Personality traits and marital satisfaction within enduring relationships

Abstract

In this study of 125 heterosexual long-wed couples, we examined both spouses' personality traits and relative differences in partner perceptions of personality as predictors of marital satisfaction, simultaneously for both husbands and wives. As hypothesized, each of the Big Five personality traits emerged as significantly associated with marital satisfaction though significant between-trait and between-sex differences were observed. Most notably, trait levels predicted marital satisfaction less consistently than positive reporting discrepancies (i.e., comparatively greater extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism reported by spouses vis-à-vis their partners' self-descriptions). While previous research points to a central role of neuroticism, our findings suggest that conscientiousness is the trait most broadly associated with marital satisfaction in this sample of long-wed couples. These differences between study findings may reflect change over the course of married life, the degree to which neuroticism determines divorce, overreliance on younger samples in previous marital research, or some combination of these three.

Emotional Intelligence and Marital Quality: Dyadic Data on Croatian Sample

“…Neuroticism proved to be especially problematic for quality of relationships. Claxton et al (2012) pointed out the reasons for the differences in research results concerning the role of different personality traits in marital quality explanation. One of them is the change over the course of marriage, meaning that in different periods of married life different traits could play a significant role.…”

Assets and a wife's marital satisfaction in Korea

“…More research on the relationships between assets and marital satisfaction is needed. First, many studies have confirmed gender differences in marital satisfaction (Claxton, O'Rourke, Smith, & DeLongis, 2012). Asset effects on marital satisfaction may also have different patterns between wives and husbands.…”

Education, Personality and Separation: The Distribution of Relationship Skills Across Society

“…And are these considerations more important for the lower educated, and does the importance differ by country? Some studies also have suggested that the combination of personality traits within the couple matters (Claxton et al, 2012;Rammstedt et al, 2012) for union stability, which is a possibility left unexamined by this paper.…”

“…They found effects of neuroticism and conscientiousness on marital satisfaction (Claxton et al, 2012;Robins et al, 2000), and some also found effects for extraversion and agreeableness (Noftle & Shaver, 2006;White et al, 2004). In addition, other constructs such as negative emotionality and child-mother attachment styles seem related to marital satisfaction too (Robins et al 2000;Shaver & Brennan, 1992) All in all the effects of personality on marital stability and its distribution across society remain unclear and will therefore be investigated in this paper.…”