Effects of personality on postdivorce partnership trajectories

Abstract

Personality is known to be a key predictor for several aspects of close relationship functioning. Most likely, the influence of this psychological factor is even growing in contemporary societies, where the individual life biography is increasingly the result of personal preferences and less influenced by normative expectations and cultural institutions. In an era of high relationship instability, more and more people engage in a second union. Although it becomes increasingly relevant to study the effects of personality on close relationship functioning in higher order unions, this remained understudied until now. This study examines the impact of personality on partnership trajectories following divorce. First, we construct a typology of eight partnership trajectories, capturing the occurrence, order, and timing of different partnership events (e.g., repartnering, cohabiting, getting married) in the first 7 years after separation. Then, we use multinomial logistic regression to examine the association between personality and the post-separation partnership trajectories, thereby controlling for sociodemographic variables. The analyses are based on data from a large-scale representative survey, the Divorce in Flanders Survey. Results show that personality and sociodemographic factors are both important determinants for explaining post-separation partnership trajectories. Extraversion tends to increase the likelihood and speed of repartnering. Neuroticism lowers the stability in partnerships. Conscientiousness is related with a higher likelihood to remarry. A higher age at separation and the presence of children at home decrease the likelihood to repartner, while education increases this. The present study delivers an important contribution for unraveling part of the complex association between personality and partner relationship dynamics.

The demography of swiping right. An overview of couples who met through dating apps in Switzerland

“…Second, singles who choose mobile dating may have particular psychological features that affect the way they form and construct relationships. Certain personality dimensions, such as extraversion or internal locus of control (i.e., the belief that one is in charge of life events and outcomes, as opposed to outside forces), are known to impact mate selection, short-term mating, and marital quality [48][49][50][51][52][53][54]. Individuals that resort to a more agentic way of selecting partners, one that also involves constant interactions with others, may be particularly open, extroverted, and may have a high internal locus of control.…”

Consistency between individuals' past and current romantic partners' own reports of their personalities

“…In our analyses, we examined if the current partner's profile bears a unique similarity to the expartner's (i.e., distinctive similarity), controlling for the extent to which it is normative and is similar to the participant's profile. Additionally, based on literature suggesting that personality influences partnering patterns (20,21), we explored the question of who is more or less likely to be dating a partner similar to their ex-partner by examining the link between participants' Big Five personality traits and each similarity index (i.e., normative, selfpartner, and distinctive similarity indices).…”

More of the Same? Comparing the Personalities of Ex-Spouse and New Partner after Divorce

“…The gender constraint of an age penalty did not seem to be more strongly present for women; in fact, it appeared absent for both sexes. One possible explanation is the decreasing likelihood to repartner as divorcees become older (Sodermans et al 2016). The second gender constraint of parenthood also did not show any difference between men and women.…”

“…What about the personality of the shared partners themselves? Sodermans et al (2016) indicated that neurotic and extraverted individuals would likely not repartner with someone who had more marriage-stabilizing personality traits than their ex-spouse. They found that neurotic divorcees remained mainly single or had multiple relationships.…”