Validation of the Short Version (TLS-15) of the Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45) across 37 Languages

Abstract

Love is a worldwide known phenomenon that affects many aspects of human life, including considering a romantic partner with whom to bond. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to test love levels is Sternberg's 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment. However, our literature review reveals that the majority of studies (64%) use a broad variety of shortened versions of the TLS-45. To achieve scientific consensus and improve the reliability, comparability, and generalizability of results across studies, here, we develop a short version of the scale–the TLS-15–which contains 15 items with a 5-point rather than 9-point response scale. In Study 1 (N = 7,332), we re-analyzed secondary data from a large-scale multinational study that validated the original TLS-45 to establish whether the scale could be truncated. In Study 2 (N = 307), we provided evidence for the three-factor structure of the TLS-15 and its reliability. Study 3 (N = 413) confirmed convergent validity and test-retest stability of the TLS-15. Study 4 (N = 60,311) presented a large-scale validation across 37 linguistic versions of the TLS-15 on a cross-cultural sample spanning every continent of the globe. The overall results provided support for the reliability, validity, and cross-cultural invariance of the TLS-15, which could be used as a measure of love components–separately or jointly as a three-factor measure.

Modernization, collectivism, and gender equality predict love experiences in 45 countries

“…Second, although we used one of the most famous love scales, the Triangular Love Scale 27 , the scale has been criticized for high correlations between love components 59,60 . Furthermore, the TLS might not reliably distinguish participants with high levels of love 61 . As love measures are not perfectly correlated (their correlations tend to vary from 0.00 to even 0.83, see 62,63 ), it would be interesting to test the present results' robustness using different love measures.…”

Toward consistent reporting of sample characteristics in studies investigating the biological mechanisms of romantic love

“…The TLS has high reliability across studies with different sample characteristics ( Graham and Christiansen, 2009 ) and has been demonstrated to be psychometrically sound cross-culturally ( Sorokowski et al, 2021 ). A number of attempts have been made to develop a short-form of the TLS (e.g., Kowal et al, 2022 ).…”

Cross-language validation of COVID-19 Compliance Scale in 28 languages

“…Importantly, this scale was created with input from roughly 150 international Consortium members from over 50 countries to ensure that the measures represented global guidelines that were consistently promoted across many countries. Many of these researchers have experience designing and validating multilingual surveys across languages (e.g., [20][21][22][23]). The scale was first written in English, then translated into 48 languages using a three-step translation, backtranslation, and verification process [16].…”