The MyLoveLab method: what the test and the program are built on

MyLoveLab is not a scientific study, and we don’t want to suggest it is. It’s a tool built on the most solid findings in couple psychology of the past fifty years, reorganized so you can use it in a 15-minute test and 8 minutes a day. This page explains where each piece comes from, and where our claims stop.

Every author cited here has a page in the The research section: their background, their concepts, what their studies really show, their limits, and how we use them. The complete bibliography is there too.

Pillar 1: communication and conflict, with Gottman

John Gottman and Robert Levenson have been observing couples since the 1970s, more than fifty years, in the lab and over time. The benchmarks MyLoveLab uses for the Communication and Conflict management dimensions come from those observations: the four horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling), repair attempts during an argument, the ratio of positive to negative interactions, and the “sound relationship house.” Their longitudinal studies showed that these interaction patterns are strongly linked to couple stability over ten years and more.

We add the work of Samantha Joel and her colleagues, published in 2020 in PNAS: a machine learning analysis of 43 longitudinal studies, 11,196 couples in all, to identify what best predicts relationship quality. That work is where the “11,196 couples” on the home page comes from. The “50 years of research” refers to Gottman’s observations, which began in the 1970s. Their most useful finding for us: what a person perceives about their partner’s commitment, appreciation and satisfaction matters more than their own personality traits.

Pillar 2: attachment and security

Attachment theory comes from John Bowlby, then Mary Ainsworth, who described the first styles in children. Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver extended it to adult couples in 1987, and today it is one of the best-documented frameworks for understanding how you react to closeness, distance and insecurity in a relationship.

To measure your style, the test draws on the ECR-R scale (Fraley, Waller and Brennan, 2000, based on Brennan, Clark and Shaver, 1998), the reference tool for placing a person on two axes: anxiety about abandonment and avoidance of intimacy. Crossing these two axes gives the four styles used in your report: secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganized. Note that the MyLoveLab test is not the ECR-R itself. It borrows its logic in a shorter format.

For the program, the Attachment and security dimension draws on Sue Johnson’s emotionally focused therapy, the couples therapy method most thoroughly evaluated to date, along with the syntheses by Mikulincer and Shaver and the popular book by Levine and Heller, Attached, for the combinations of styles in couples.

Pillar 3: love languages, intimacy and support

Gary Chapman’s 5 love languages are the framework for the Love languages dimension. It is a popular model more than a statistically validated one, and we present it as such: a useful vocabulary for spotting what really reaches the other person, not a law.

For intimacy and desire, the program draws on Rosemary Basson’s model of responsive desire, which showed that desire often comes after stimulation, not before, on Esther Perel’s work on the tension between security and desire, on the dual control model described by Emily Nagoski, and on David Schnarch’s notion of differentiation. Sternberg’s triangular theory gives the three components we track: intimacy, passion, commitment.

For mutual support, we use Guy Bodenmann’s dyadic coping: the way a couple handles stress together, and not just each on their own.

How the test is built

About fifty adaptive questions, spread across seven dimensions, the same ones as in the program: Communication and listening, Love languages, Conflict management, Intimacy and desire, Attachment and security, Shared project, Trust and support. Adaptive means the questions change based on your earlier answers, so they dig where it matters and move quickly where things are going well. Each dimension gets a score out of 100.

The 24 relationship profiles cross your attachment style (four styles) with your dominant relationship pattern (six patterns: Giver, Protector, Adventurer, Fusional, Independent, Builder). The profiles are a tool for recognizing yourself and talking about your relationship, not a scientific category. Each person takes the test on their own, and it rests on what you report: it measures your view of your relationship, not the relationship itself. If your partner takes it too, you compare your two reports.

How the program is built

Seven dimensions, ten levels each. Each level follows three phases: understand, practice, co-create. It ends with a validation quiz. A session lasts about 8 minutes: a short lesson explaining an idea from the work above, a few questions to place yourself, an exercise or action to try together during the day, and a commitment. Each level cites its sources in its content.

The program also has safeguards. Some situations are not a matter for a couple exercise: when answers point to violence, control or danger, the program says so clearly and points you to the right resources, including 3919 in France (or your local domestic violence helpline elsewhere).

Our limits

MyLoveLab doesn’t replace couples therapy or individual counseling. The score has not yet been statistically validated on a large sample. That’s a goal, not something we’ve achieved, and we’ll say so the day we have. What you get is a serious starting point for understanding your relationship and acting on it, not a verdict.

References

1. Gottman, J. M. & Silver, N. (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Crown. Traduit sous le titre Les couples heureux ont leurs secrets.
2. Gottman, J. M. & Levenson, R. W. (2000). The timing of divorce: Predicting when a couple will divorce over a 14-year period. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(3), 737-745.
3. Joel, S. et al. (2020). Machine learning uncovers the most robust self-report predictors of relationship quality across 43 longitudinal couples studies. PNAS, 117(32), 19061-19071.
4. Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, vol. 1 : Attachment. Basic Books.
5. Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E. & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment. Erlbaum.
6. Hazan, C. & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(3), 511-524.
7. Brennan, K. A., Clark, C. L. & Shaver, P. R. (1998). Self-report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative overview. In Attachment Theory and Close Relationships. Guilford.
8. Fraley, R. C., Waller, N. G. & Brennan, K. A. (2000). An item response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 350-365.
9. Mikulincer, M. & Shaver, P. R. (2007). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change. Guilford.
10. Levine, A. & Heller, R. (2010). Attached. TarcherPerigee.
11. Johnson, S. M. (2008). Hold Me Tight. Little, Brown. Traduit sous le titre Serre-moi fort.
12. Chapman, G. (1992). The 5 Love Languages. Northfield. Traduit sous le titre Les 5 langages de l’amour.
13. Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93(2), 119-135.
14. Basson, R. (2000). The female sexual response: A different model. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 26(1), 51-65.
15. Perel, E. (2006). Mating in Captivity. Harper. Traduit sous le titre L’intelligence érotique.
16. Nagoski, E. (2015). Come As You Are. Simon & Schuster.
17. Schnarch, D. (1997). Passionate Marriage. Norton.
18. Bodenmann, G. (2005). Dyadic coping and its significance for marital functioning. In Couples Coping with Stress. APA.