Participation PY102-02
Research Credit Journal Article Summary
Michelle Shiota and Robert Levenson published the results of their research study in Psychology and Aging. In their study, titled: "Birds of a Feather Don't Always Fly Farthest: Similarity in Big Five Personality Predicts More Negative Marital Satisfaction Trajectories in Long-Term Marriages", Shiota and Levenson took as second look at the dogma "Birds of a feather flock together." By surveying married couples in their 40s as well as couples in their 60s, they desired to assess whether similarities in the Big Five: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness correlated to marital satisfaction not only in the present but also in the trajectories of a twelve year span. Shiota and Levenson chose to look at couples in their 40s and 60s in order to evaluate marriages long-term in versus the many studies done involving dating and newly married couples. They were ultimately testing the complementarity hypothesis which proposes that partners may be more satisfied when they differ on certain personality traits rather then when they match. They took initial assessments of the Big Five as well as two self-report measures for marital satisfaction. Two years later participants mailed were another self-report questionnaire. Then six years and again twelve years after the initial assessment, couples took the self-report questionnaires a second and third time. By analyzing these different measures Shiota and Levenson found that in both age groups, more so with couples in their 40s, marital satisfaction was lower when couples were more similar in their Big Five ratings. These findings lead the researchers to question why such correlations would be present. They suggested that because couples
with differing personality characteristics can more easily divide the tasks faced in marriage, they report higher marital satisfaction. One example used was when both partners are highly Conscientious and insist on completing a task in a certain way they have more conflict than a couple in which one partner is laid back about how tasks should be completed. Shiota and Levenson effectively demonstrated with their study that in long-term marriages similarities in the Big Five actually predicts more negative marital satisfaction.
Levenson, R. W., & Shiota, M. N. (2007). Birds of a feather don't always fly farthest: Similarity in Big Five personality predicts more negative marital satisfaction trajectories in long-term marriages. Psychology and Aging, 22, 666-675.