Relationship Loyalty Intelligence Quotient (RELIQ): A Neuropsychologically-Mapped, Four-Dimensional Assessment of Relationship Intelligence with Dual-Report Couples Integration

Abstract

1. Introduction

The Harvard Study of Adult Development, now spanning more than eight decades of continuous data collection, has produced one of the most consequential findings in the history of behavioral science: the quality of close relationships in midlife is the single most powerful predictor of health, happiness, and cognitive preservation in later life (Waldinger & Schulz, 2010). This finding eclipses income, occupational prestige, cholesterol levels, and educational achievement in its predictive strength. Participants who reported warm, secure, emotionally supportive partnerships at age fifty exhibited superior physical health, sharper cognitive function, and greater life satisfaction at age eighty compared with those who reported distant or conflictual relationships, regardless of socioeconomic standing.

Despite the overwhelming empirical weight behind this conclusion, the field of relationship assessment has remained curiously fragmented. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), while foundational, was developed nearly five decades ago and conceptualizes relationship quality primarily through a satisfaction-distress continuum. The Couples Satisfaction Index (Funk & Rogge, 2007) improved upon item response characteristics but retained a unidimensional focus on global satisfaction. The PREPARE/ENRICH inventory, widely used in premarital counseling, captures multiple relationship domains but lacks grounding in the neuropsychological literature that has emerged over the past two decades. None of these instruments systematically maps relationship competencies to the neural systems that mediate them, nor do they provide the kind of dual-report couples integration that permits analysis of perception gaps between partners.

The present paper introduces the Relationship Loyalty Intelligence Quotient (RELIQ), a psychometric instrument designed to address these limitations through three innovations. First, the RELIQ adopts a four-dimensional framework spanning Communication Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Trust and Loyalty, and Conflict Resolution, each anchored to specific neuropsychological substrates identified in the functional neuroimaging literature. Second, the assessment architecture supports both individual administration (120 items) and couples integration (180 items), with the latter generating concordance scores and perception gap analyses that reveal discrepancies between self-perception and partner perception. Third, the scoring methodology integrates attachment style classification, social desirability correction, and dimensional profiling to produce actionable recommendations rather than a single summary score.

The rationale for grounding relationship assessment in neuropsychology extends beyond academic precision. When individuals understand that their difficulty with emotional regulation during conflict reflects a specific pattern of amygdala-prefrontal interaction rather than a characterological defect, they are better positioned to engage with targeted interventions. When couples discover that their perception gaps on trust and loyalty items map onto divergent oxytocin receptor profiles in the broader population literature, they gain a framework for understanding disagreement that does not require assigning blame. The RELIQ is thus designed not merely to measure relationship intelligence but to provide a neuropsychologically informed language for discussing it.

The following sections detail the theoretical foundations drawn from attachment theory, the Gottman research tradition, emotional intelligence theory, and interpersonal neurobiology; the four-dimensional framework and its neural mapping; the assessment architecture and item design; the scoring methodology and report structure; and the psychometric considerations that guide ongoing validation.

2. Theoretical Foundations

The RELIQ framework rests upon four converging theoretical traditions, each contributing specific constructs and empirical findings that inform the instrument's dimensional structure, item content, and scoring logic.

2.1 Attachment Theory

John Bowlby's attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) established that early caregiving experiences produce internal working models of self and others that shape relational expectations across the lifespan. Mary Ainsworth and colleagues (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) operationalized these models into secure, anxious-ambivalent, and avoidant attachment classifications through the Strange Situation paradigm. The extension of attachment theory to adult romantic relationships by Hazan and Shaver (1987) demonstrated that the same three-category framework, subsequently refined into a two-dimensional model of attachment anxiety and avoidance (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Fraley & Shaver, 2000), predicts relationship satisfaction, communication patterns, and dissolution risk with remarkable consistency. The Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) scale, derived from this tradition, provides the benchmark against which RELIQ attachment classifications are calibrated. Secure attachment, characterized by comfort with intimacy and confidence in partner availability, maps onto high scores across all four RELIQ dimensions, while anxious attachment predicts elevated Emotional Intelligence concern scores and reduced Trust and Loyalty stability, and avoidant attachment predicts suppressed Communication Intelligence and constricted emotional availability.

