General Traits of Personality and Affectivity as Predictors of Satisfaction in Intimate Relationships: Evidence from Self‐ and Partner‐Ratings

Abstract

Self- and partner-ratings on trait affect and the Big Five were obtained from 74 married and 136 dating couples. The relationship satisfaction of each person (the "target") was correlated with four sets of ratings: (a) target's self-rated personality, (b) target's partner-rated personality, (c) partner's self-rated personality, and (d) partner's target-rated personality. Self- and partner-ratings of the target's personality yielded very similar results. Negative and positive affectivity were consistent predictors of satisfaction in both samples. Conscientiousness and agreeableness were reliably related to satisfaction in the dating couples, whereas extraversion consistently correlated with satisfaction in the married couples. These traits jointly predicted as much as 34% (self-ratings) and 26% (partner-ratings) of the variance in satisfaction. In contrast, the partner's personality played a lesser role in satisfaction.

Personality and social network effects on romantic relationships: a dyadic approach

“…On the other hand, the findings for other personality traits such as conscientiousness and agreeableness are less consistent, and only some studies have found positive associations with relationship outcomes (e.g. Buss, 1991;Bouchard et al, 1999;Karney & Bradbury, 1995;McCrae, Stone, Fagan, & Costa, 1998;Shaver & Brennan, 1992;Watson et al, 2000). Findings on extraversion have sometimes even been contradictory, with positive associations with relationship satisfaction and negative associations with relationship stability (see e.g.…”

“…Findings on extraversion have sometimes even been contradictory, with positive associations with relationship satisfaction and negative associations with relationship stability (see e.g. Karney & Bradbury, 1995;Watson et al, 2000). Only a few studies have reported openness effects, with positive associations with satisfaction and negative ones with relationship stability (see e.g.…”

“…This inconsistent picture may give rise to the conclusion that it is still an open question whether personality traits other than neuroticism account for significant variance in relationship outcomes, and whether any of the personality correlates are moderated by third variables. For example, it has sometimes been observed that neuroticism effects are stronger in women, and the effects of conscientiousness and agreeableness are more pronounced in short-term relationships (Bouchard et al, 1999;Karney & Bradbury, 1995;Watson et al, 2000).…”

“…Findings on other personality traits have by contrast not been consistently replicated. For example, Bouchard et al (1999) found a husband's level of openness to be positively associated with the relationship satisfaction perceived by his wife, and Watson et al (2000) observed for both husbands and wives a small effect of conscientiousness on each other's satisfaction. To the best of our knowledge, no personality effects on the attachment quality experienced by the partner have been reported in the literature.…”

“…Still, it would be inappropriate to conceive relationship satisfaction as only due to individual factors, since it has also been shown that relationship experiences are highly consistent between both relationship partners, which cannot be attributed to chance (see e.g. Neyer, 2002;Watson et al, 2000). Therefore, in the present study we investigate the relative contribution of actor effects and partner effects to relationship outcomes in a sample of romantic couples of relatively short relationship duration (2.7 years on average), where relationship issues are supposed to be still in negotiation.…”