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

TLDR

The study collected self‑ and partner‑rated personality and affect measures from 74 married and 136 dating couples and examined how each person’s relationship satisfaction correlated with four sets of ratings: the target’s self‑rating, the target’s partner‑rating, the partner’s self‑rating, and the partner’s rating of the target. Self‑ and partner‑rated personality showed similar predictive power, with negative and positive affectivity consistently linked to satisfaction in both married and dating couples, conscientiousness and agreeableness predicting satisfaction among dating couples, extraversion among married couples, and the four traits jointly explaining up to 34 % of satisfaction variance from self‑ratings and 26 % from partner‑ratings, while partner personality had a smaller effect.

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.