2.2 Gottman's Sound Relationship House Theory

John Gottman's four decades of observational research, conducted through the Love Lab at the University of Washington, produced the Sound Relationship House theory (Gottman & Silver, 1999) and identified the four behavioral patterns most reliably predictive of relationship dissolution: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, collectively termed the Four Horsemen (Gottman, 1994). Gottman's research demonstrated that the ratio of positive to negative interactions during conflict, the capacity for repair attempts following emotional rupture, and the maintenance of cognitive room for the partner's perspective during disagreement predict marital stability with greater than 90 percent accuracy over a six-year window. The RELIQ incorporates Gottman markers directly into its item architecture, with Communication Intelligence items assessing repair attempt frequency and effectiveness, Emotional Intelligence items measuring turning toward versus turning away from bids for connection, Trust and Loyalty items evaluating cognitive room and positive sentiment override, and Conflict Resolution items indexing the presence or absence of each of the Four Horsemen.

2.3 Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal Neurobiology

The emotional intelligence framework, as initially proposed by Salovey and Mayer (1990) and subsequently popularized by Goleman (1995), identifies four core competencies: emotion perception, emotion facilitation, emotion understanding, and emotion regulation. Within the relational context, these competencies determine an individual's capacity to read a partner's emotional states accurately, to use emotional information to guide relational decision-making, to understand the causes and trajectories of emotional episodes within the dyad, and to modulate one's own emotional reactivity during high-stakes interactions. Daniel Siegel's interpersonal neurobiology framework (Siegel, 2012) extends this model by demonstrating that attunement between partners produces neural synchronization, measurable through correlated activation in mirror neuron circuits and shared autonomic regulation, which Siegel terms "mindsight." The RELIQ's Emotional Intelligence dimension draws directly upon this integrated model, assessing not merely whether an individual can label emotions but whether they can co-regulate with a partner in real time.

2.4 Polyvagal Theory and Neuroendocrine Bonding Systems

Stephen Porges's polyvagal theory (Porges, 2011) provides the autonomic nervous system framework for understanding social engagement in intimate relationships. The ventral vagal complex, which mediates the social engagement system through facial expression, vocalization, and listening, enables the calm, connected physiological state required for genuine intimacy. When the social engagement system is disrupted by perceived threat, individuals shift to sympathetic activation (fight-or-flight) or dorsal vagal shutdown (collapse/dissociation), producing the stonewalling and emotional withdrawal patterns that Gottman identified as relationship-destructive. Complementing polyvagal theory, the oxytocin-vasopressin neuromodulatory systems described by Carter (2014) provide the neurochemical substrate for pair bonding, trust extension, and affiliative behavior. Kosfeld and colleagues (2005) demonstrated that intranasal oxytocin administration increased trusting behavior in economic games, establishing a direct link between this neuropeptide system and the interpersonal trust that the RELIQ's third dimension assesses. Together, these frameworks provide the neurobiological grounding that distinguishes the RELIQ from purely behavioral or self-report satisfaction instruments.

3. Four-Dimensional Framework

The RELIQ assesses relationship intelligence across four empirically distinct dimensions, each anchored to identified neural substrates and validated behavioral markers. The four-dimensional structure emerged from an integration of the theoretical traditions described above with the functional neuroimaging literature on romantic relationships, empathy, trust, and conflict processing. Each dimension captures a domain of relational competence that operates through partially dissociable neural circuits yet interacts with the other three dimensions in ways that the scoring methodology is designed to capture.

4. Assessment Architecture

4.1 Individual Assessment (120 Items)

The individual RELIQ assessment comprises 120 items distributed equally across the four dimensions, with 30 items per dimension. This item count balances psychometric reliability requirements, which generally demand a minimum of 20 items per subscale for adequate internal consistency, with practical administration constraints. At an estimated pace of 25 to 35 seconds per item, the individual assessment requires approximately 50 to 70 minutes to complete. Each dimension's 30-item pool contains three item types in a balanced ratio.

