Development of a brief measure of attitudes towards polyamory

Abstract

Due to its increasing popularity as a relationship style, empirical research on polyamory and its practitioners has flourished over the past decade. More recently, researchers are beginning to explore others’ attitudes towards polyamory. To support future work in this area, we created a 7-item measure of attitudes towards polyamory and validated it in three samples. Sample 1 used 100 US adults to create the initial version of the Attitudes Towards Polyamory (ATP) Scale. In Sample 2, the responses of 134 US college students were used to revise the scale and to obtain evidence for construct validity and test–retest reliability. Sample 3 employed 196 US adults to confirm the factor structure of the scale and to further establish convergent and divergent validity. As expected, participants who held more traditional beliefs (such as favourable attitudes towards monogamy, politically conservative beliefs and fundamentalist religious beliefs) were more likely to have negative attitudes towards polyamory, whereas participants exhibiting thrill-seeking attitudes and behaviours were more likely to have positive attitudes towards polyamory. Our results indicate that the ATP Scale is a brief, reliable and valid measure that can be used in future research to assess people’s attitudes towards the polyamorous relationship orientation.