Mate retention in marriage: Further evidence of the reliability of the Mate Retention Inventory

The Mate Retention Inventory (MRI) assesses the performance of behaviors that function to maintain and retain a romantic partner’s exclusive involvement with the individual. We first review existing evidence for the psychometric utility of the MRI. We then examine in the current study agreement between self-reports and partner-reports of mate retention behaviors using data from married couples. Both members of 107 couples completed the MRI for their own and their spouse’s use of mate retention behaviors. Men’s and women’s self-reports of their mate retention behaviors are substantially congruent with their spouse’s reports of their mate retention behaviors, indicating that men and women can provide reliable accounts of spousal mate retention using the MRI.