Emotional expressivity, gender, and match in personality as predictors of marital satisfaction
Abstract
The present study explored gender differences in emotional expressivity and extraversion as well as the relationship between marital satisfaction, spouses' expression of positive and negative emotions, and extraversion. It also investigated whether or not spouses who were matched on level of extraversion had higher marital satisfaction than spouses who were mismatched on extraversion. Eighty-nine married couples participated in the study and completed a demographic questionnaire, the Quality Marriage Index (QMI), the Self-Expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire (SEFQ), and the Big Five Inventory (BFI). Independent-samples t tests revealed that females were more expressive of their positive emotions and more extraverted than males. Correlational analyses revealed that extraversion was positively and significantly correlated with positive emotional expressivity, but not with negative emotional expressivity. Correlational analyses also revealed that the relationship between emotional expressivity and marital satisfaction was influenced by the type of emotion that was being expressed, where participants rated their satisfaction higher when their spouse expressed positive emotions, and lower when their spouse expressed negative emotions. Results showed that spouses who were matched on extraversion did not experience greater marital satisfaction than spouses who were mismatched on extraversion. Lastly, multiple regression analyses revealed that the model predicted a significant amount of variance in marital satisfaction among husbands only, with match on extraversion as the only significant contributor to the model. The results of this study indicate that the type of emotion being expressed to one's spouse (i.e., positive or negative emotions) influences the spouse's level of marital satisfaction, while personality type (i.e., extraverted or introverted) does not. Recommendations for future research and implications for clinical practice are discussed.
Subject Area
Counseling Psychology|Clinical psychology|Personality psychology
Recommended Citation
Gur-Aryeh, Shoval Moshe, "Emotional expressivity, gender, and match in personality as predictors of marital satisfaction" (2011). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI3452790.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI3452790
