasons. First, although
ratings of any given relationship behavior will necessarily reflect
the unique perspective of the person making the ratings, they
should also include a shared component that is common to all
observers or participants who are rating the same event (Backer-
Fulghum & Sanford, 2015). This means that there should be at
least a moderate level of correspondence between two partners
rating couple resilience behaviors in their relationship during the
same stressful event. Second, the new measure used a protocol in
which respondents were asked to provide retrospective reports of
previous stressful life experiences, and the cross-partner correla-
tions might provide clues regarding the extent to which respon-
dents were able to comply with these instructions. If people were
rating their experiences during specific events, and not merely
responding to questions on the basis of their general relationship
schemas, then cross-partner correlations for couples reporting on
the same event should be stronger than the correlations for couples
reporting on two different events. Moreover, this should be more
than a mere difference between like-minded partners and different-
minded partners, and the difference should disappear if couples are
asked to rate a current characteristic of their relationships, such as
their current relationship satisfaction.
Participants
Participants for Study 3 included 568 people who were either
married (86%) or cohabiting with a partner (14%), with 97%
describing their relationships as heterosexual, and 3% reporting
same sex partners. Age of participants ranged from 19 to 77 years
(M 42.32, SD 12.94). The sample was 63% female, and it
included 5% Asian, 10% Black or African American, 10% His-
panic, 72% White (non-Hispanic), and 3% other races. Participants
were recruited via two sources, with 60% being a new sample
recruited via the same interactive website that was used in Study 1,
and 40% recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. The median
household income for the interactive website sample was
US$112,000 (M US$142,000, SD US$101,000), whereas the
median income for the Mechanical Turk sample was US$55,000
(M US$61,000, SD US$36,000). The interactive website
 COUPLE RESILIENCY INVENTORY
sample included 105 couples with two participating partners, and
135 people participating without their partners, and all the people
in the Mechanical Turk sample were independent cases, partici-
pating without their partners.
Procedure
Participants in the interactive website sample were recruited
using procedures identical to Study 1. Participants in the Mechan-
ical Turk sample were drawn from a larger pool of 697 people who
submitted responses to a screening survey. After submitting the
screening survey, people were automatically invited to participate
in the study if they: (a) reported either being married or cohabiting
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with a partner, and (b) reported experiencing some form of stress-
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ful life event within the last 5 years. To reduce the risk of including
people who dishonestly affirmed questions in hopes of qualifying
for the study, participants were excluded if they endorsed a validity
check item asking about an uncommon event. Of the people
completing the screening questionnaire, 49% were excluded be-
cause they were not married or cohabiting, 19% denied having a
stressful life event, and 5% failed the validity test. Participants
using the interactive website were not paid, whereas people from
the Mechanical Turk sample were paid one dollar if they both
qualified for and completed the survey.
Regardless of recruitment source, all participants completed the
same questionnaire. At the beginning of the questionnaire, partic-
ipants were asked to identify the most stressful life event they
experienced while living with their partners, place the event into
one of nine categories (hospitalization or medical problem, dis-
ability, financial or employment problem, death, problem involv-
ing children, problem involving parents, legal problems, life
changes, or other), and write a description of the event in a text
box. Then, they completed the new couple resilience scale along
with measures of well-being and quality of life at the time of the
stressful event. They also completed a measure of current relation-
ship satisfaction.
Measures
Couple Resilience Inventory. Results from Study 2 were
used to guide the process of constructing a new measure. To create
a positive resilience scale, items were selected that loaded at least
.5 on the positive factor and that shared at least 8% of variance
with well-being and quality of life after controlling for stressful-
ness. These cut points were selected because: (a) it resulted in a
scale of nine items, which was judged to be a reasonable scale
length, and (b) it maximized content validity by including at least
two items from each of four broad category headings identified
from Study 1.
