Contextualized Personality and Relationships 1
Running head: CONTEXTUALIZED PERSONALITY AND RELATIONSHIPS
It's Not Just Who You Are, It's How You Act:
Influences of Global and Contextualized Personality Traits on Relationship Satisfaction
Richard B. Slatcher and Simine Vazire
The University of Texas at Austin
Address correspondence to:
Richard B. Slatcher
Department of Psychology #A8000
108 E. Dean Keaton Street
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
Telephone: (512) 471-6852; FAX (512) 471-5935
Email: slatcher@mail.utexas.edu
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 2
Abstract
How does personality exert its influence on relationship satisfaction? Previous research has
shown, for example, that Agreeableness is associated with greater relationship satisfaction, yet
little is known about the mechanisms through which personality affects satisfaction. We propose
that global personality traits (e.g., being agreeable) exert their influence on relationships through
contextualized manifestations of personality (e.g., acting agreeable towards one's partner). In the
Study 1 we collected global (being) and contextualized (acting) self reports of personality and
relationship satisfaction from a large, diverse sample of adults in committed romantic
relationships. In Study 2 we collected global self reports of personality (being) and relationship
satisfaction from undergraduate dating couples. We also collected couples’ Instant Messages
(IMs) to each other for seven days. Independent observers read the IMs and rated each couple
member’s personality in the context of their relationship (acting). The results showed that
contextualized personality (acting) predicted relationship satisfaction above and beyond global
personality (being), and that acting mediated the relationship between being and relationship
satisfaction. Our findings point to the importance of examining both global and contextualized
personality traits, and demonstrate how personality influences major life outcomes.
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 3
It's Not Just Who You Are, It's How You Act:
Influences of Global and Contextualized Personality Traits on Relationship Satisfaction
Amy and Karen are discussing Amy’s relationship with her boyfriend, David. “I don’t
understand why you’re with him,” Karen tells Amy, “he’s such a jerk.” “I know what you
mean,” replies Amy, “but he’s so different when we’re alone.” Do people really behave
differently in romantic relationships than they do in other contexts? If so, what predicts the
quality of their relationship—how they are in general, or how they are with their partner?
Researchers have long been interested in the effects of personality on romantic
relationships, with roughly 500 studies dating back to the 1930s published on this topic (Cooper
& Sheldon, 2002). The findings from these studies have demonstrated that certain stable
personality factors are associated with relationship quality (Eysenck & Wakefield, 1981; Karney
& Bradbury, 1995; Terman & Buttenwieser, 1935). However, the associations found between
personality and relationship quality often have been modest and inconsistent. One potential
explanation for the inconsistent findings in these studies is that the measures of personality
employed have been too general. Researchers largely have ignored relationship-specific
manifestations of personality (i.e., what a person’s personality is like within the context of a
particular relationship), which may be important in predicting relationship functioning.
While there is no doubt that enduring, stable personality traits influence how people
approach and view their relationships, examining the role of contextualized personality is vitally
important as well. Indeed, a number of scholars in our field have called for a more contextualized
approach to the study of personality and relationships (e.g., Reis, Capobianco & Tsai, 2002;
McAdams, 1995). With this article, we extend previous research on the role of personality
dispositions by examining the role of both global and contextualized personality traits in
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 4
romantic relationships. Is David really a nice guy when he is with Amy, even though he is a jerk
to everyone else? And if so, is the quality of their relationship better predicted by his positive
behavior towards her or by his global, negative personality attributes?
The vast majority of relationship-personality studies have examined the association
between global personality traits and relationship satisfaction, focusing particularly on the traits
of the Five Factor Model (FFM; McCrae & Costa, 1999)—Extraversion, Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. In the context of relationships,
Neuroticism has been the most extensively researched of these traits (Bouchard, Lussier, &
Sabourin, 1999; Caughlin, Huston, & Houts, 2000; Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Terman &
Buttenwieser, 1935). Those who are high in Neuroticism—anxious, irritable, and emotionally
unstable—typically report being less satisfied in their romantic relationships than those who are
low in Neuroticism. Much less is known about how the other four factors of the FFM relate to
romantic relationship quality, but preliminary findings indicate that Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience are all positively related to
relationship satisfaction (Botwin, Buss, & Shackelford, 1997; Donnellan, Conger, & Bryant,
2004; Watson, Hubbard, & Wiese, 2000).
Global measures of personality are predictive of satisfaction not only in romantic
relationships but in other domains of life as well. For example, the more agreeable people are on
average, the more satisfied they will be across relationships—with family, friends, and so on
(Branje, van Lieshout, & van Aken, 2004; Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, & Hair, 1996; JensenCampbell, Gleason, Adams, & Malcolm, 2003). Conversely, the more neurotic people are, the
less satisfied they likely will be with the various relationships in their lives (Berry, Willingham,
& Thayer, 2000; Cheng & Furnham, 2002; Eaker & Walters, 2002). But while global measures
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 5
of personality can tell us a little bit about how a person is in many types of relationships, they fail
to tell us a great deal about how a person is any one particular relationship. For example,
Asendorpf and Wilpers (1998) showed that general interpersonal traits—including Extraversion,
sociability, and shyness—predict general patterns of social behavior but are only weakly
associated with the qualities of specific relationships. Further, trust for a particular partner, but
not generalized trust, predicts commitment and well-being in that relationship (Wieselquist,
Rusbult, Foster, & Agnew, 1999). By supplementing global measures of personality with
contextualized ones, we may be able to better disentangle the role of personality in relationships.
