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Marital adjustment appears to be an important aspect of well-being. For instance, many authors have argued that it can be negatively associated with psychological distress (Beach, Katz, Kim, & Brody, 2003; Beach & O'Leary, 1992; Bookwala & Franks, 2005; Goldfarb, Trudel, Boyer, & Préville, 2007) and physical health (Bookwala, 2005; Booth & Johnson, 1994; Yorgason, Booth, & Johnson, 2008). As Graham, Liu, and Jeziorski (2006) have reported, assessments of marital adjustment have led to the development of many questionnaires, such as the Locke-Wallace-Marital Adjustment Test (Locke & Wallace, 1959), the Marital Satisfaction Scale (Roach, Frazier, & Bowden, 1981), and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976). The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) appears to be the most widely used questionnaire for the assessment of marital adjustment. Indeed, we conducted a search of the PsychINFO database using the keywords "Dyadic Adjustment Scale" and found more than 1,290 publications that used this questionnaire in their respective studies.
The Dyadic Adjustment Scale stems from a combination of many questionnaire items measuring marital adjustment. Spanier (1976) initially defined dyadic adjustment as a process that includes five degrees: (a) troublesome dyadic differences, (b) interpersonal tension and personal anxiety, (c) dyadic satisfaction, (d) dyadic cohesion, and (e) consensus on the important aspects of marital adjustment. On the basis of this definition, Spanier compiled 300 items and asked three judges to evaluate them. Consequently, evaluators retained 200 of the items and administered the questionnaire to a population of married and separated people. Forty of these items discriminated between these groups. Thereafter, Spanier (1976) conducted a factorial analysis and provided a final design for the DAS, including 32 items subdivided into four factors or subscales: Cohesion, Satisfaction, Consensus, and Affective Expression. The Cohesion subscale refers to the degree of agreement between partners regarding shared activities, while the Consensus subscale indicates the degree of agreement between partners regarding different aspects of their lives such as those involving money, friends, household tasks, and time spent together (Spanier, 1989). Satisfaction refers to the low-incident rate of quarrels, discussions of separation, and negative interactions, while the Affective Expression subscale indicates the satisfaction level regarding sexuality and manifestations of tenderness (Spanier, 1989).
Over the years, many authors have challenged the structure of the...