A look at “Multidimensional Measurement of Attitudes Toward Consensual Non-Monogamy” by S. Skakoon-Sparling, N. Fairbrother, P. Socha, M. Faaborg-Andersen, S. W. Noor and T. A. Hart (2025)
We’ve spent several posts looking at how people, therapists included, judge consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships. But how do you actually measure that judgement? This Canadian study set out to build a questionnaire that does exactly that. It’s a bit like a thermometer for the side-eye.
What they found
The researchers developed and tested a new questionnaire, the Multidimensional Attitudes toward CNM Scale (MACS), with around 800 undergraduate students at two Canadian universities. After careful statistical testing, they settled on 16 questions that capture three distinct kinds of attitude:
- “CNM is dysfunctional”: beliefs that open relationships are unstable, unhealthy or doomed.
- “CNM is immoral”: beliefs that non-monogamy is wrong or unethical.
- “CNM is healthy and satisfying”: beliefs that it can be a fulfilling and positive choice.
That third dimension is a nice touch. Many existing measures only capture negative attitudes, not positive ones.
The scale behaved as you’d expect. People with more negative attitudes were less likely to have tried CNM themselves and more likely to see monogamy as ideal. More tellingly, negative attitudes towards CNM went hand in hand with more negative attitudes towards bisexual people, more homophobia, more negative attitudes towards women, and more jealousy. People who saw CNM as healthy tended to score higher on empathy.
In other words, prejudice against non-monogamy doesn’t travel alone. It tends to share a stable with other forms of prejudice.
A grain of glitter ✨
This is a well-constructed piece of measurement work, and a reliable scale is genuinely useful for research and for training. But it’s early days.
The participants were university students, mostly women and mostly heterosexual, and they chose to take part in a study about open relationships. That may have attracted people with stronger views. The questions were developed with input from researchers in the field, but it isn’t clear that people in CNM relationships themselves helped shape them. The scale hasn’t yet been tested with therapists, with the wider public, or outside Canada. And as a snapshot, it can’t yet show whether attitudes shift over time or with training.
Why this matters
This is mostly a tool for researchers and trainers rather than something you’d encounter directly. But it matters for clients too. If therapist training can be evaluated with tools like this, we can find out whether efforts to reduce bias actually work. And the finding that anti-CNM attitudes cluster with homophobia, biphobia and sexism is a helpful reminder: if someone judges your relationship style harshly, it may say more about their worldview than about your relationship.
You can’t fix the side-eye with a questionnaire. But measuring it is a pretty good first step towards a friendlier paddock.