The distinction between global and contextualized measures has been widely used in life
satisfaction research. For example, Heller, Watson, and Ilies (2004) have shown that global life
satisfaction is distinct from (though related to) context-specific satisfaction, such as work or
relationship satisfaction. It is widely accepted that satisfaction measures should be obtained at
the level of analysis of interest to the researcher. For example, if researchers are interested in
predicting relationship outcomes, they should measure relationship-specific satisfaction. The
same logic applies to measures of personality. In this article, we examine whether contextualized
measures of personality in the domain of romantic relationships can predict relationship
functioning better than global measures of personality.
Many studies have demonstrated the benefit of contextualized measures of personality.
For example, in one study (Hunthausen, Truxillo, Bauer, & Hammer, 2003), customer service
supervisors at a large U.S. airline completed a modified version of the NEO Five-Factor
Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa & McCrae, 1992) in which they were asked what their personalities
were like “at work”; additionally they completed the standard global NEO-FFI. Participants’
self-ratings of Extraversion and Openness on the at-work measure predicted job performance,
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 6
while the global FFM measure did not. In another study (Schmit, Ryan, Stierwalt, & Powell,
1995), college students’ self-ratings of Conscientiousness “at school” predicted students’ GPAs
better than global measures of Conscientiousness. Similarly, knowing what people’s
personalities are like in the context of their romantic relationship should predict relationship
quality better than global measures of personality. For example, knowing how agreeable a person
is with his or her romantic partner should provide unique predictive power about the quality of
that person’s relationship above and beyond how agreeable that person is in general.
In describing how people are in general and how they are in the context of their romantic
relationships, we borrow the terms being and acting from Fleeson’s density distribution model of
personality (Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson, Malanos, & Achille, 2002). Individual differences in
personality are typically thought of as global traits, such as Agreeableness. This generalized
Agreeableness may be conceptualized as being agreeable. Fleeson’s model suggests that there
are also variations within persons across situations in levels of individual traits. In this model, the
extent to which a person’s personality trait is manifested in a particular relationship may be
conceptualized as acting (e.g., acting agreeable). For example, Amy’s boyfriend David may be
disagreeable at the global level—across time, situations and relationships. Although this is a
good predictor of relationship satisfaction (Watson et al., 2000), we would predict that David’s
level of Agreeableness in his romantic relationship (i.e., how agreeable he acts with Amy) is an
even better predictor of relationship satisfaction.
Naturally, contextualized personality tendencies are not completely independent from
global dispositions. Global dispositions are likely to exert an influence on how personality is
expressed in any given context. As illustrated in Figure 1, we view personality as a hierarchically
organized system with global dispositions at the top influencing contextualized personality
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 7
tendencies below. In our example, David’s Agreeableness when he is with Amy (moderate) is
probably influenced in part by his overall level of Agreeableness (low) as well as contextualized
factors (e.g., Amy’s kindness toward him). If this hierarchical organization of personality is true,
we would expect contextualized personality to mediate the relationship between global
personality and contextualized outcomes (shown at the bottom of Figure 1). This article will
examine the dynamic relationship between global and contextualized levels of personality and
relationship satisfaction.
Aims of our Research
The primary aim of this article is to examine the role of global and contextualized
personality in the association between the FFM personality traits and romantic relationship
satisfaction. We explore the extent to which relationship satisfaction is associated with
personality traits in the specific context of a romantic relationship (acting) in comparison with
global, decontextualized traits (being). We also investigate whether acting may mediate the
association between being and relationship satisfaction, as suggested by a hierarchical
organization of personality traits from global to context-specific.
As we have described, previous research has focused almost exclusively on the role of
global personality traits in romantic relationships. Thus, the major contribution of our work is to
examine whether contextualized personality predicts relationship outcomes better than does
global personality. However, our research also extends previous research in other important
aspects. Research on the role of personality in romantic relationships has traditionally relied on
self reports from small samples of dating college students. We improve on this design in
numerous ways. First, we examine a large, diverse sample drawn from a non-college-student
population (Study 1). Second, we include measures of personality and satisfaction from both
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 8
partners in each couple (Study 2). Finally, we conduct a controlled study that allows us to obtain
an objective, naturalistic measure of what people’s personalities are like in the specific context of
their romantic relationships (Study 2).
