Fitzpatrick's Typology: An Australian Replication

Abstract

This paper describes an Australian replication of Fitzpatrick's marital typology. One hundred and ninety couples were administered the Relational Dimensions Instrument (RDI) (Fitzpatrick, 1977, 1984). Eight factors were found, six of which were highly similar to those found by Fitzpatrick — sharing, ideology of traditionalism, temporal regularity, spatial differentiation, autonomy and conflict avoidance. The factor previously labelled 'assertiveness', however, seemed more appropriately labelled 'coercion', while ideology of uncertainty and change was replaced by a factor labelled 'enthusiasm'. The three types were replicated and labelled connecteds, independents and separates. The three types were discriminated in terms of two dimensions of openness and independence. The connecteds were high on openness and low on independence, the independents were high on both dimensions, and the separates were low on both dimensions. They key difference between this replication and the original study is the lack of effect for ideology of traditionalism, and the subsequent renaming of that cluster or type.