Within each dimension's item pool, six items are reverse-scored to detect acquiescent response bias. These items are phrased such that agreement indicates lower dimensional competence (e.g., "During arguments, I often find myself planning my response rather than truly listening to my partner"). Reverse-scored items are distributed throughout the assessment rather than clustered, minimizing the likelihood that respondents will detect the pattern and adjust their responses accordingly.

4.2 Couples Assessment (180 Items)

The couples integration extends the individual architecture by adding 60 unique items designed to capture partner perception and relational concordance. Each partner completes the full 180-item battery independently. The 180 items comprise three subsets.

The first subset consists of 60 self-report items drawn from the individual assessment's 120-item pool, selected for their relevance to dyadic dynamics rather than purely individual attributes. The second subset consists of 60 partner-perception items that mirror the self-report items but redirect the assessment target from self to partner (e.g., the self-report item "I am effective at de-escalating arguments" becomes "My partner is effective at de-escalating arguments"). This mirroring permits direct computation of perception gaps. The third subset consists of 60 unique relational-process items that assess emergent dyadic properties such as shared meaning-making, co-constructed rituals, power balance, and sexual and physical intimacy satisfaction, which cannot be adequately captured through individual self-report alone.

4.3 Social Desirability Correction

Relationship assessment is particularly susceptible to social desirability bias, as respondents may present their relational behavior in an unrealistically positive light, especially when they know their partner may have access to the results. The RELIQ embeds eight items adapted from the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) throughout the assessment. These items describe behaviors that are socially desirable but statistically improbable in their absolute form (e.g., "I have never felt even momentary resentment toward my partner"). Elevated endorsement of these items triggers a correction algorithm that attenuates scores on the positively-keyed items proportionally, preventing inflated profiles from masking genuine growth areas.

5. Scoring Methodology

5.1 Dimensional Scoring

Each of the four dimensions produces a score on a 0-100 scale. Raw item responses within a dimension are first summed after reverse-scoring transformation, yielding a raw dimensional total. This raw total is then converted to the 0-100 scale through linear transformation anchored to the theoretical minimum (all items scored at floor) and theoretical maximum (all items scored at ceiling). The transformation preserves interval-level measurement properties and permits direct comparison across dimensions within an individual's profile.

5.2 Overall RELIQ Score

The composite RELIQ score is computed as the weighted mean of the four dimensional scores. Weighting coefficients were derived from the empirical literature on relationship outcome prediction, with Conflict Resolution and Emotional Intelligence receiving slightly higher weights (0.28 each) than Communication Intelligence and Trust and Loyalty (0.22 each), reflecting the consistent finding in the Gottman tradition that conflict management and emotional regulation are the strongest predictors of relationship longevity (Gottman, 1994). The composite score is rounded to the nearest integer and reported on the same 0-100 scale.

5.3 Profile Interpretation

The dimensional profile, represented as a four-point radar chart, communicates the individual's relative strengths and growth areas. Scores above 75 on any dimension are classified as strengths; scores between 50 and 74 fall in the moderate range indicating competence with room for development; scores below 50 indicate primary growth areas warranting focused attention. The profile shape conveys as much information as the absolute scores. A flat profile at 65 across all dimensions suggests balanced but moderate relational competence, while a jagged profile with scores of 85 and 40 on different dimensions indicates pronounced strengths and vulnerabilities that may interact in clinically significant ways.

5.4 Couples Compatibility Matrix

For couples completing the dual-report assessment, the scoring methodology produces a four-by-four compatibility matrix comparing each partner's dimensional scores against each other partner's dimensional scores. Concordance indices, computed as the absolute difference between corresponding dimensional scores, identify areas of alignment and divergence. High concordance (difference less than 10 points) suggests shared relational competence in that domain. Moderate divergence (10 to 25 points) suggests complementary strengths that may be leveraged in the relationship. High divergence (difference greater than 25 points) flags potential friction points warranting explicit discussion and intervention.