Question 1: How strongly is acting in relationships associated with relationship
satisfaction? A long-standing belief in psychology is that a person’s attitudes and behaviors are a
function of both pre-existing attributes and situational context. This process, first described by
Lewin (1936) in his characterization of behavior as being a function of the person and the
environment, and later articulated by contemporary theorists such as Mischel and Shoda (1995),
indicates that personality measures that take into account the context of a person’s behavior
(acting) will yield stronger associations with outcome measures than will global measures of
personality (being). We thus expected that the established association of personality with self and
partner relationship satisfaction (Donnellan et al. 2004; Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Watson et al.,
2000) would be strengthened by taking into account relationship-specific personality traits
(acting).
It is possible that contextualized measures will have greater predictive validity than
global measures simply because they are narrower measures of personality, and not because they
provide any unique insight into the domain of the relationship. To rule out this possibility, we
will examine whether romantic relationship-context measures (acting in romantic relationships)
predict romantic relationship satisfaction better than do other contextualized measures (e.g.,
acting at work, acting with friends, etc.). If acting in romantic relationships uniquely predicts
romantic relationship satisfaction, this would suggest that this contextualized measure of
personality is tapping into how people behave with their relationship partners, and that this
behavior affects the quality of the relationship.
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 9
Previous research has found that, among the FFM personality traits (McCrae & Costa,
1999), Agreeableness and Neuroticism are particularly strong predictors of relationship
satisfaction (Botwin et al., 1997; Donnellan et al., 2004; McCrae, Stone, Fagan, & Costa, 1998;
Watson et al., 2000). Based on these findings, we predicted that acting agreeable would be
positively associated with self and partner satisfaction and that acting neurotic would be
negatively associated with self and partner satisfaction. We further predicted that acting would
be more strongly associated with relationship satisfaction than being for these traits. Due to the
lack of conclusive findings in previous research, no specific predictions were made for the other
FFM traits.
Question 2: Does acting mediate the relationship between being and relationship
satisfaction? One of the advantages of our approach is that it allows for the examination of
potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between personality traits and relationship
satisfaction. Specifically, we propose that global personality traits will affect relationship
satisfaction to the extent that these global traits are manifested in relationship-specific traits. As
with other contextual models (e.g., Bradbury and Fincham, 1988), ours incorporates both
proximal and distal factors into a common framework. In our model, acting (proximal factor) is a
mechanism through which being (distal factor) influences relationship satisfaction. We thus
predicted that acting would mediate the relationship between being and relationship satisfaction,
specifically for Agreeableness and Neuroticism.
Design of the Studies
We examined these two research questions using a multi-method approach in two studies.
The purpose of Study 1 was to test our research questions in a large sample of American adults
in committed dating relationships. Participants from all over the U.S. were directed to a website
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 10
where they completed a traditional FFM measure of personality (being), a modified measure of
the FFM (acting) in which participants indicated how they act in the context of their romantic
relationships, and a measure of satisfaction in their romantic relationships. We also asked
participants to report how they act in various other contexts (with coworkers, friends, and family)
to rule out the possibility that simply any contextualized measure would predict romantic
relationship satisfaction better than a global measure.
The purpose of Study 2 was to provide a more direct test of our research questions in a
controlled setting. Drawing on a sample of undergraduate dating couples, we obtained self
ratings of being using a global FFM measure, and both self and partner ratings of relationship
satisfaction, allowing us to examine the effects of personality on both one’s own and one’s
partner’s level of satisfaction. We then obtained objective measures of acting by directly
observing how people act with their relationship partners. To do this, we recruited couples who
use Instant Messaging (IM) as a daily form of communication. With their consent, we recorded
all of their IM conversations over seven days. An important aspect of IM is that it allows
researchers to subtly and unobtrusively study close relationships in their natural settings. This
new technology complements existing naturalistic methods such as daily diaries (Bolger, Davis,
& Rafaeli, 2003; Drigotas, Whitney, & Rusbult, 1995; Reis, 1994) in which couples’ interaction
patterns may be studied on a day-to-day basis. IM conversations can serve as windows into realworld dyadic interactions and allow researchers to examine links between behavioral
manifestations of personality and relationship functioning.
What is the best way to obtain an objective measure of acting in the context of a romantic
relationship? One way is to expose independent observers to couple members’ behaviors
exclusively in the context of their relationship, and ask them to rate how the couple members act
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 11
towards one another. We did this by showing the IM conversations to a team of trained observers
who completed an acting measure of the FFM for each couple member. This technique allowed
us to extract objective information about how people act towards their romantic partners,
independent of their global self-views.
Study 1: Online Questionnaire Study
Method
Participants
Using the online classified webpage Craig’s List, 708 participants (522 females, 186
males) were recruited from 10 major U. S. cities to take part in the study. Participants were
recruited on the condition that they were at least 18 years old and were currently involved in a
committed heterosexual dating relationship of at least 3 months in duration. Relationship lengths
ranged from 3 months to 15 years (M = 1.93 years; SD = 1.77 years). Participants were drawn
from a diverse non-university sample (4.7% African American; 9.7% Asian; 72.2% Caucasian;
6.2% Latino; 7.2% other) and ranged in age from 18 to 60 (M = 27.06; SD = 6.56). They were
unpaid but were given basic computer-generated feedback about their personality. The feedback
told them whether they scored below average, about average, or above average on the five
dimensions of the FFM compared to others who had previously completed the same measure.
