Psychological kinship, love, and liking: preliminary validity data

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Relationship Science

Background:

• Psychological kinship involves treating significant others as family.
• This concept impacts various relationships, including therapeutic alliances.
• Previous research lacked a robust scale to measure this construct.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a Kinship Scale for measuring psychological kinship.
• To examine the scale's sensitivity to cognitive framing (family vs. acquaintance).
• To explore correlations between psychological kinship and other social/spiritual well-being measures.

Main Methods:

• A 60-item Kinship Scale was administered to 63 undergraduates.
• Participants completed the scale under two cognitive sets: 'closest family member' and 'acquaintance'.
• Additional measures included scales for love, liking, sociality, loneliness, and spiritual well-being.

Main Results:

• The Kinship Scale demonstrated sensitivity to cognitive sets, with higher scores for 'closest family member' than 'acquaintance'.
• Correlations between the Kinship Scale and other measures were stronger under the 'closest family member' set.
• Significant sex differences were observed, with males showing stronger correlation patterns.

Conclusions:

• The developed Kinship Scale is a promising tool for assessing psychological kinship.
• The scale's validity is supported by its sensitivity to cognitive framing and correlations with related constructs.
• Further research utilizing the Kinship Scale is warranted to explore its full potential in understanding human relationships.