Although the previous studies identified only a small pool of
negative resilience items, it seemed advantageous to create and test
a negative resilience scale composed of the same number of items
as the positive resilience scale. Toward this end, all five items that
loaded strongly on the negative factor were selected. In addition,
four exploratory items were added. Based on the observation in
Study 1 that people sometimes described the absence of positive
behaviors listed in Table 1, four items were created by rewording
items from the positive scale to reflect the absence of a positive
behavior. Specifically, these items included: Either you or your
1249
partner made it difficult for the other by having a negative attitude
and being pessimistic, Either you or your partner failed to notice
the others needs, Either you or your partner communicated
about the stressful event in a way that was confusing or mislead-
ing, and Either you or your partner made it difficult for the other
by being overly emotional, unstable, or weak. As described
below, the final version of the measure was presented to respon-
dents on three separate pages.
The first page contained memory prompts for each of the nine
positive behaviors, and these were intended to address a potential
problem observed in Study 2 where the rating scale for the positive
items appeared to have ceiling effects. Participants written stress-
ful event descriptions were piped in to appear at the top of the
page, and they were given a list of the nine positive behaviors.
They were asked to recall, if possible, specific memories of ex-
amples for each behavior occurring at the time of the identified
stressful event, and to write a few words describing each recalled
memory. It was assumed that respondents would be less likely to
inflate the number of positive memories they report if they were
prompted to recall memories before providing ratings.
The second page listed each of the nine positive behaviors, and
the text that respondents wrote on the previous page (regarding
their memories of each behavior) was piped in so that it appeared
below each behavior. For each behavior, respondents were asked,
Were you able to think of a specific example of this behavior
occurring in your relationship? and given a 6-point rating scale:
1 No, this behavior did NOT happen, 2 No, although this
behavior might have happened, I could not think of an example,
3 No, although this behavior certainly happened, I could not
think of an example, 4 Yes, I was able to think of a specific
example, 5 Yes, I was able to think of a specific example, and
I can easily think of one or two more, and 6 Yes, I was able to
think of a specific example, and I can easily think of several more.
The third page of the measure included items for the nine
negative behaviors. This followed the same format as the positive
items except for the fact that memory prompts were not used, and
for each item, participants were simply asked: Are you able to
think of a specific example of this behavior occurring in your
relationship? Cronbachs alphas were .89 and .93 for the positive
and negative resilience scales respectively.
Well-being, quality of life, and stressfulness ratings. As in
Study 2, participants completed the WHO-5 Well-being Index
(Bech, 2004) and the Quality-of-Life Inventory (Frisch, 1994).
However, in Study 3, the Quality-of-Life Inventory was shortened
by using only seven items identified by McAlinden and Oei (2006)
as loading highly on a dimension labeled self-oriented QOL,
thereby omitting items loading on a dimension pertaining to dif-
ferent types of interpersonal and community relationships (and
providing a more stringent test of validity). Cronbachs alphas
were .94 for the WHO-5 and .88 for the 7-item version of the
QOLI. In addition, a team of seven coders rated the stressfulness
of each written stressful event description using procedures iden-
tical to Study 2, and in Study 3, the reliability was .92.
Relationship satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction was mea-
sured using the 16-item version of the Couples Satisfaction Index
(Funk & Rogge, 2007). This measure was developed using item
response theory analysis to select highly discriminating items from
a pool of items drawn from several existing measures. In the
present study, alpha was .97.
 1250 SANFORD, BACKER-FULGHUM, AND CARSON
Approach to Analysis With Nonindependent Cases
To make full use of all the participants in the study, and to
handle appropriately the nonindependence produced by 105 cou-
ples included in the dataset, several analyses in Study 3 were set up
as multilevel equations and estimated using MPlus (Muthn &
Muthn, 2012). These equations were two-level equations, with
people nested in couples (albeit, with most couples consisting of
only one case). In each equation, all variables were entered at
Level 1 (at the level of the person) and no variables were entered
at Level 2 (at the level of the couple). This made it possible to
obtain parameter estimates (including factor loadings, correlations,
and regression weights) from equations that directly modeled the
nonindependence in the dataset and thereby produced appropriate
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fit indices and standard errors.
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Results
Means and standard deviations were calculated for each vari-
able, and are reported in Table 2. It is notable that the mean for the
positive behavior scale is a little closer to the scale midpoint than
was the mean for the positive items in Study 2 (although this
difference should be interpreted cautiously given that the samples
are not directly comparable across the two studies).
