Psychological kinship, love, and liking: preliminary validity data.

Psychological kinship refers to valuing significant others as though they were members of one's own family. This construct has many implications for human relationships, including the client-therapist relationship (Bailey, 1988). A 60-item Kinship Scale was developed and administered to 63 undergraduates (39 females; 24 males), along with several other independent measures of sociality (Rubin Love and Liking scales; EPPS Affiliation, Nurturance, and Succorance scales; abbreviated UCLA Loneliness Scale) and the Spiritual Well-Being scales. Subjects took the Kinship, Love, and Liking scales under two cognitive sets, "closest family member" and "acquaintance," while the other scales were taken in regular fashion. The Kinship, Love, and Liking scales were all sensitive to the cognitive sets and appropriately yielded higher mean values and higher correlations with the independent measures vis-à-vis the "closest family member" as opposed to "acquaintance." Significant sex differences were noted, with stronger correlation patterns for males than females. Overall, the Kinship Scale performed very well and shows considerable promise for future research.