Abstract:
Measuring marital interactions has always been a key concern for researchers in the field of family studies. One widely recognized instrument in this area is Sternberg’s Love Stories Questionnaire, which assesses various dimensions of love in marital relationships. This study aimed to adapt, standardize, and examine the psychometric properties of a localized version of this questionnaire. The research was developmental in nature and conducted on a sample of 556 married women under the age of 50 residing in Tehran in 2021. Participants were selected through convenience sampling and responded to the localized version of the Love Stories Questionnaire as well as the ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using R software version 4.3.1 and the graded multidimensional item response model within the Item Response Theory (IRT) framework. The results indicated that the localized version comprised 26 dimensions and exhibited a sound multidimensional structure. Criterion validity was assessed via Pearson correlation, and all dimensions of the questionnaire showed a significant positive correlation with marital satisfaction at the 0.01 significance level. The highest correlation was observed for the resilience dimension (r = 0.58) and the lowest for the agent dimension (r = 0.36). Furthermore, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for all dimensions exceeded 0.60, indicating acceptable reliability. Overall, the findings suggest that the localized version of Sternberg’s Love Stories Questionnaire possesses satisfactory validity and reliability and can be used as a valid instrument to assess the 26 dimensions of love in married women under the age of 50.