Introduction
Love is one of the most important human emotions, and therefore it is of no surprise that psychologists study love. That said, my personal impression is that love gets less attention than it deserves in psychology.
One important point is that the satisfaction with one’s love life is related to overall well being. This is of course also a core assumption underlying romantic drama and comedy.
Neto’s (2005) satisfaction with love life scale (SWLLS) is a variant of the satisfaction with life scale, which you can also find here in the PsyToolkit survey library. All it adds is the word "love" in front of life.
In the original study, 230 portugese undergraduate students with an average age of 22 years old filled in the scale.
| Men (n=114) | Women (n=116) | All (n=230) |
|---|---|---|
25.3 |
25.7 |
25.5 |
There was no statistically meaningful sex difference. Not surprisingly, those currently in love scored higher (27.0) than those not current in love (19.8).
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Legal stuff
This scale was published in the paper by Neto (2005) and it appears that people can use it for research, given that the author is acknowledged and the paper cited.
Technically
This is a straightforward question with scale items. No reverse scoring. Note that the scale "agree" has its custom scoring, starting with 7. Custom scoring is set in the curly brackets, like {score=7}.
The survey code for PsyToolkit
scale: agree
- {score=7} Strongly agree
- {score=6} Agree
- {score=5} Slightly agree
- {score=4} Neither agree nor disagree
- {score=3} Slightly disagree
- {score=2} Disagree
- {score=1} Strongly disagree
l: swlls
t: scale agree
o: boxes
q: Below are five statements that you may agree or disagree<br>
with. Using the scale below, indicate your agreement with each<br>
item by clicking the appropriate selection.<br>
Please be open and honest in your responding.<br>
- In most ways my love life is close to my ideal.
- The conditions of my love life are excellent.
- I am satisfied with my love life.
- So far I have gotten the important things I want in love life.
- If I could live my love life over, I would change almost nothing.
l: swllsscore
t: set
- sum $swlls
l: feedback
t: info
q: Your satisfaction with love life score is {$swllsscore}.<br>
The score ranges from 5 to 35<br>
On average, undergraduate students currently in love score around 27.0 points.<br>
Undergraduate students currently not in love score around 19.8 points.<br>
References
-
Neto, F. (2005). The Satisfaction With Love Life Scale. Measurement and evaluation in counseling and development, 38, 2-13.