“Open SOEP: Spousal Similarity in Personality”, 2020-07-12 ():
I examined spousal similarity in personality using 4-waves of data over a 12-year period in the German Socio-Economic Panel. There is very little spousal similarity in actual personality traits like the Big Five. However, there is a high similarity in the halo rating bias between spouses.
…[cf. et al 2014, eg. 2007] et al 2010 found rather small correlations between husbands’ and wives’ personality scores in a sample of 1,296 married couples. With the exception of traditionalism, r = 0.49, all correlations were below r = 0.2, and the median correlation was r = 0.11. They also found that spousal similarity did not change over time, suggesting that the little similarity there is can be attributed to assortative mating (marrying somebody with similar traits).
2008 used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), an annual survey of representative household samples. In 2005, the SOEP included for the first time a short 15-item measure of the Big 5 personality traits. The sample included 6,909 couples. This study produced several correlations greater than r = 0.20, for agreeableness, r = 0.25, conscientiousness, r = 0.31, and openness, r = 0.33. The lowest correlation was obtained for extraversion, r = 0.10. A cross-sectional analysis with length of marriage showed that spousal similarity was higher for couples who were married longer. For example, spousal similarity for openness increased from r = 0.26 for newlyweds (less than 5 years of marriage) to r = 0.47 for couples married more than 40 years.
…In conclusion, spouses are not very similar in their personality traits. This may explain why this topic has received so little attention in the scientific literature. Null-results are often considered uninteresting. However, these findings do raise some questions. Why don’t extraverts marry extraverts or why don’t conscientious people not marry conscientious people. Wouldn’t they be happier with somebody who is similar in their personality? Research with the SOEP data suggests that that is also not the case. Maybe the Big 5 traits are not as important for marital satisfaction as we think. Maybe other traits are more important. Clearly, human mating is not random, but it is also not based on matching personality traits.
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