The Love Skills Assessment: Development, Validation, and Properties

Abstract

Background: While the capacities to love self and others are universally recognized as essential for
health and well-being, no simple, reliable, and valid assessment exists for measuring these capacities.
Methods: Alpha and beta versions of the love skills assessment (LSA), comprised of three subscales
(lovability/ intrinsic self-esteem, love for self, and love for others) were administered to 251 respondents
in two waves along with the UCLA loneliness scale, the Level of Personality Functioning Scale—
Self Report (LPFS-SR), and a relationship satisfaction assessment. Items were successively eliminated
from the alpha and beta versions to create a 15-item assessment that demonstrated adequate convergent
validity of items with other items from their parent subscale, lesser correlation with different subscale
items, and convergent validity with relationship satisfaction, loneliness, and personality problems, but
not to a larger degree than with their parent subscale.
Results: The coefficient alpha internal consistency of the subscales ranged from .791 to .831. The three
subscales demonstrated significant intercorrelation. All LSA scores were positively correlated with
relationship satisfaction, with the Self-Love subscale yielding the largest values. The LSA scores were
inversely related to both personality problems and to loneliness. The LSA Love for Others subscale was
most strongly (inversely) related to Empathy and Intimacy problems. Lovability was most associated
with lack of problems with Identity and Self-Direction, while Self-Love was strongly inversely related
to Loneliness.
Conclusions: The LSA is a simple, easy to use, reliable and valid self-assessment for measuring
lovability, self-care/self-love, and loving behavior towards others. Because of its brevity and simplicity,
clinicians can easily use the LSA to assess these dimensions and efficiently track changes in these skills
over time with treatment.