Measures
Personality. The Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann,
2003) was used in this study. The standard version of the TIPI constituted our being measure of
personality. The TIPI contains two items for each of the FFM dimensions, with each item rated
on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly). The TIPI
shows high convergent validity with other widely used FFM scales in self and observer reports.
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 12
The scale was constructed to emphasize content validity considerations, such that internal
consistency estimates (alphas) are inappropriate; however, the scale has demonstrated very good
test-retest reliability (mean r = .72 across traits; Gosling et al., 2003).
We also measured contextualized personality (acting) in five different contexts: around
romantic partners, coworkers, friends, parents, and siblings. For the five acting measures, the
TIPI was altered to reflect the different relationship contexts in which participants’ acting would
be assessed. At the top of each of the respective acting measures, participants were instructed to
indicate how they typically act around particular people (e.g., coworkers, romantic partners). For
example, the top of the romantic partner acting measure read, “How You Act Around Your
Romantic Partner.” The instructions for each of the acting measures were modified from the
standard TIPI instructions. The original TIPI instructions (which were used in our being
measure) read, “Below are a number of personality traits that may or may not apply to you. You
should rate the extent to which the pair of traits applies to you, even if one characteristic applies
more strongly than the other,” whereas the instructions for the acting measure in the romantic
relations condition read, “Here are a number of descriptions that may or may not apply to you
with regard to how you act around your romantic partner. Please indicate the extent to which you
agree or disagree with each description below. You should rate the extent to which each pair of
words applies to you, even if one characteristic applies more strongly than the other.” The
content of the actual items themselves remained exactly the same across the being and acting
measures.
Relationship satisfaction. Self reports of romantic relationship satisfaction were measured
using the Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS; Hendrick, 1988). The RAS is a validated
measure of relationship satisfaction that correlates strongly with measures of love, commitment,
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 13
investment and dyadic adjustment. The RAS consists of 7 items on a 7-point Likert-type scale
such as, “In general, how satisfied are you with your relationship?” The alpha reliability for the
current sample was .89, which is typical of reliability estimates reported for this measure.
Procedure
Participants were directed from advertisements posted on Craig’s List to a passwordprotected website at the University of Texas at Austin. Previous research has demonstrated that
web-based questionnaires provide valid, reliable data, and are not adversely affected by nonserious responders (Gosling, Vazire, Srivastava, & John, 2004). After completing an online
consent form, participants provided demographic information and basic information about their
romantic relationship. They then completed the being TIPI measure and the five acting TIPI
measures assessing how they typically act around their romantic partners, coworkers, friends,
parents, and siblings. The order of presentation of the being and acting measures was
counterbalanced to prevent any potential order effects between being and acting and also within
acting. In some cases, participants were unable to complete a particular measure. For example,
participants without siblings could not complete the siblings acting measure. In such cases,
participants were instructed to go on to the next questionnaire. After completing the being and
acting measures, participants completed the RAS with respect to their romantic relationship and
then were given computer-generated feedback about their personality.
Results and Discussion
Question 1: How strongly is acting in relationships associated with relationship satisfaction?
We predicted that the association between personality factors and romantic relationship
satisfaction would be strengthened by taking into account the context of the relationship. As
shown in Table 1, being was correlated with romantic relationship satisfaction for
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 14
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. Across traits, the
absolute averages of the simple correlations with relationship satisfaction for being, acting
around partners, acting around coworkers, acting around friends, acting around parents, and
acting around siblings were .14, .35, .05, .04, .10, and .08, respectively. Acting around partners
was—for every trait—the strongest predictor of romantic relationship satisfaction in comparison
with being and acting in other contexts1.
We next sought to determine the uniqueness of the effects of each being and partnercontext acting trait on romantic relationship satisfaction as well as the overall predictive power
of being vs. acting on satisfaction. To test this, we first entered all five being traits together into a
stepwise multiple regression analysis, with relationship satisfaction as the dependent variable.
Only Neuroticism and Conscientiousness significantly predicted satisfaction, with standardized
beta weights of -.16 and .14, respectively. Together, these two being traits accounted for 6% of
the variance in satisfaction. As a comparison, we entered the five partner-context acting traits
together into a stepwise multiple regression analysis. All five traits independently predicted
satisfaction, with beta weights of .24, .21, -.19, .13 and .08, respectively, for Agreeableness,
Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness, and Conscientiousness (all p’s < .05). Overall, partnercontext acting explained more than 31% of the variance in relationship satisfaction. Further,
acting in other relationship contexts was not a significant predictor of romantic relationship
satisfaction when controlling for partner-context acting.
Question 2: Does acting mediate the relationship between being and relationship satisfaction?