5.5 Perception Gap Analysis

The partner-perception items permit computation of a perception gap score for each dimension. This score represents the discrepancy between how an individual rates their own behavior and how their partner rates that same behavior. Positive perception gaps, where a partner rates the individual higher than the individual rates themselves, suggest hidden strengths and perhaps excessive self-criticism. Negative perception gaps, where a partner rates the individual lower than the individual rates themselves, may indicate blind spots in self-awareness. Perception gap scores are reported alongside dimensional profiles and constitute one of the most clinically actionable outputs of the couples assessment.

5.6 Attachment Style Integration

The RELIQ scoring algorithm classifies each respondent's attachment orientation using a subset of items empirically mapped to the two-dimensional model of attachment anxiety and avoidance (Brennan et al., 1998; Fraley & Shaver, 2000). This classification, reported as secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, or fearful-avoidant, is overlaid onto the dimensional profile to provide interpretive context. For example, a respondent classified as anxious-preoccupied with a low Trust and Loyalty score receives different interpretive guidance than a dismissive-avoidant respondent with the same Trust and Loyalty score, because the underlying mechanisms and optimal intervention strategies differ.

6. Report Architecture

6.1 Individual Report (28 Pages)

The individual RELIQ report spans 28 pages and is generated as a full-color document designed for both screen viewing and print. The report opens with a one-page executive summary presenting the overall RELIQ score, the four-point dimensional radar chart, and the attachment style classification. Pages two through five provide a detailed narrative interpretation of each dimensional score, including the neural basis of that dimension explained in accessible language, the respondent's percentile rank, and specific behavioral indicators that contributed to the score. Pages six through twelve present the item-level response patterns, organized by dimension, highlighting the specific items that most influenced the dimensional score in both positive and negative directions.

Pages thirteen through twenty contain the core recommendation section, providing three to five targeted exercises per dimension calibrated to the respondent's score range. Recommendations for respondents scoring in the growth range (below 50) differ substantively from those offered to respondents in the moderate range (50-74) and the strength range (above 75), ensuring that the guidance is appropriately matched to current competence level. Exercises are drawn from the empirically supported intervention traditions of Emotionally Focused Therapy (Johnson, 2004), the Gottman Method, and mindfulness-based relationship enhancement.

Pages twenty-one through twenty-five provide the relationship strengths celebration section, which explicitly identifies and elaborates upon the respondent's highest-scoring areas. This section is designed to counter the negativity bias inherent in most assessment feedback by ensuring that strengths receive at least as much narrative attention as growth areas. Pages twenty-six through twenty-eight include technical appendices: scoring methodology, normative comparison data, and a glossary of neuropsychological terms used throughout the report.

6.2 Couples Report (15 Pages)

The couples report spans 15 pages and is designed to be read together or shared in a therapeutic context. The opening page presents side-by-side RELIQ scores, dual radar charts, and the compatibility matrix summary. Pages two through five present the concordance analysis for each dimension, with narrative interpretation of what alignment and divergence mean for the specific couple. Pages six through nine contain the perception gap analysis, which is typically the most clinically provocative section, as it reveals where partners see themselves differently than they are seen. Pages ten through thirteen provide couples-specific exercises organized by dimension, emphasizing collaborative activities rather than individual skill-building. Pages fourteen and fifteen present the compatibility heat map, a visual representation of dimensional concordance using color-coded cells ranging from deep green (high concordance) through amber (moderate divergence) to red (high divergence), with interpretive guidance for each cell.

7. Psychometric Considerations

7.1 Content Validity

Content validity was established through a systematic mapping process that aligned each RELIQ item with one or more empirically validated behavioral markers from the relationship science literature. Communication Intelligence items were mapped against Gottman's coded interaction behaviors, including soft startup, active listening indicators, and repair attempt categories. Emotional Intelligence items were mapped against the Salovey-Mayer four-branch model and Siegel's mindsight competencies. Trust and Loyalty items were anchored to the commitment and betrayal recovery constructs from the attachment literature (Feeney, 2008). Conflict Resolution items were aligned with Gottman's Four Horsemen and their documented antidotes. Expert review by three relationship researchers with active publication records in these areas confirmed that the item pool provided comprehensive coverage of each dimension's construct space.

