To capture the complex predictions from the previous chapters, these predictions are summarized in this chapter and combined to create a Comprehensive Partner Model and a Comprehensive Commitment Model. The chapter discusses how well these models predict, what is surprising about the findings, and why the same factors make similar predictions across relationship types and cultural regions.

Chapter 1 noted that when predictor factors are correlated with each other, what they predict in common may be accounted for by the factor with the strongest effect, leaving little additional variance to be accounted for by other factors correlated with it. This may be reflected in low standardized regression coefficients for the other factors, even if they have sizable correlations with the dependent variable. The strongest predictor factors that are correlated with other predictor factors and capture what they predict in common, or have additional effects beyond what they have in common, are called Central Factors in this book.