Dr.
Jane's
Dr.
Jane's
Now available as an iPhone/iPad App from your iTunes Store...
How compatible are
you two?
Dr. Jane’s COMPATIBILITY METER™ relationship application
is an easy-to-use iPhone app that reveals a couple’s compatibility. It’s very
concise but scientifically sound.
You’ll see a simple graphic presentation of how much each person rates three
primary factors—love, loyalty, and shared family values—and the degree to which
the you and your friend’s ratings match.
Use the results as points of conversation for enhanced intimacy and
understanding, or make decisions about how far your relationship will proceed.
It’s fun and reliably informative. COMPATIBILITY METER is an abbreviated version of a
more comprehensive and scientifically validated marital satisfaction assessment.
Download Dr. Jane’s COMPATILITY METER and you can share it with as many friends and
acquaintances as you choose. It’s a quick individual assessment instrument that
can be used casually in any social setting or between to committed partners.
How to use Dr. Jane’s COMPATILITY METER
You and your friend are asked, "How important are the following relationship
characteristics to you?” Answers to either a short 10-item list or longer
18-item list are then calculated to reveal similarities, differences, and a
comparison of scores on Love, Loyalty, Shared Family Values, as well as an
"overall compatibility" score.
The answers you and your friend give are
parsed by the app to provide an estimate of your scores for the love, loyalty,
and shared family values factors, which are then presented for both you and your
friend to review. Dr. Jane’s COMPATIBILITY METER gives you the ability to review each
question and the answers given by you and your friend displayed in rank order of
differences. Research finds that the importance assigned to the three factors is
linked to the marital or relationship satisfaction we all seek.
High scores mean a particular aspect is important
to you or your friend. Scores that match imply greater compatibility and the
prospect for a more stable relationship in the future.
Depending on how good the match is you may or may not wish
to pursue the relationship further. But more likely, these differences will give
you and your friend an opportunity to talk and to get to know each other better
before you decide on that next step.
Finding the right person for a long-term
relationship is important to all of us!
Dr. Jane recommends that you pursue the discussion of your similarities and
differences.
Why it works
"It's not hard to find a
relationship. What's hard is finding the right relationship.”—Dr. Jane
Dr. Jane's COMPATIBILITY METER opens up the door to
communication and provides an outline of topics by which partners can compare
what they consider to be most important in a love relationship.
Through discussion of your ratings, you and your
friend get to know each other better and achieve new levels of intimacy. Whether
used as a METER or more serious contemplation of your relationship, Dr. Jane’s COMPATIBILITY
METER
helps you predict how likely you are as a couple to achieve long-term
compatibility.
To further stimulate conversation, each topic is linked to
www.dr-jane.com where
specific issues are addressed in Dr. Jane's
Notebook, a
compendium of more than 250 articles published monthly by Jane R. Rosen-Grandon,
Ph.D. in the Hamburger Square Post,
over the past 25 years. For those who read her articles, Dr. Jane suggests, "You
don't have to agree or disagree, just use the articles for talking points as the
two of you co-create a vision for your relationship.”
Research suggests: Love is not enough!
Even when both partners are satisfied with love, if they can’t trust each other
when their backs are turned, they will not be able to achieve
marital/relationship satisfaction.
The research behind Dr. Jane’s COMPATIBILITY METER also suggests that
marital/relationship satisfaction is composed of the same three factors that
predicate importance; that is, the
importance of LOVE, LOYALTY, and SHARED FAMILY VALUES are directly related to
relationship satisfaction for couples.
There is a direct causal relationship between LOYALTY and
Relationship Satisfaction mediated by the importance placed on these loyalty
questions.
The importance of LOVE, though, only indirectly causes
Relationship Satisfaction. Although the importance of LOVE is a direct cause of
LOYALTY it does not directly cause Relationship Satisfaction. When LOYALTY is
damaged it is not easily mended.
Additionally, there is a direct relationship between
SHARED FAMILY VALUES and relationship satisfaction. This relationship is
mediated by the importance placed on these values. There is also a direct
relationship between LOYALTY and Relationship Satisfaction and
LOYALTY is the critical backbone of relationships. When
broken, it is not easily mended.
Dr. Jane’s COMPATIBILITY METER is serious psychology, simplified for you to use on
your own when you’re considering the next step in your relationship.
Background
Dr.
Jane’s Compat-O-Meter is derived from
CHARISMA: The Characteristics of Marriage
Inventory™, developed by marriage and family therapistt Dr. Jane
Rosen-Grandon. The inventory has been peer-reviewed in the
Journal of Counseling and Development.