We next tested the possibility that the effects of being on relationship satisfaction were
mediated by acting. A variable is considered a mediator to the extent that it carries the influence
of a given independent variable to a given dependent variable. Based on the guidelines of Barron
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 15
and Kenny (1986), mediation is inferred when: (1) the IV (being) significantly affects the
mediator (acting); (2) the IV (being) significantly affects the DV (relationship satisfaction) in the
absence of the mediator; (3) the mediator (acting) has a significant unique effect on the DV
(relationship satisfaction); and (4) the effect of the IV (being) on the DV (relationship
satisfaction) shrinks or is reduced to zero upon the addition of the mediator (acting) to the model.
If these four steps are met, a formal test of mediation can be conducted using a Sobel z-test
(MacKinnon, Warsi, & Dwyer, 1995; Preacher & Leonardelli, 2001; Sobel, 1982).
Our mediation analyses were limited to the four traits for which both being and acting
were significantly correlated with relationship satisfaction: Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
Neuroticism, and Openness. Results of these analyses are presented below.
Agreeableness. As shown in Panel A of Figure 2, acting agreeable fully mediated the
effect of being agreeable on relationship satisfaction (z = 9.77, p < .001); being agreeable
predicted relationship satisfaction only to the extent that it was related to acting agreeable in the
context of one’s relationship.
Conscientiousness. As shown in Panel B of Figure 2, acting conscientious fully mediated
the effect of being conscientious on relationship satisfaction (z = 5.20, p < .001); being
conscientious predicted relationship satisfaction only to the extent that it was related to acting
conscientious in the context of one’s relationship.
Neuroticism. As illustrated in Panel C of Figure 2, acting neurotic fully mediated the
effect of being neurotic on relationship satisfaction (z = 9.37, p < .001); being neurotic predicted
relationship satisfaction only to the extent that it was related to acting neurotic in the context of
one’s relationship.
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 16
Openness. As shown in Panel D of Figure 2, acting open fully mediated the effect of
being open on relationship satisfaction (z = 7.71, p < .001); being open predicted relationship
satisfaction only to the extent that it was related to acting open in the context of one’s
relationship.
Summary of Study 1 Findings
In Study 1, we set out to answer two central questions. Question 1 asked how strongly
acting in relationships is associated with romantic relationship satisfaction. We found that
relationship-specific personality (acting) was strongly associated with relationship satisfaction
across the FFM traits for romantic relationships, while acting in the domains of other
relationships was not associated with romantic relationship satisfaction when controlling for
acting in romantic relationships. Further, all five relationship-specific personality traits uniquely
predicted satisfaction when controlling for the effects of the other acting traits, accounting for
over 30% of the variance in relationship satisfaction. Question 2 asked whether acting mediates
the relationship between being and relationship satisfaction. We found that acting fully mediated
the relationship between being and satisfaction for Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
Neuroticism, and Openness. In other words, global personality traits predicted relationship
satisfaction only to the extent that they were manifested specifically in the context of one’s
relationship.
Study 2: Acting in Couples’ Everyday Interactions
The results of Study 1 were promising but were limited to self-report measures. Although
self-reported acting was strongly associated with relationship satisfaction across traits, one could
argue that our measure of acting was biased by people’s self perceptions and reflected not how
people act around their partners but rather how they think they act. Would we get the same
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 17
effects if we measured actual behavior in the context of relationships? Additionally, Study 1
focused solely on how acting and being were related to participants’ own levels of relationship
satisfaction; partners’ satisfaction levels were not considered. To what extent might acting and
being be related to partners’ satisfaction?
Thus, in Study 2 our goals were: 1) to take a more naturalistic approach and directly
examine how people actually act in their everyday interactions with their romantic partners; and
2) to explore how being and acting might be related to partners’ satisfaction levels.
Method
Study 2 involved two phases of data collection. In the first phase, both members of dating
couples completed self-report measures of personality and relationship satisfaction and submitted
7 days of IMs. In the second phase, we obtained objective ratings of personality in the context of
participants’ relationships (acting) from observers’ ratings of the couples’ IMs.
Participants
Undergraduate couples at the University of Texas at Austin were recruited through an
online computer sign-up system on the basis that they: 1) were in a committed heterosexual
romantic relationship, and 2) IMed with each other every day. Sixty-eight couples (136
participants: 68 women, 68 men; mean age 19.04, SD = 1.39) participated in the study in
exchange for course credit. Couples had been dating an average of 1.44 years (SD = 1.25).
Measures
Personality. Our being measure of personality was again a self report on the standard
version of the TIPI (Gosling et al., 2003). As mentioned previously, the TIPI was constructed to
emphasize content validity considerations, such that internal consistency estimates (alphas) are
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 18
inappropriate; however, the scale has demonstrated very good test-retest reliability (mean r = .72
across traits; Gosling et al., 2003).
Because Study 1 found only weak associations between acting and relationship
satisfaction in non-romantic relationship contexts, we included only a measure of romantic
relationship-context acting in Study 2. To create an objective measure of acting in Study 2, 12
independent observers used the TIPI to rate participants’ personalities based on examination of
participants’ IMs with their romantic partners.
