Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) - Personality Studies

This submission contains data and codebooks from several personality studies conducted 1990-2017, organized by assessment instrument. For demographic information about the study participants, please refer to Background Information Questionnaire (BIQ) - Personality Studies (http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/35424). Studies: 1. Interpersonal Functioning in Borderline Personality ("Interpersonal Functioning") 2. Interpersonal Functioning and Emotion in Borderline Personality ("Couples") Description: The DAS is a 32-item measure developed to measure dyadic adjustment, defined as “… a process, the outcome of which is determined by the degree of: (1) troublesome dyadic differences; (2) interpersonal tensions and personal anxiety; (3) dyadic satisfaction; (4) dyadic cohesion; and (5) consensus on matters of importance to dyadic functioning” (Spanier, 1976) The 32 items are scored on a 6-point Likert scale and are summed to create a total score ranging from 0 to 151, with higher scores indicating more positive dyadic adjustment. There are four subscales: Dyadic Consensus (13 items; the degree to which the couple agrees on matters of importance to the relationship), Dyadic Satisfaction (10 items; the degree to which the couple is satisfied with their relationship), Dyadic Cohesion (5 items; the degree of closeness and shared activities experienced by the couple), and Affective Expression (4 items; the degree of demonstrations of affection and sexual relationships). (From Graham, Liu & Jeziorski; 2006): Development of the instrument was based on a review of over 15 preexisting measures of marital satisfaction and adjustment. An initial pool of approximately 300 items was subsequently paired down through expert ratings, the items’ abilities to differentiate between married and divorced samples, and exploratory principal axis factoring. The 32 items that were retained to form the final DAS are summed to create a total score ranging from 0 to 151, with higher scores indicating more positive dyadic adjustment…. Total DAS scores have been consistently shown to discriminate between distressed and nondistressed couples and have been shown to identify couples with a high likelihood of divorce. Typically, cutoff scores between 92 and 107 are used to differentiate between distressed and nondistressed couples Reliability: (From Graham, Liu & Jeziorski; 2006) …reliability of total DAS scores ranged from .58 to .96, with a mean score reliability of .915. A 95% confidence interval was constructed about the mean and found to range from .906 to .922…. the means and confidence intervals of the reliability estimates for the Dyadic Consensus, Dyadic Satisfaction, and Dyadic Cohesion subscales, all fell within an acceptable range. Citations: Spanier, G. (1976). Measuring Dyadic Adjustment: New Scales for Assessing the Quality of Marriage and Similar Dyads. Journal of Marriage and Family, 38(1), 15-28. doi:10.2307/350547 Graham, J. M., Liu, Y. J. and Jeziorski, J. L. (2006), The Dyadic Adjustment Scale: A Reliability Generalization Meta-Analysis. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68: 701–717