RAS: Relationship Assessment Scale

What this assessment is

The Relationship Assessment Scale, or RAS, is a seven-item questionnaire about overall satisfaction with a romantic relationship.

It was designed as a brief measure that could be used with married and unmarried partners.

The RAS produces either a sum from 7 to 35 or a mean from 1 to 5. Higher results indicate greater reported satisfaction.

It is not diagnostic.

The RAS is a relationship-research measure, not a test of compatibility or a prediction about whether two people should stay together.

Who it was designed for

Susan Hendrick developed the RAS with university students who described themselves as being in love and in a current relationship.

A later evaluation by Hendrick and colleagues studied more varied couples, including partners seeking marital and family therapy.

The standard wording assumes a current romantic partner. Adaptations for friendships, family relationships, or former partners change the target relationship and should be identified as adaptations.

How it is administered

The person rates seven questions about their current relationship. Each question has five response levels, although the wording of the response anchors differs by question.

Completion usually takes a few minutes.

Two questions are phrased in the dissatisfied direction and must be reversed before scoring. Use the scoring key for the exact form rather than inferring direction from the response number alone.

The standard materials do not provide a general missing-response rule. Do not calculate a standard mean from an incomplete form without a defined protocol.

What it measures

The RAS gives a broad summary of relationship satisfaction. It is deliberately broad.

Its content covers judgments such as needs being met, overall satisfaction, expectations, affection, regret, and problems.

It does not separate communication, trust, intimacy, conflict, or practical support into validated subscales.

The MSPSS asks whether support feels available from several social sources. The RAS focuses on satisfaction with one romantic relationship.

These scores answer different questions.

How scoring works

Score each response from 1 to 5. Reverse the two negatively directed responses, then combine all seven values.

Two reporting conventions are common:

• sum the seven values for a total from 7 to 35
• divide that sum by seven for a mean from 1 to 5

Higher scores indicate greater relationship satisfaction in both systems.

State the convention.

A sum of 28 and a mean of 4 describe the same response pattern, but the mean may be easier to recognize when comparing studies.

How to interpret an RAS score

The original development paper treated the RAS as a continuous measure of satisfaction.

No universal bands were established.

A higher result means the respondent endorsed greater satisfaction across the seven questions. It does not prove that the relationship is stable, healthy, or likely to continue.

Interpret results against a relevant study, population, and purpose. Group averages from university students or therapy samples are not interchangeable cutoffs.

When two partners complete the RAS, keep their scores separate. Averaging them can hide a meaningful difference in how they view the relationship.

What the score cannot tell you

The RAS cannot determine whether a relationship is safe. Safety sits outside the score.

The seven questions do not assess coercion, violence, stalking, sexual consent, or financial control, so those concerns require direct and appropriate assessment regardless of the result.

The result cannot identify the cause of dissatisfaction or assign responsibility to either partner.

It also cannot diagnose an individual or couple, recommend separation, or predict whether a relationship will last.

Evidence and limitations

The original study described a brief seven-item scale with strong internal consistency and expected relationships with other satisfaction measures.

The 1998 evaluation found useful reliability across more diverse couple samples and in partners seeking therapy.

More recent cross-national research has highlighted a key limitation: the original development sample was narrow and did not document several demographic characteristics.

The RAS is concise because it stays broad. Use a more specific measure or a direct interview when the question concerns communication, conflict, intimacy, or safety.