A longitudinal experience sampling study of personality-relationship transactions among couples of young, middle, and late adulthood: An in-depth assessment and analysis of underlying dynamics

• Applicant: Professorin Janina Larissa Bühler
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519866952

Personality manifests in a specific pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and contributes to diverse life domains, such as health and relationships. The focus of this research project are romantic relationships as one of the closest and most important relationships in the lives of many people. The main emphasis is on relationship events (i.e., life events in the context of romantic relationships, such as marriage and separation) and their reciprocal associations with personality characteristics. These linkages have been summarized as personality-relationship transactions and have been supported empirically. Specifically, selection effects suggest that personality characteristics predict the occurrence of relationship events, while socialization effects indicate that relationship events contribute to the development of personality characteristics. Evidence shows that three gain-based (i.e., moving in with partner, marriage, birth of a child) and three loss-based (i.e., separation, divorce, widowhood) relationship events are significantly associated with personality characteristics (i.e., Big Five personality traits, self-esteem, attachment styles, life satisfaction). Recent insights, however, reveal that the effect sizes of the observed selection and socialization effects are often small and inconsistent. Therefore, the goal of the present research project is to specifically address these inconsistencies and to systematically understand the processes that explain personality-relationship transactions. There are three specific research lines of this project: (1) Personality processes and relationship processes will be assessed in couple’s daily lives five times a day over ten days. (2) The relevance and subjective meaning of relationship events will be assessed in great detail. (3) Couples of young, middle, and late adulthood, who are in the first decade of their relationship, will be sampled to better understand the role of age and relationship duration for personality-relationship transactions. Together, these three research lines allow to analyze personality-relationship transactions and their underlying dynamics with great precision. Methodically, couples from young (n=250), middle (n=250), and late (n=250) adulthood will be assessed in an intensive experience sampling with 16 assessments across 4 years. This design is ideally suited to study change (and stability) in personality and romantic relationships across a longer period of time. The generated knowledge about couple’s daily personality and relationship close to a relationship event may be used in future prevention and intervention studies with couples. Overall, across different ages and backgrounds, personality and romantic relationships are relevant aspects in the lives of many people and crucial for their well-being, which emphasizes the relevance of the present research project.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups
• International Connection: Netherlands, USA
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Jaap Denissen; Professor Paul W. Eastwick, Ph.D.