7.2 Construct Validity

Construct validity is assessed through convergent and discriminant correlation analyses. The RELIQ is expected to demonstrate moderate to strong positive correlations with the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), the Couples Satisfaction Index (Funk & Rogge, 2007), and the secure attachment subscale of the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (Fraley & Shaver, 2000). Critically, the four RELIQ dimensions should exhibit differential correlations with these criterion measures, confirming that the dimensions capture distinguishable constructs. For example, the Communication Intelligence dimension should correlate more strongly with DAS communication subscale scores than with DAS affective expression scores, while the reverse pattern should obtain for the Emotional Intelligence dimension.

7.3 Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity is assessed by demonstrating that the RELIQ dimensions are not reducible to general personality traits. Correlations with the Big Five personality dimensions are expected to be modest and selective: Agreeableness should correlate moderately with Conflict Resolution but weakly with Communication Intelligence, while Neuroticism (inverse) should correlate with Emotional Intelligence but not with Trust and Loyalty. If RELIQ dimensions were merely personality by another name, all four would correlate uniformly with the same personality factors, and the instrument would add no predictive utility beyond existing personality inventories.

7.4 Internal Consistency

Internal consistency within each 30-item dimension is evaluated using Cronbach's alpha, with a target minimum of 0.85 per dimension. Scenario-based items and behavioral frequency items are expected to contribute somewhat lower item-total correlations than Likert items due to format-specific variance; however, including multiple item formats strengthens the breadth of construct coverage even at the cost of slightly reduced alpha. Omega hierarchical is computed alongside alpha to partition variance into general factor and dimension-specific components, confirming that the dimensional structure is not an artifact of a single general relationship-quality factor.

7.5 Social Desirability Bias Correction

The embedded Marlowe-Crowne items (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) produce a social desirability index that is used as a statistical covariate in score interpretation. Respondents scoring above the 85th percentile on social desirability receive flagged reports indicating that their dimensional profiles may overestimate actual behavioral competence, and their scores are adjusted downward using a regression-based correction calibrated against independent observer ratings in the validation sample. This correction is essential in relationship assessment, where the motivation to present favorably is typically stronger than in personality or cognitive testing.

8. Neuropsychological Mapping Rationale

The decision to anchor each RELIQ dimension to specific neural substrates reflects two converging developments in the relationship science literature. First, the past two decades have produced a substantial body of functional neuroimaging research directly investigating the neural correlates of romantic love, empathy, trust, and interpersonal conflict, providing an empirical basis for brain-behavior correspondences that did not exist when earlier relationship instruments were developed. Second, the growing integration of neuroscience into public discourse has created an opportunity to communicate assessment results in a framework that respondents find both credible and motivating.

Singer and colleagues (2004) demonstrated through fMRI that observing a romantic partner in pain activated the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex in the observing partner, but not the somatosensory cortex, establishing that empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain processing. This finding directly informs the RELIQ's Emotional Intelligence dimension by identifying the specific neural circuits engaged during empathic resonance within couples. Aron and colleagues (2005) showed that early-stage intense romantic love activated the ventral tegmental area and caudate nucleus, regions associated with reward, motivation, and goal-directed behavior, supporting the RELIQ's mapping of Trust and Loyalty to mesolimbic reward circuits.

Kosfeld and colleagues' landmark study (2005) demonstrated that intranasal oxytocin administration increased trusting behavior in an economic investment game, establishing a causal link between the oxytocin system and interpersonal trust that extends the correlational evidence from pair-bonding research (Carter, 2014). This finding provides neurochemical specificity for the Trust and Loyalty dimension that no prior relationship assessment has incorporated. The Coan, Schaefer, and Davidson (2006) study showing that spousal hand-holding attenuated neural threat responses in the anterior cingulate cortex and insula provided the first direct evidence that secure relationship bonds modulate the neural circuits involved in stress processing, directly supporting the RELIQ's Conflict Resolution mapping.

