Can Personality Traits Predict Divorce?

In light of changing dynamics within Arab families and rising divorce rates, understanding personality differences between spouses has become essential for marital success. The Big Five personality model provides a scientific framework for examining each partner’s traits and predicting strengths and challenges before and after marriage. Here, we briefly review the role of each trait and how similarity or difference between spouses interacts, with an emphasis on the importance of the BigFive.ly trait assessment as a practical tool.

Big Five Personality Traits Model

• Openness
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

Each trait exists on a spectrum from low to high, with mid-range scores balancing benefits and trade-offs suitable for different couples’ circumstances.

Role of Each Trait in Married Life

Openness

• High: Encourages exploration, creativity, and participation in new activities, but may generate a desire to change marital routines.
• Low: Prioritizes stability and routine, reducing conflicts over routines’ changes, but may lead to boredom if sustained for a long time.

Conscientiousness

• High: Reflects organization, responsibility, and commitment to marital duties, facilitating division of roles and reducing disagreements.
• Low: May be interpreted as flexibility or lack of commitment, opening the door to disorder or disputes over responsibilities, while allowing quick adaptation to changes.

Extraversion

• High: Brings enthusiasm and vitality, infusing the relationship with social energy, but if both partners are highly extraverted, it may lead to competition for attention or communication leadership.
• Low: Tends toward stability and privacy, creating a calm atmosphere, but may leave the other partner feeling isolated if they crave more interaction.

Agreeableness

• High: Enhances empathy, cooperation, and gentle conflict resolution, creating a supportive and stable environment.
• Low: May manifest as difficulty in conceding or admitting mistakes, which heightens the intensity of arguments and complicates reaching agreement.

Neuroticism

• High: Associated with hypersensitivity and emotional fluctuations, which increase tension in discussions but provide vigilance to maintain family stability in the face of risks.
• Low: Offers psychological stability and greater emotional control, but may give the impression of indifference or neglect if it drops to a level of apathy.
• Medium: Combines sufficient alertness and emotional harmony, achieving a balance between caution and relaxation.

Similarities and Differences Between Partners

• Similarity in high levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness → Greater harmony and higher satisfaction.
• Similarity in high levels of neuroticism → Intensified conflicts and increased risk of separation.
• Moderate differences in extraversion or openness → Role complementarity: one partner encourages the other to engage in activities without conflict over leadership.
• Excessive similarity → A sense of stagnation and boredom over time.
• Significant differences → Difficulty in understanding each other and resolving conflicting expectations.

Importance of the BigFive.ly Trait Assessment

• Early detection of high levels of neuroticism or low conscientiousness and agreeableness before conflicts accumulate.
• Personalized family counseling based on results, addressing traits that require development or regulation.
• Enhanced mutual understanding through each partner’s awareness of the other’s trait spectrum, rather than interpreting behavior as “good” or “bad” personality.
• Periodic follow-up for re-evaluation years into marriage, taking any personality developments into account.

Conclusion

Marital stability is not tied to specific traits in an absolute “positive/negative” model, but rather to the right balance on each trait’s spectrum and appropriate levels of similarity and difference between partners. The BigFive.ly tool provides a scientific assessment guiding couples and professionals toward building a more understanding, flexible, and sustainable relationship, reducing divorce risks by anticipating critical issues and managing them consciously.

References

• Sayehmiri, K. et al. (2020). The relationship between personality traits and marital satisfaction: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Psychology.
• Dyrenforth, P. S. et al. (2010). Predicting Marital and Life Satisfaction from Personality in National Samples. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72(3).
• Shiota, M. N. & Levenson, R. W. (2007). Birds of a feather don’t always fly farthest: Similarity in Big Five personality predicts marital satisfaction trajectories. Psychology and Aging, 22(4).