The Effect of Item Weighting on the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale

The Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale (LWMAS) and several measures of religious beliefs and commitment were administered to 66 married couples. The LWMAS was scored using the original (1959) weights and revised continuous unit weights. Correlations between the two forms of the L WMAS and the other variables, as well as correlations between clusters of L WMAS items and between husbands and wives on the L WMAS were obtained. The two types of L WMAS scoring weights produce essentially the same relationships to other variables. Discussion of the item weighting issue suggests that marital adjustment scales are paper/pencil projective measures that tap spouses' intended and actual values, goals, and agreements. Conventionalization is rejected as an explanation of L WMAS scores, and Spanier's (1976) modification of the L WMAS is supported as an improvement.