The factor structure of the new instrument was tested using
confirmatory factor analysis. Specifically, a two-dimensional
model was tested, with the nine positive behavior items serving as
indicators of a positive factor, and the nine negative behaviors
serving as indicators of a negative factor. The two factors were
allowed to correlate with each other, and all correlations between
error variances were fixed at zero. The model was set up as a
two-level equation to account for nonindependence in the data (as
described above), and it was estimated using robust weighted least
squares. Fit was evaluated using a two-index strategy (Hu &
Bentler, 1999) with a cut-off of .95 for the Comparative Fit
Index (CFI) and a cut-off of .09 for the Standardized Root Mean
Square Residual (SRMR). The model produced a good fit
(chi-square (df 134) 334.20, p .01; CFI .99; SRMR
.05). The standardized factor loadings ranged from .63 to .81 for
the positive behavior factor, and ranged from .80 to .91 for the
negative behavior factor. The correlation between the two fac-
tors was .04 and not significant.
For the sake of comparison, an alternate one-dimensional model
was also tested. For this model, all 18 items were indicators of a
Table 2
Study 3: Correlations and Means
Positive resilience Negative resilience
Negative Resilience .02
Satisfaction .35 .42
Quality of life .20 .17
Well-being .13 .10
Event stressfulness .00 .17
Mechanical Turka .08 .17
Femaleb .06 .03
Mean 3.97 2.14
SD 1.16 1.19
a
variable scored such that Mechanical Turk sample 1 and website sample 0.
p .01.
single factor and no error variances were allowed to correlate. The
model produced a poor fit (chi-square (df 135) 4,967.04, p
.01; CFI .67; SRMR .33). The standardized factor loadings
ranged from .48 to .83. Taken together, the results provide strong
support for the hypothesized two-dimensional factor structure and
no support for an alternate one-dimensional model.
Correlations were computed to test associations between the
new resilience scales and criterion variables. Each correlation was
estimated using a two-level equation (described above), and cor-
relations between all variables are listed in Table 2. Although
positive and negative resilience scales were nearly orthogonal,
they both had significant correlations in opposite directions with
each criterion variable. They had moderate correlations with rela-
tionship satisfaction and small correlations with both quality of life
and well-being.
Table 2 also reports correlations involving potential control
variables. Although coders were able to rate event stressfulness
with a high degree of reliability, it is notable that the correlation
with well-being was small and the correlation with quality of life
was not significant. It is also interesting that stressfulness was
inversely correlated with negative resilience behavior, suggesting
that highly stressful events are associated with low levels of
memories about negative behaviors. In addition, compared to men,
women reported slightly more well-being and were given slightly
lower event stressfulness ratings. Compared to the website sample,
the Mechanical Turk sample reported lower levels of well-being,
quality of life, and negative resilience, and they were given higher
event stressfulness ratings, although there was no difference be-
tween samples in levels of positive resilience.
An important question in Study 3 was whether the resilience
scales explained variance in well-being and quality of life after
controlling for satisfaction. Accordingly, two regression equations
were estimated, one using well-being as the outcome and another
using quality of life as the outcome. In each equation, the outcome
variables were predicted using both positive and negative resil-
ience, and also relationship satisfaction and control variables per-
taining to event stressfulness, sample, and gender. Each equation
was set up as a two-level model (described above) to account for
nonindependence in the dataset. To aid in the interpretation of
results, both of the resilience variables, along with satisfaction,
quality of life, and well-being were all turned to z-scores prior to
analysis. In addition, the Mechanical Turk variable was scored
Satisfaction Quality of life Well-being Event stressfulness
.25
.21 .57
.00 .03 .19
.04 .18 .26 .28
.06 .03 .16 .14
59.65 4.09 3.27 3.80
16.59 1.18 1.33 1.17
b
variable scored such that female 1 and male 0.
 COUPLE RESILIENCY INVENTORY
as 0 for the website sample and 1 for the Mechanical Turk sample.
Gender was scored as 0 for male and 1 for female.
