Commonly used self-report measures of romantic relationships may capture people’s overall appraisal of their relationship, more than measuring distinct relationship facets such as communication, conflict and affection, according to a new study published April 1, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS One by James Kim of Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada, and colleagues. The findings also suggest that a person’s judgment of their overall relationship quality strongly shape how they answer questions intended to capture distinct, separate facets of the relationship.
Health and well-being are closely tied to the quality of personal relationships. Relationship science researchers have hypothesized that distinct facets of a relationship—such as communication, conflict, and affection—may be reliable predictors of overall relationship quality, but it has been unclear whether these commonly used measures are as distinguishable as researchers often assume.
In two studies, Kim and colleagues analyzed data from a total of 3,439 people in romantic relationships who completed a broad set of commonly-used self-report relationship measures by rating how much they agreed with a series of statements.
The researchers concluded that a single general factor representing global relationship sentiment, which they call the “Q-factor”, accounts for how people rate their relationship across a range of distinct relationship facets. In a phenomenon known as “sentiment override”, answers to questions intended to evaluate distinct relationship facets instead mostly just reflected the overall quality of their relationship. For example, a person who feels generally positive about their relationship overall may be more likely to report high levels of affection, commitment, or trust in their relationship, even when questions are intended to capture distinct aspects of the relationship. In the analysis, the Q-factor captured more than 70% of the variance seen in ratings of specific facets of the relationship.
Agreement with certain statements in the surveys was especially strongly correlated with the Q-factor, and therefore with participants’ overall rating of their romantic relationship. For example, in the researchers’ first study, statements that were particularly strongly associated with the Q-factor included:
The researchers’ analysis suggests that many prominent self-report relationship measures may not be as empirically distinct as commonly assumed. They caution that their findings raise a methodological concern for relationship science researchers: surveys attempting to evaluate specific facets of relationship quality may instead be capturing people’s overall relationship appraisal instead. The authors hope that future research will examine how best to measure specific facets of relationships to help advance the field of relationship science.
The authors add: “A key takeaway from this work is that relationship researchers may be asking different questions but often getting variations of the same answer: people’s overall impression of their relationship. If that is the case, then we need stronger methods to show that our measures are truly capturing distinct constructs.”
In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One : https://plos.io/4c1UEiS
Citation: Kim JJ, Joel S, Gonzales AM, Murphy BA, Perez JC, Kaufman VA, et al. (2026) Predicting relationship quality with itself? A single general factor captures most of the variance across 34 common relationship measures. PLoS One 21(4): e0342451. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0342451
Author countries: Canada, U.S.
Funding: This research was supported by a UCLA Marriage and Close Relationships Laboratory Expanding the Frontiers of Relationship Science Grant awarded to James J. Kim and Samantha Joel, and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant awarded to Samantha Joel (435-2019-0115).
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Predicting relationship quality with itself? A single general factor captures most of the variance across 34 common relationship measures
1-Apr-2026
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