Highs and Lows of Relationship Behaviors: Constructing a Relationship Behavior Identification Form

The present research applies Action Identification Theory to the context of romantic relationships. Specifically, we investigated the association between relationship outcomes and action identification level, utilizing measures based on the Behavior Identification Form (BIF). The BIF measures the level at which individuals tend to identify actions, either by their meaning (high level) or concrete details (low level). Although the domain-general BIF correlated with relationship outcomes in a preliminary study (Study 1), it is a global measure that is not tailored to assess action identification within romantic relationships. Accordingly, we developed a novel Relationship BIF (Study 2) to assess action identification in the context of romantic relationship behaviors. We explored the associations among the novel Relationship BIF, other measures of action identification, and relationship outcomes (e.g., relationship satisfaction). Results demonstrated that the Relationship BIF effectively assesses variation in action identification level for romantic relationship behaviors and correlates with relationship outcomes. Findings further demonstrated a variety of positive relationship processes associated with a tendency for higher-level identifications of romantic activities, highlighting action identification level as a useful construct for understanding relationship function.