Spanish version of the Investment Model Scale

Abstract

Voluminous work has catalogued the utility of Rusbult's (1980) investment model of commitment processes in understanding why some relationships persist whereas others fail. To date this work has been conducted almost exclusively with samples of English‐speaking individuals. To facilitate testing novel hypotheses among Spanish‐speaking populations as well examining various cross‐cultural questions, we present a Spanish version of the Investment Model Scale (Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, 1998). With a sample of Spanish‐speaking individuals from Chile, we demonstrate that our translation has the same structural properties as the English version (Study 1) and has good predictive validity (Study 2). The Spanish version of the Investment Model Scale will enable researchers to sample a larger subset of the population and allow for the examination of cultural influences on relationship processes.

Applicability of the Investment Model Scale in a natural‐fertility population

“…The existing Spanish translation of the IMS (VanderDrift et al, ) was translated into Mayangna and Miskito by trilingual assistants (Supporting Information File S1). These assistants worked with Winking (J.W.)…”

“…In a meta‐analysis involving 52 studies and over 11,000 participants, the three antecedent factors independently predicted commitment and combined to explain 60% of the variation in this measure (Le & Agnew, ). Furthermore, several studies using factor analyses have found that IMS responses are consistently structured into four independent constructs that align with the hypothesized factors (Branje, Frijns, Finkenauer, Engels, & Meeus, ; Rodrigues & Lopes, ; Rusbult et al, ; VanderDrift et al, ). Regarding predictive validity, commitment is one of the strongest predictors of relationship dissolution among a wide number of relationship, external, and individual factors that have been reported in the literature (Le & Agnew, ; Le, Dove, Agnew, Korn, & Mutso, ).…”

“…The Investment Model Scale (IMS), developed by Rusbult (, ; see also Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, ), is a widely used scale that captures one's commitment to a relationship and strongly predicts future relationship dissolution. This effect is robust across numerous dimensions—gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and nationality (Le & Agnew, ; Lin & Rusbult, ; Rodrigues & Lopes, ; VanderDrift, Agnew, & Wilson, ). However, although such tests of the scale's robustness use diverse samples, these samples are all derived from the predominant national cultures of nation states that have largely completed the demographic transition (Coale, ).…”

“…Regarding the cross‐cultural applicability of the IMS, researchers have successfully used the IMS in studies of relationships in Taiwan (Lin & Rusbult, ), Chile (VanderDrift et al, ), Portugal (Rodrigues & Lopes, ), the Netherlands (Van Lange et al, ), Israel (Koslowsky & Kluger, ), and the United Kingdom (Oliver, ). Overall, the literature suggests no constraints on IMS generality.…”

The Fitness Effects of Men’s Family Investments

“…A translator first translated the Spanish version of the Investment Model Scale (VanderDrift et al 2014) into the local Mayangna and Miskito languages. A second translator then translated it back into Spanish and irregularities were discussed and corrected until both were satisfied (see Supplementary Material for the three versions and their English translations).…”