THE ROLE OF PERSONALITIES IN THE MARITAL ADJUSTMENT OF JAPANESE COUPLES

Abstract

The link between marital adjustment and personality was investigated in 66 Japanese married couples using Locke and Wallace's Short Marital Adjustment Test (SMAT; Locke & Wallace, 1959) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975). Structural equation modeling suggests that the husband's neuroticism score is related to the wife's marital satisfaction as is the wife's dyadic consensus score, although to a lesser extent, while the wife's extraversion score is related to the husband's marital satisfaction. Spouses' marital satisfactions were correlated with each other. The study suggests that the personality traits of a partner can predict an individual's marital adjustment.