THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL EVALUATION OF LOVE (MEVOL) SCALE: DEVELOPMENT AND PRELIMINARY VALIDATION

Recent research has conceptualized love as a complex sentiment that leads to multiple emotions rather than a single, pure emotion (Bartels & Zeki, 2000). However, many authors have continued to measure love as a unidimensional construct. The present study introduces the Multidimensional Evaluation of Love (MEVOL) Scale which measures several novel aspects of love. Study 1 showed a seven- dimension structure of MEVOL Scale through a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 2 replicated these results and found preliminary validity, as compared with the Passionate Love Scale (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986), the 7-item Companionate Love Scale (Sprecher & Regan, 1998; Steinberg, 1986), and the 3-item Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships Scale (Schaefer & Olson, 1981). Overall, the results allowed for the creation of a quick and easy-to-administer questionnaire comprising a 21-item measure and two explicit questions; this questionnaire can be used to assess the various dimensions of love.