Relationship satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction was measured using the RAS
(Hendrick, 1988). In the present sample, the alpha reliability was .79.
Procedure
Phase I. During an introductory session with the experimenter, couples were instructed
to forward IMs to a secure email address during two monitoring periods—three days of IMs
during the 1st monitoring period and 4 days during the 2nd. The monitoring periods were
separated by three days in between2. Considerable effort was taken by the experimenter during
the introductory session to ensure that participants and their partners felt at ease about
forwarding their IMs and to encourage them to contact the experimenter if they had any
concerns. Upon receipt by the experimenter, all IMs were saved as text files in a secure location
accessible only to the experimenter and all personally identifiable information was removed. The
mean length of couples’ IM conversations over the seven days was 4,813 words (SD = 4,854;
Mdn = 3,355; Min = 272; Max = 23,221).
Online self-report questionnaires were completed by couples after the introductory
session with the experimenter on day 1 of the study. Participants completed the being measure of
personality (TIPI) and the measure of relationship satisfaction. The importance of completing
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 19
these questionnaires privately and confidentially was emphasized by the experimenter during the
introductory session.
Phase II. Twelve independent observers rated the participants’ acting based on
examination of participants’ IMs with their romantic partners. The observers were undergraduate
students working on the project as research assistants. They were unacquainted with the
participants and were instructed not to discuss their ratings with one another or with others
outside of the project. The order in which the observers rated the IMs was randomly generated
for each observer. Observers completed TIPI ratings of each couple member after reading the
complete transcripts of IMs for each couple. Alpha reliabilities for the composites of the ratings
were .85, .70, .90, .93, and .91 for Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism,
and Openness to Experience, respectively.
Results and Discussion
Question 1: How strongly is acting in relationships associated with relationship satisfaction?
We predicted that observers’ ratings of acting would be strongly associated with self and
partner ratings of relationship satisfaction. Separate correlational analyses were conducted to
assess: 1) the association between being and self reports of satisfaction; 2) the association
between acting and self reports of satisfaction; 3) the association between being and partner
reports of satisfaction; and 4) the association between acting and partner reports of satisfaction.
The results of these analyses are presented in Table 2.
Correlations with self-reported satisfaction. Consistent with the findings in the literature
(Botwin et al., 1997; McCrae et al., 1998), being agreeable was positively correlated with
satisfaction and being neurotic was negatively correlated with satisfaction. In addition, acting
agreeable was positively correlated with satisfaction and acting neurotic was negatively
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 20
correlated with satisfaction. Separate multiple regression analyses indicated that being agreeable
and being neurotic together accounted for 15% of the variance in self-reported satisfaction,
whereas acting agreeable and acting neurotic together accounted for 19% of the variance.
Correlations with partner-reported satisfaction. We next tested how strongly being and
acting were associated with partners’ relationship satisfaction. Being was correlated with
partners’ relationship satisfaction only for Agreeableness. Acting agreeable, acting
conscientious, and acting neurotic all were associated with partners’ satisfaction. Being
accounted for 3% of the variance in partners’ relationship satisfaction, whereas acting accounted
for 9%.
Question 2: Does acting mediate the relationship between being and relationship satisfaction?
As with Study 1, we followed the guidelines of Barron and Kenny (1986) for assessing
mediation effects. Sobel z-tests were used as formal tests of mediation (MacKinnon, Warsi, &
Dwyer, 1995; Preacher & Leonardelli, 2001; Sobel, 1982). Our analyses were limited only to the
traits for which both being and acting were associated with satisfaction: Agreeableness and
Neuroticism for self-reported satisfaction and Agreeableness for partner-reported satisfaction.
Agreeableness and self-reported satisfaction. As shown in Panel A of Figure 3, acting
agreeable partially mediated the association between being agreeable and self-reported
relationship satisfaction (z = 3.16, p < .002). These results suggest that part of the explanation for
the relationship between being agreeable and relationship satisfaction is that agreeable people
tend to act more agreeable in their relationships, which is in turn likely to result in greater
relationship satisfaction.
Neuroticism and self-reported satisfaction. As illustrated in Panel B of Figure 3, there
was a trend of acting neurotic partially mediating the effect of being neurotic on self-reported
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 21
satisfaction (z = 1.77, p < .08). These results are consistent with the idea that part of the
explanation for the relationship between being neurotic and relationship satisfaction is that
neurotic people tend to act more neurotic in their relationships, which in turn is likely to result in
lower relationship satisfaction.
Agreeableness and partner-reported satisfaction. Finally, we tested whether the effect of
being agreeable on partners’ satisfaction was mediated by acting agreeable. As shown in Panel C
of Figure 3, acting agreeable fully mediated the effect of being agreeable on partner’s levels of
relationship satisfaction (z = 2.68, p < .007). These results suggest that being agreeable predicts
partners’ relationship satisfaction only to the extent that it is related to acting agreeable in the
specific context of one’s relationship.
