Personality and compatibility: A prospective analysis of marital stability and marital satisfaction.

Abstract

The antecedents of marital stability (divorce or remaining married) and marital satisfaction (within the group that remains married) were investigated with a panel of 300 couples who were followed from their engagements in the 1930s until 1980. Twenty-two of the couples broke their engagements; of the 278 couples who married, 50 got divorced at some time between 1935 and 1980. Personality characteristics (measured by acquaintance ratings made in the 1930s) were important predictors of both marital stability and marital satisfaction. The three aspects of personality most strongly related to marital outcome were the neuroticism of the husband, the neuroticism of the wife, and the impulse control of the husband. In combination, the 17 major antecedent variables were moderately predictive of a criterion variable composed of both marital stability and marital satisfaction (R = .49). The three major aspects of personality accounted for more than half of the predictable variance. The remaining variance was accounted for by attitudinal, social-environment, and sexual history variables.

A Tale of Two Visions: Can a New View of Personality Help Integrate Psychology?

“…Such studies indicate that good self-control (e.g., the lack of temper tantrums) is crucial to good occupational and marital status (Caspi et al, 2003;Peake, Hebl, & Mischel, 2002), along with other variables (Gottfredson, Jones, & Holland, 1993;Johnson, McGue, & Krueger, 2004; E. L. Kelly & Conley, 1987).…”

Mindfulness and Marital Satisfaction

“…Spousal similarity is one of the most highly researched marital satisfaction factors (Blum & Mehrabian, 1999;Bouchard et al, 1999;Bruch & Skovholt, 1985;Holden, 1991;Kelly & Conley, 1987;Kim et al, 1989;Nemechek & Olson, 1999;Richard et al, 1990), yet even when combined with mindfulness in a multiple regression, similarity accounted for relatively low marital satisfaction variability. Mindfullness explained almost exactly the same amount when combined with similarity as alone, approximately 8%.…”

“…Numerous studies suggest a relationship between spousal personality similarity and marital satisfaction (Blum & Mehrabian, 1999;Bouchard, Lussier, & Sabourin, 1999;Bruch & Skovholt, 1985;Holden, 1991;Kelly & Conley, 1987;Kim, Martin, & Martin, 1989;Nemechek & Olson, 1999;Richard, Wakefield, & Lewak, 1990). It is thought, for example, that couples that share more similarities than differences might engage in fewer arguments, have fewer misunderstandings, and less overall conflict or negative interaction, than other couples (Caspi & Herbener, 1990).…”

“…For example, and not surprisingly, there is nearly unanimous agreement that a strong negative relationship between neuroticism and marital dissatisfaction exists (Buss, 1991;Hjemboe & Butcher, 1991;Kelly & Conley, 1987;Kosek, 1996;Lester, Haig, & Monello, 1989). That is, a couple in which one member shows evidence of anxiety, depression, (Bouchard, et al, 1999;Kosek, 1996) emotional instability, poor impulse control, feelings of social inferiority (Buss, 1991;Hjemboe & Butcher, 1991;Kelly & Conley, 1987), and/or hypersensitivity to criticism (Lester, et al, 1989;Nemechek & Olson, 1999) may experience higher rates of conflict and lower levels of marital satisfaction.…”

Self-control as a limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns.

“…For example, self-regulation has been associated with crime and criminal behavior (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), smoking (Russell, 1971), and dieting (Herman & Polivy, 1975). Men with better self-control are less likely to become divorced (Kelly & Conley, 1987). Children who are better at delaying gratification tend to be calmer, to resist frustration better, to be less irritable and aggressive, to concentrate better, and to get higher grades in school than children who are less able to delay gratification (Funder & Block, 1989;Funder, Block, & Block, 1983).…”