Definition
The Mate Retention Inventory (or MRI; Buss 1988, 2013) is a five-factor measure of mate retention behaviors developed by Dr. David Buss. The measure consists of 104 items across five broad categories of behavior. The MRI is a reliable and valid measure that has been fruitfully used to test hypotheses in many studies.
Introduction
Men and women have recurrently faced the adaptive problem of mate retention: retaining a mate in a committed relationship (Buss 1988, 2013; Buss and Shackelford 1997). Humans are thus expected to have evolved psychological mechanisms motivating behavior in response. The Mate Retention Inventory was developed by Dr. David Buss to measure such behavior. A large and growing body of research has successfully used this measure to test a number of different hypotheses.
Overview
Mate retention behavior is typically measured using the Mate Retention Inventory (MRI; Buss 1988) or the Mate Retention Inventory – Short Form (MRI-SF, see...
References
Atari, M., Barbaro, N., Sela, Y., Shackelford, T. K., & Chegeni, R. (2017). The Big Five personality dimensions and mate retention behaviors in Iran. Personality and Individual Differences, 104, 286–290.
Buss, D. M. (1988). From vigilance to violence: Tactics of mate retention in American undergraduates. Ethology and Sociobiology, 9(5), 291–317.
Buss, D. M. (2013). Mate Retention Inventory (male, self-reported) MRI-MSR. Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Science. Retrieved from www.midss.ie
Buss, D. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). From vigilance to violence: Mate retention tactics in married couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 346–361.
Buss, D. M., Shackelford, T. K., & McKibbin, W. F. (2008). The Mate Retention Inventory-short form (MRI-SF). Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 322–334.
Conroy-Beam, D., Goetz, C. D., & Buss, D. M. (2016). What predicts romantic relationship satisfaction and mate retention intensity: mate preference fulfillment or mate value discrepancies? Evolution and Human Behavior, 37(6), 440–448.
Kaighobadi, F., Starratt, V. G., Shackelford, T. K., & Popp, D. (2008). Male mate retention mediates the relationship between female sexual infidelity and female-directed violence. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1422–1431.
Kaighobadi, F., Shackelford, T. K., & Buss, D. M. (2010). Spousal mate retention in the newlywed year and three years later. Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 414–418.
Lopes, G. S., Shackelford, T. K., Santos, W. S., Farias, M. G., & Segundo, D. S. A. (2016). Mate Retention Inventory – Short form: Adaptation to the Brazilian context. Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 36–40.
McKibbin, W. F., Goetz, A. T., Shackelford, T. K., Schipper, L. D., Starratt, V. G., & Stewart-Williams, S. (2007). Why do men insult their intimate partners? Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 231–241.
McKibbin, W. F., Miner, E. J., Shackelford, T. K., Ehrke, A. D., & Weekes-Shackelford, V. A. (2014). Men’s mate retention varies with men’s personality and their partner’s personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 56, 62–67.
de Miguel, A., & Buss, D. M. (2011). Mate retention tactics in Spain: Personality, sex differences and relationship status. Journal of Personality, 79, 563–586.
Miner, E. J., Starratt, V. G., & Shackelford, T. K. (2009). It’s not all about her: Men’s mate value and mate retention. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 214–218.
Sela, Y., Mogilski, J. K., Shackelford, T. K., Zeigler-Hill, V., & Fink, B. (in press). Mate value discrepancy and mate retention behaviors of self and partner. Journal of Personality.
Shackelford, T. K., Goetz, A. T., Buss, D. M., Euler, H. A., & Hoier, S. (2005a). When we hurt the ones we love: Predicting violence against women from men’s mate retention tactics. Personal Relationships, 12, 447–463.
Shackelford, T. K., Goetz, A. T., & Buss, D. M. (2005b). Mate retention and marriage: Further evidence of the reliability of the Mate Retention Inventory. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 415–426.
Starratt, V. G., Shackelford, T. K., Goetz, A. T., & McKibbin, W. F. (2007). Male mate retention behaviors vary with risk of female infidelity and sperm competition. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 39, 523–527.
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McKibbin, W.F. (2017). Mate Retention Inventory. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1247-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1247-1
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