Summary of Study 2 Findings
In Study 2, we set out to determine whether the effects of acting and being on
relationship satisfaction found in Study 1 would replicate in a more naturalistic setting (couples’
daily IMs), and whether the effects of acting and being would extend to partners’ relationship
satisfaction. We found that acting was strongly associated with self reports of satisfaction for
Agreeableness and Neuroticism and with partner reports of satisfaction for Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism. Acting partially mediated the relationship between being
and self reports of satisfaction for Agreeableness and there was a trend of mediation of being
neurotic and self-reported satisfaction by acting neurotic. The association between being
agreeable and partners’ satisfaction was fully mediated by acting agreeable.
General Discussion
We have presented a contextualized approach to examining the effects of personality on
relationship satisfaction. The purpose of this research was to clarify the links between (a) global
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 22
measures of personality traits, which we defined as being, (b) relationship-specific expressions of
personality traits, which we defined as acting, and (c) relationship satisfaction. We hypothesized
that how people act in relationships (acting) would be more strongly associated with relationship
satisfaction than how they are in general (being) and that acting would mediate the association
between being and satisfaction. The results from the two studies presented in this article
supported these hypotheses.
Acting and Relationship Satisfaction
Acting in the context of one’s romantic relationship—as measured by self reports (Study
1) and actual behavior (Study 2)—was strongly correlated with self-reported relationship
satisfaction. Across both studies, correlations between acting and satisfaction were strongest for
Agreeableness (average r = .42) and Neuroticism (average r = -.32). Overall, acting accounted
for 31% of the variance in satisfaction in Study 1 and 19% of the variance in satisfaction in
Study 2. In contrast, the variance in self-reported satisfaction explained by being was 6% in
Study 1 and 15% in Study 2. The strength of the associations between acting and satisfaction
across traits in Study 1 was somewhat unexpected, in particular for Extraversion and Openness.
Previous studies generally have found only modest associations between global measures of
these two traits and satisfaction in dating relationships (Watson et al., 2000; White et al., 2004).
Our findings indicate that Extraversion and Openness may play a more important role in
relationship functioning than previously thought.
Importantly, only romantic relationship-specific measures of acting correlated more
strongly with romantic relationship satisfaction than did global measures of personality (being).
Other contextualized acting measures (e.g., how one acts around coworkers) did not correlate
strongly with romantic relationship satisfaction, and the small correlations that did exist
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 23
disappeared when controlling for acting in the romantic relationship context. This indicates that
the predictive validity of our acting measures was not due simply to the fact that they were
narrower than the being measures.
Acting also correlated with partner-reported relationship satisfaction. In Study 2, acting
accounted for 9% of the variance in partner reports of satisfaction, while being accounted for
3%. Similar to the patterns found in self-reported satisfaction, partner-reported satisfaction was
positively correlated with acting agreeable and acting conscientious and negatively correlated
with acting neurotic. Thus, people who act friendly, responsibly, and emotionally stable in their
relationships are likely be happy with their partners and to have partners who are happy with
them. The meaning of the lack of association between acting open and acting extraverted and
partner satisfaction is less clear. This may in part be a function of the methodology used in Study
2; it is possible that observers did not have enough information from couples’ IMs to accurately
assess how extraverted or open participants acted around their partners. Indeed, inter-observer
consensus was low for both of these traits. Future studies should address this issue using
additional observational methods.
Mechanisms Underlying the Association between Personality and Relationship Satisfaction
Recall that our approach treats acting and being as different levels of a single personality
system, with being as the more global level at the top of the hierarchy and acting as the more
specific level below. This approach predicts that being influences acting and that acting, in turn,
influences relationship satisfaction—thus mediating the association between being and
satisfaction. The results from Studies 1 and 2 are consistent with this prediction.
In Study 1, acting fully mediated the relationship between being and self-reported
satisfaction for Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. So, for example,
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 24
if a person is neurotic in general, this Neuroticism will manifest itself in her behavior with her
partner, which will lead to lower relationship satisfaction on her part. In Study 2, acting
agreeable partially mediated the effect of being agreeable on relationship satisfaction; there was
a marginally significant effect of acting neurotic mediating the effect of being neurotic on
relationship satisfaction.
In Study 2 we also were able to explore the links between being, acting and partner
satisfaction. Results suggested that the link between being agreeable and partner satisfaction is
fully mediated by acting agreeable. Thus, the relationship between being agreeable and partner
satisfaction, which has been widely documented (Donnellan et al., 2004; Watson et al., 2000;
White, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 2004), can be fully accounted for by the fact that agreeable people
behave more kindly and warmly toward their partners.
Potential Limitations
There are a number of potential limitations of the research reported here. First, because of
the correlational nature of our data, it is difficult to determine whether acting is an antecedent of
relationship outcomes or vice versa. Evidence from previous studies has been somewhat
inconclusive. For example, in an 18-month longitudinal study in which personality predicted
relationship outcomes, no evidence was found for relationships changing personalities
(Asendorpf & Wilpers, 1998). In another study (Robins, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2000), participants
completed relationship outcome measures three years after completing a measure of personality.
