CAMILLA CHIARA COLOMBO, GAIA CUCCÌ, EMANUELA CONFALONIERI, ANDREA BONANOMI
DOI: https://doi.org/Contemporary romantic experiences are increasingly heterogeneous, highlighting the need for instruments capable of capturing their nuanced dimensions, such as uncertainty and ambiguity. This study aimed to develop and validate a scale to measure these dimensions within adolescents’ and young adults’ romantic relationships. The scale development employed a sequential and multiphase design consisting of: identification of the conceptual domain and item generation through focus groups; preliminary pilot study to evaluate item clarity and relevance; item analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis to examine underlying factor structure; Confirmatory Factor Analysis to assess psychometric properties and the test of concurrent and discriminant validity. Three main factors emerged: partners’ uncertainty, relationship uncertainty and behavioral ambiguity. The resulting scale (REUS) demonstrated good internal consistency, strong model fit indices, good reliability as well as concurrent and discriminant validity, thus constituting a valid and reliable instrument to investigate uncertainty and ambiguity in adolescents’ and young adults’ romantic experiences.
