Personality and Relationship Satisfaction

Specifically, using a sample of 2,848 couples from the RELATE dataset, a model was tested examining the direct associations between personality factors (neuroticism, agreeableness, and extraversion) and relationship satisfaction in romantic couple relationships. The results indicated that lower levels of neuroticism, higher levels of agreeableness, and lower levels of extraversion were associated with greater relationship satisfaction. In particular, ratings of agreeableness had the strongest associations with satisfaction for males and females, while neuroticism had the next strongest associations, followed by extraversion. Paths between male variables and female variables and satisfaction were not significantly different; however, slight gender differences were present among factor loadings of variables as well as coefficient values of all paths. Additionally, differences in actor and partner effects were evident. Actor effects were present for each of the personality factors, except for male extraversion; partner effects were present for all of the personality factors.