The Development and Validation of an Assessment for Romantic Relationship Boundaries in Young Adults

Relationship boundaries are a key mechanism through which young adults navigate their intimate relationships, setting terms for how to treat a partner, how they expect to be treated, and the extent to which they allow a partner’s thoughts, feelings, and actions to influence them. Though community interventions frequently place boundaries as a key element for preventing dating violence (DV) in youth, there are no validated measures that directly assess relationship boundaries, making it challenging to systematically study their impact on relational outcomes. To fill this gap in the literature, this study developed a novel assessment of romantic relationship boundaries, the Romantic Relationship Boundaries Assessment (RRBA), and validated this set of four scales in two samples of young adults ages 18-26. Specifically, a novel integration of attachment theory, complex trauma theory, and family systems work was employed to conceptualize romantic relationship boundaries in young adulthood as shaped by child experiences of relational safety or trauma in primary caregiver relationships. Drawing from this conceptualization, a mixed methods approach was used to develop and refine an initial item pool of questions that assessed boundary attitudes, behaviors, and styles. Subsequently, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and tests of reliability and validity were used to revise this item pool and validate four unidimensional scales, each reflecting a different boundary style: Clear, Porous, Protective, and Controlling. Next, in a series of exploratory analyses, the relationship between scale scores and theoretically relevant covariates (i.e., child abuse, relationship quality, and dating violence) were tested using ordinary least squares regression and logistic regression. Across analyses, RRBA scales demonstrated strong content validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and internal consistency (α ≥ .83). Moreover, boundary styles were significantly correlated with theoretically relevant outcomes as predicted, such that: (1) Clear boundaries were associated with higher relationship satisfaction (p<.001), decreased odds of DV victimization (p<.05) and DV perpetration (p<.01), and not having experienced abuse as a child (p<.01); (2) Porous boundaries were associated with lower relationship satisfaction (p<.001) and increased odds of DV victimization (p<.001); (3) Protective boundaries were associated with lower relationship satisfaction (p<.001), increased odds of DV victimization (p<.001), and having experienced abuse as a child (p<.001); and (4) Controlling boundaries were associated with lower relationship satisfaction (p<.001), and increased odds of DV victimization (p<.001) and DV perpetration (p<.001). Creating and validating an assessment of romantic relationship boundaries opens new avenues for empirically studying the role that relationship boundaries play in a range of psychosocial outcomes for young adults.