The results from these analyses are listed in Table 3. In predict-
ing quality of life, both positive resilience and negative resilience
remained significant after controlling for satisfaction and the other
control variables. In predicting well-being, the effect for negative
resilience remained significant, but the effect for positive resil-
ience became nonsignificant after controlling for other variables in
the equation.
Correlations were computed to test the hypothesis that there
would be correspondence between the resilience scores from two
members of the same couple when they report on the same stress-
ful event. Cross-partner correlations were computed for a group of
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40 couples with two participating partners both apparently identi-
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fying the same stressful event, and separate cross-partner correla-
tions were computed for a group of 57 couples with two partici-
pating partners each identifying different events (and these
analyses excluded 7 couples with two participating partners who
provided event descriptions that could not be classified with cer-
tainty into either group). All cross-partner correlations are listed in
Table 4. When both partners reported on the same event, there
were moderate cross-partner correlations for both resilience scales.
In addition, the correlations mostly conformed to a pattern that
would be expected if participants were attending to instructions.
When people were asked to make ratings regarding a stressful
event, cross-spouse correlations were stronger when both partners
identified the same event and weaker when they did not (specifi-
cally, the difference in correlation magnitude was significant for
three of four correlation pairs tested). When people were asked to
rate their relationship satisfaction at the current point in time (and
not at the time of the stressful event), the magnitude of cross-
partner correlation was not significantly related to whether part-
ners identified the same event or different events.
Discussion
A series of three studies were conducted to develop a new
measure of couple resilience, and the resulting measure is distinct
in several ways. To maximize content validity, items were drawn
from across a pool of behaviors that were identified in an initial
qualitative study investigating ways that people naturally notice
and experience resilience in their relationships. The measure as-
sesses two nearly orthogonal dimensions of resilience, one con-
sisting of positive behaviors, and another consisting of negative
behaviors. These two dimensions were initially identified in an
Table 3
Study 3: Beta Weights When Criterion Variables Are Regressed on Resilience and
Control Variables
Criterion Positive Negative
variable resilience resilience Satisfaction
Quality of life .13 .13 .17
Well-being .06 .10 .15
Note. All variables (except for the two dichotomous control variables) were converted to z-scores prior to
analysis. All six predictors were entered simultaneously.
a
Variable scored such that Mechanical Turk sample 1 and website sample 0. b Variable scored such that
female 1 and male 0.
p .05. p .01.
1251
exploratory analysis, and then cross validated with a confirmatory
factor analysis with a new sample. Although scales were uncorre-
lated with each other, they both correlated with measures of
well-being and quality of life, and most effects remained signifi-
cant after controlling for relationship satisfaction. Ratings from
two partners were moderately correlated when they both pertained
to the same event, but not correlated if their ratings pertained to
different events. Taken together, these results provide preliminary
support for the Couple Resilience Inventory.
One of the most interesting features of the new measure is that
the correlation between the two scales was close to zero. In this
way, the measure is similar to measures of affect that have two
largely uncorrelated scales measuring positive and negative di-
mensions (Tuccitto et al., 2010). In a similar vein, researchers have
suggested that couples relationships often have a mixture of
positive and negative components, and studies have found evi-
dence that relationship appraisals are best conceptualized as hav-
ing separate positive and negative dimensions (Fincham & Lin-
field, 1997; Mattson et al., 2013). One striking difference between
previous research and the present study, however, is that previous
studies have found positive and negative dimensions of relation-
ship appraisal to be highly inversely correlated, whereas the pres-
ent study found positive and negative resilience to be nearly
orthogonal. This outcome does not appear to be an artifact of
scales lacking validity or reliability, because both scales produce
expected correlations with other variables. Moreover, results of the
confirmatory factor analysis revealed a stark contrast in which
there was a clear distinction (low correlation) between the two
scales, but strong relationships between items within each scale.
One possible reason for the high distinction between scales may
pertain to the fact that they both assess the extent to which
respondents recall specific resilience behaviors occurring in their
relationships, and it makes theoretical sense that a mixture of
positive and negative behavior will occur in most relationships.