Dr. Jane developed the inventory to support her private practice as a marital
counselor and it is licensed to hundreds of independent counselors.
The CHARISMA
model is based on the idea that thousands of couples get married every day.
However, few couples have a clear idea of what it takes to make a marriage work.
Marital or relationship satisfaction is Dr. Jane’s goal. The inventory is a
personal measure of one’s happiness with the relationship so it delivers a
subjective score that only an individual partner can evaluate.
The science supporting Dr. Jane’s COMPATIBILITY
METER
Dr. Jane R. Rosen-Grandon is a Licensed Marriage and
Family Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor in private
practice in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her special Interest in the topic of
marital satisfaction gave rise to her research on couples between 1995-1998, and
release of her book Keeping Love Alive
in 2004 (now in its eighth printing). For the past 40 years, she and her
husband, Gary M. Grandon, Ph.D., an Educational Psychologist, have worked
together as Rosen Grandon Associates, Inc.
CHARISMA, the Characteristics of Marriage
Inventory, was developed to assess both the importance of marital
characteristics to married individuals and their satisfaction with those
characteristics in the marriage. CHARISMA was administered to 201 married
individuals and found to have acceptable reliability and validity as well as
clinical utility in helping couples examine their relationship values and
priorities. Since the initial research that developed this instrument, it has
proved useful, as a therapy tool in clinical counseling practice, as a framework
for the treatment plan in marital counseling/therapy, and as an approach to
marital education.
Two scales were found to assess unique viewpoints of the individual spouses:
Importance and Satisfaction. Participants in our study rated various marital
characteristics according to "how important is each marital characteristic to
you? And, "How satisfied are you with each marital characteristic in your
relationship?” A difference score was then calculated using the
equation: Importance minus Satisfaction = Difference score.
The internal consistency of each subscale was
measured using Chronbach's alpha coefficient. The alpha for the Importance scale
was .83 and the alpha for the Satisfaction scale was .94. Concurrent validity of
the CHARISMA was established in relation to Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale
(1976) and the ENRICH (Olson, McCubbin, Barnes, Larsen, Muxen & WIlson, 1983.)
State of the art statistical methods of factor
analysis and structural equation modeling were used to identify three distinct
factors or pathways to marital/relationship satisfaction. These are LOVE,
LOYALTY, and SHARED FAMILY VALUES.
Essentially this research identified a model of
marital satisfaction in which there is a direct relationship between
satisfaction with SHARED FAMILY VALUES and overall relationship satisfaction.
There is also a direct relationship between satisfaction with LOYALTY and
overall relationship satisfaction. But with LOVE, we discovered something
different. We found that even when participants rated LOVE as important and
satisfying, there was no direct relationship to overall satisfaction because in
addition to being satisfied with LOVE, one must also be satisfied with LOYALTY
in order to achieve long term overall marital satisfaction. In other words,
LOYALTY provides a certain critical backbone to relationships, which if broken
is not easily mended or restored.
Dr. Jane’s COMPATIBILITY METER, while
based on serious psychology, has been simplified and made available for you to
use on your own when evaluating your compatibility to consider
whether to take the next step in your relationship.
References
Rosen-Grandon, J. R., Myers. J.E., and Hattie, J.A.
(2004). The relationship between marital characteristics, marital interaction
processes, and marital satisfaction. Journal of Counseling and Development,
82(1), 58-68.
Myers, Jane E., Madathil, J., and Tingle, L.R. (2005). Marriage Satisfaction and
Wellness in India and the United States: A preliminary comparison of arranged
marriages and marriages of choice. Journal of Counseling and Development,
83(2), 183-190.
Thorson, S.J. Marital values and satisfaction: considerations for domestic and
international couples. Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, 2012.
Rosen-Grandon, J.R. CHARISMA, Characteristics of Satisfaction
in Marriage. Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina at Greensboro,
1998.
Rosen-Grandon, J.R.
charismatest.com.
Web implementation of CHARISMA, 2001.
Others by request.
Dr. Jane's COMPATIBILITY METER is a product of Rosen Grandon Associates, Inc. Application development by Gary M. Grandon, Ph.D., Design work by King's English, Greensboro, North Carolina. Copyright, 2014, All rights reserved.
For more information contact:
Gary M. Grandon, Ph.D.
Rosen Grandon Associates, Inc.
grandon@rosengrandon.com