The mirror neuron system, first characterized in macaques by Rizzolatti and Craighero (2004) and subsequently identified in homologous human regions, provides the neural substrate for the automatic simulation of others' actions and intentions that underlies the nonverbal attunement assessed by the Communication Intelligence dimension. When an individual watches their partner speak, mirror neuron circuits in the inferior frontal gyrus activate in a pattern that mirrors the motor programs the observer would use to produce similar speech, facilitating the rapid, pre-conscious understanding of communicative intent that characterizes effective relational communication. Reis and Shaver's (1988) interpersonal process model of intimacy, which identifies responsive self-disclosure and partner responsiveness as the core mechanisms of intimacy development, aligns precisely with the neural circuits that support perspective-taking and emotional sharing.

It is important to note that the RELIQ does not claim to measure neural activity directly. The neuropsychological mapping is offered as a translational framework that connects behavioral self-report to the neural systems known to mediate those behaviors, providing respondents and clinicians with a more comprehensive understanding of the biological substrates of relationship competence. This mapping enhances the instrument's interpretive framework without overstating the precision of the brain-behavior correspondences involved.

9. Limitations and Future Directions

Several limitations of the current RELIQ framework warrant acknowledgment and inform the program of research required to advance the instrument's validity and utility.

First, the neuropsychological mapping, while grounded in the peer-reviewed literature, necessarily simplifies the distributed and interconnected nature of neural processing. No relationship behavior is mediated by a single brain region; rather, relational competencies emerge from dynamic interactions among multiple neural networks. The dimensional-to-regional assignments described in this paper represent the primary neural substrates for each domain based on the current neuroimaging literature, but they should not be interpreted as implying one-to-one brain-behavior correspondences. Future iterations of the RELIQ framework will incorporate network-level neuroscience models as the field moves from region-of-interest analyses toward connectivity-based approaches.

Second, the current validation framework has been developed primarily with heterosexual couples in English-speaking Western populations. Cultural norms around communication directness, emotional expressiveness, loyalty expectations, and conflict engagement styles vary substantially across cultural contexts (Reis & Shaver, 1988). Same-sex couples may exhibit distinct patterns of communication reciprocity and conflict resolution that require item-level calibration adjustments. A systematic program of cross-cultural adaptation and validation, including back-translation, differential item functioning analysis, and normative recalibration, is required before the RELIQ can be responsibly deployed in diverse populations.

Third, the RELIQ is a self-report instrument and therefore subject to the limitations inherent in that methodology, including motivated responding, limited introspective access, and retrospective bias. While the social desirability correction described in Section 4 mitigates the most egregious forms of impression management, it cannot fully compensate for the gap between reported behavior and actual behavior. Future research should incorporate multi-method assessment, including behavioral observation coding, physiological measurement such as heart rate variability and skin conductance during conflict discussions, and ecological momentary assessment using smartphone-based prompts to capture relational behavior in real time.

Fourth, the RELIQ's predictive validity for relationship outcomes, including satisfaction trajectories, dissolution risk, and health outcomes, has not yet been established through longitudinal follow-up. Cross-sectional correlations with existing satisfaction measures, while necessary for construct validation, do not demonstrate that the RELIQ adds incremental predictive utility for the outcomes that matter most to respondents and clinicians. A five-year longitudinal study tracking RELIQ profiles against relationship dissolution, satisfaction change, and health markers is planned to address this gap.

Finally, the therapeutic application of RELIQ results, while conceptually straightforward, requires empirical validation. The assumption that neuropsychologically-framed feedback enhances motivation for change and improves therapeutic outcomes compared with standard assessment feedback is theoretically grounded but not yet tested. Randomized controlled trials comparing RELIQ-informed therapy with standard couples therapy protocols are needed to establish the clinical utility of the neuropsychological mapping framework.

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