While coping with a stressful event, a person might sometimes use
clear communication and attend to a partners needs and the same
person might also sometimes make critical comments and fail to
notice a partners needs. The level of one behavior does not
necessarily exclude the other. Possibly, resilience can be mapped
in two-dimensional space, with some couples using primarily
positive behavior, some using primarily negative behavior, some
using a mixture of both positive and negative, and some disen-
gaged couples using neither positive nor negative behavior.
Event Mechanical
stressfulness Turka Femaleb
.01 .42 .00
.12 .48 .23
 1252 SANFORD, BACKER-FULGHUM, AND CARSON
Table 4
Study 3: Cross-Partner Correlations
Positive
Type of calculation resilience
Correlation between partners identifying same event (n 40)
Correlation between partners identifying different events (n 57)
z-test for difference between correlations
p .05. p .01.
A key reason why the concept of couple resilience is important
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is that it should be related to outcomes regarding well-being and
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quality of life during stressful life events. Results of the present
study add to a growing body of research showing that dimensions
of couple resilience and couple coping are related to these types of
outcomes (Badr et al., 2010; Bodenmann, Meuwly, & Kayser,
2011; Coyne & Smith, 1991; Dehle et al., 2001). The results of the
present study are also similar to previous studies in that these
effects are generally small in magnitude. For example, two previ-
ous studies regarding relationships between dyadic coping and
measures of well-being (Badr et al., 2010; Bodenmann et al., 2011)
reported average standardized effects of .08, and in the present
study, the average absolute value of the correlations was .15. It is
also notable that in Study 3 a panel of coders was able to achieve
a high degree of reliability in rating the stressfulness of the events
described by each participant, but in spite of this high reliability,
the event stressfulness rating was only weakly correlated with
well-being and not significantly correlated with quality of life.
Taken together, all these results serve to illustrate the extent to
which outcomes regarding well-being and quality of life are dif-
ficult to predict. Given the complexity of these outcomes, it may
be unlikely that any single variable, in and of itself, will explain a
substantial portion of variance.
The new resilience measure appears to be distinct from relation-
ship satisfaction. Some of the distinction pertains to the content of
the scale itself. For example, items regarding the use of skills,
humor, and optimism are conceptually distinct from satisfaction.
In addition, the rating scale for the resilience measure asks about
the extent to which people have memories of specific behaviors
occurring and not about their appraisals of their relationships as a
whole. In addition, the near zero correlation between the positive
and negative scales makes these scales distinct from measures of
satisfaction, because attempts to tease apart positive and negative
dimensions of satisfaction have produced scales with high inverse
correlations (Tuccitto et al., 2010). Also, in three of the four effects
tested, resilience explained a portion of variance in well-being and
quality of life that could not be explained by satisfaction alone.
Previous research investigating how relationships influence out-
comes regarding well-being has often focused on relationship
satisfaction as a key predictor variable (Allen et al., 2010; Beach
et al., 2003; Johansen & Cano, 2007; Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton,
2001; Overbeek et al., 2006; Whisman, 2007). Results of the
present study confirm that satisfaction is relevant, but show that
dimensions of couple resilience are uniquely important. A study
that only measures satisfaction, to the neglect of couple resilience,
will produce an incomplete picture of ways that relationships are
important in predicting well-being and quality of life.
Ratings pertaining to time of an identified event
Negative Quality of Current relationship
resilience life Well-being satisfaction
.47 .40 .49 .48 .76
.07 .16 .10 .09 .65
2.09 1.22 2.96 2.86 1.09
A unique feature of the new resilience measure is that it assesses
a context-specific process by asking participants to report behav-
iors occurring at the time of specific stressful situations. As de-
scribed by Pangallo et al. (2015), there are several crucial research
questions that can be addressed when resilience is defined as a
context-specific process. For example, it is possible to investigate
the extent of stability or change within people across different
contexts and to explore ways in which resilience behavior interacts
with situational variables. Along this line, results from Study 3
indicated that correlations between partners were significant when
partners reported on the same event, but not when they reported on
different events. This makes sense if scores are context-specific,
and it raises a possibility that couple resilience behaviors might
change across situations. If so, a persons score on the new
measure should not be regarded as a trait, but placed in the context
of a specific stressful event.
