PPT Slide
The following semester, a team of four undergraduate researchers and one faculty researcher conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of the theories. First, each researcher reviewed a subset of 50 theories and developed a comprehensive list of relationship development themes (collapsing synonyms). There was high agreement across researchers on the inclusion of most themes. Using the master list of themes, the five researchers coded the presence or absence of each theme in this subset of theories to establish inter-rater reliability. Percent agreement for the presence of themes ranged from 84 to 97%.
Four additional theory description codes were also applied:
(1) theoretical orientation (social penetration theory, hierarchy of relationship qualities, superficial/attraction-based),
(3) universality (general rules/patterns) vs. specificity (noting individual differences),
(4) theory scope (short-term: initial attraction, mid-term: commitment and formation of couple identity, long-term: life-long goals of relating)
Upon attaining satisfactory inter-rater reliability for all codes, the remaining 144 theories were coded and used for the present analyses.