Similarity, convergence, and relationship satisfaction in dating and married couples.

TLDR

The study examines how personality traits and interpersonal processes jointly predict changes in relationship quality. The authors assessed personality and emotion similarity through laboratory interactions with dating couples and newlywed couples over one year. Emotion similarity mediated the link between personality similarity and relationship quality, and emotion convergence mediated the link between personality convergence and relationship satisfaction, indicating that personality similarity and convergence benefit relationships by fostering shared emotional experiences and supporting models that integrate enduring traits with adaptive processes.

Abstract

The current work investigates how personality and interpersonal processes combine to predict change in relationship quality. Measures of personality and emotion similarity were collected during laboratory interactions from a cross-sectional sample of dating couples (Study 1) and a 1-year longitudinal study of newlywed married couples (Study 2). Results showed that emotion similarity mediated the association between personality similarity and relationship quality (Studies 1 and 2) and that emotion convergence mediated the association between personality convergence and relationship satisfaction (Study 2). These results indicate that similarity and convergence in personality may benefit relationships by promoting similarity and convergence in partners' shared emotional experiences. Findings also lend support to models that integrate partners' enduring traits and couples' adaptive processes as antecedents of relationship outcomes.