Another key question is whether the new resilience measure is
able to produce effects that are large in magnitude. As a prelimi-
nary step in testing the new measure of resilience, it was especially
important to investigate convergent correlations with measures of
well-being and quality of life, but as expected, these correlations
were all small in magnitude. The new resilience scale would be
expected to produce larger correlations with criterion measures
involving other types of resilience and coping, such as measures of
dyadic coping, optimism, or individual resilience. In considering
effect sizes for resilience, it is also important to note that resilience
behaviors might have different effects in response to different
stressors, or when observed in different types of populations, or
when combined with other types of resilient behavior, or when
predicting different types of outcomes. Because the new resilience
measure is context-specific, it is well suited for exploring these
types of interactions, which in turn can identify situations and
outcomes where couple resilience produces the largest effects.
One of the limitations of this research is that several of the
samples were relatively affluent. This was partially addressed in
Study 3 by recruiting samples from two sources, producing a
sample with a broad range of income levels. Another limitation is
that this study relied on retrospective self-reports of life experi-
ences. There is a risk that such reports might be confounded with
memory ability, or with event recentness, or that people might
have difficulty giving accurate reports of their past affective states.
Along this line, it is possible that people might respond to ques-
tionnaire items on the basis of general feelings of relationship
sentiment rather than recalling specific memories from specific
stressful situations. Concerns regarding this risk might be partially
mitigated by the results showing significant cross-partner correla-
tions between context-specific variables when both partners re-
 COUPLE RESILIENCY INVENTORY
ported on the same event but not when they identified two different
events. This pattern is suggestive of a possibility that respondents
were attentive to the instructions and responded on the basis of
specific life experiences. If they were merely responding on the
basis of general schemas, then the results might have been more
similar to results for relationship satisfaction, where the magnitude
of cross-spouse correlation did not depend on whether partners
selected the same event. Nevertheless, this pattern of results is not
conclusive, and it remains important to test the new measure using
samples of people who are experiencing current life stressors.
Moreover, there is a need to conduct prospective studies investi-
gating the extent to which current resilience predicts a trajectory of
adaptation over time. Also, given that the present study was
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limited to investigating criterion variables regarding well-being,
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quality of life, event stressfulness, and relationship satisfaction, it
would be valuable for future studies to explore expanded sets (or
different sets) of criterion variables.
It is also important to note that there may be types of resilience
that were not included in the Couples Resilience Inventory. For
example, Study 1 identified two items that involved religion.
However, neither of these items loaded strongly on a factor;
neither had a substantial correlation with well-being and quality of
life, and neither were included on the final scale. Research on
resilience in individuals has found that forms of religious coping
are important (Pargament, Smith, Koenig, & Perez, 1998; Warren,
Van Eck, Townley, & Kloos, 2015), and it could be valuable for
further work to consider religion in couples. Also, this project
focused on the extent to which partners notice different types of
interpersonal behavior, and not ways that partners appraised this
behavior, such as the perceived adequacy of the support they
receive from each other. While these types of appraisal might be
more prone to overlap with relationship satisfaction, other research
has found them to be important (Dehle et al., 2001). In addition,
the questionnaire assessed relationship-level behaviors, not sepa-
rate behaviors for each partner, and it is possible that there may be
important differences between perceived self behavior versus per-
ceived partner behavior.
Although other dimensions of resilience are potentially impor-
tant, in many settings, the two-dimensional model of resilience
identified in the present study may be sufficient and it may be the
most parsimonious approach. The comprehensiveness of this
model is supported by the fact that it is based on a qualitative
analysis drawn from a relatively large sample, which identified 49
naturally occurring resilience behaviors that were reasonably dis-
tinct and that could be reliably identified by coders. The results of
Study 2 found that this entire pool of items could be simplified to
two basic dimensions of positive resilience and negative resilience,
and this model was confirmed in Study 3. Taken together, the
results suggest that both positive and negative dimensions need to
be assessed to obtain a complete picture of couple resilience, and
that in many settings, these two dimensions are sufficient for
capturing the full domain.
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Received June 29, 2015
Revision received October 13, 2015
Accepted October 19, 2015