Personality traits were found to influence relationship functioning, and because only 15% of the
720 participants had been in their relationship with their partner at Time 1, it is very unlikely that
the causal direction went from relationship functioning to personality. Nevertheless, other studies
have found evidence for relationship effects on personality, both over time and across different
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 25
types of relationships (Neyer & Asendorpf, 2001; Robins, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2002). Longitudinal
studies that incorporate measures of acting will be needed to clarify this issue.
A second potential limitation is that our sample, particularly in Study 2, was made up of
mostly young heterosexual dating couples. It is possible that our results do not generalize to all
types of romantic relationships. Indeed, cross-sectional studies have found that associations
between personality traits and relationship quality may differ across different types of samples,
in particular with dating couples compared to married couples (Watson et. al, 2000). The links
between acting, being, and relationship processes may change developmentally as a person ages
and may be a function of the type of relationship in which a person is involved.
Third, our measures of acting may not have encompassed the full range of acting in
relationships, in particular our behavioral measures of acting in Study 2. It may be difficult, for
example, to judge from an IM how extraverted a person acts in his relationship. While a person
may come across as extraverted in his IMs—for example by writing a lot—he may be quite shy
and inhibited in face-to-face conversations. Additionally, the IMs collected in our study captured
only how couples acted with each other when they were in isolation of others. It is likely that the
way people act around their partners when others are present (e.g., friends, family) may differ
from the way people act with their partners when others are not present.
Future Directions
The research presented in this article lays a foundation for examining the links between
being, acting, and relationship functioning. While our findings illustrate the importance of taking
into account context in studies of personality and relationships, they are but a first step.
Researchers can now directly examine the specific mechanisms and processes that account for
these phenomena. By using multiple methods, longitudinal designs and examining different
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 26
types of relationships, future studies may be able to shed more light on the role of contextspecificity in personality and relationship research.
These findings also have important implications for the methods used in personality
research. Our results suggest that researchers interested in the role of personality in specific
domains of life (e.g., relationships, work, school) should include both global and contextualized
measures of personality and compare their predictive validity. Not only do contextualized
measures hold great promise for predicting contextualized outcomes, but the dynamics between
global and specific levels of personality can illuminate the mechanisms underlying the influence
of personality on life outcomes.
Personality and Relationships Revisited
Returning to our example of Amy and David, we now know that David may indeed be
more agreeable when he is with Amy than he is in general. Furthermore, both David and Amy’s
satisfaction in their relationship will be better predicted by how David acts in the relationship
than by how David is in general. Of course, David’s global personality probably still plays an
important role in his and Amy’s relationship satisfaction, but much of this effect can be
explained by overt manifestations of David’s personality in his behavior towards Amy.
Some might argue that the contextualized approach we have taken is counter to decades
of personality research examining the effects of people’s stable underlying predispositions.
However, our conceptualization of global and contextualized personality traits as part of a single
hierarchy is consistent with both traditional trait approaches and recent dynamic systems models.
Only by first describing and understanding how a person is in general can one then describe how
a person is in different situations and across different relationships. Furthermore, global
dispositions have a strong influence on contextualized traits and behaviors. The domain of
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 27
romantic relationships is an excellent example of how global and contextualized personality
traits interact to influence real-world outcomes.
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 28
Footnotes
1
Analyses were also conducted separately for men and women. No significant gender
differences were found. Thus, all analyses are collapsed across gender.
2
For the purposes of another study, one member from each couple wrote about either
their relationship or a neutral control topic during the days between monitoring sessions in order
to identify subtle social mediators of the effects of emotional writing. Experimental condition
was unrelated to any of the results presented here. Results with respect to the writing
assignments will be published elsewhere.
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 29
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Author Note
We would like to thank Samuel Gosling, Katie Larsen McClarty, Pranjal Mehta, and
James Pennebaker for their comments on an earlier draft of this article and to Crystal Bailey,
Jessica Blackshear, Tom Goheen, Brittany Graves, Tiffany Graves, Melissa Morris, Marianna
Ravitsky, Roxy Rodriguez, Amy Tao, Jenny Wang, and Jason Yeh for their assistance with data
collection.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Richard B. Slatcher,
Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712, email:
slatcher@mail.utexas.edu.
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 36
Table 1
Correlations between Romantic Relationship Satisfaction
and FFM Dimensions for Being and Acting in Different Relationship Contexts - Study 1
Five-Factor Model Dimension
Context
Extra.
Being
Acting – around partner
Acting – around coworkers
Acting – around friends
Acting – around parents
Acting – around siblings
.05
.34***
-.02
.02
.13***
.05
Agree.
Cons.
.14***
.42***
.03
.01
.03
.07
.19***
.27***
.13***
.08*
.15***
.14***
Neur.
Open.
-.21***
-.40***
-.08*
-.08*
-.15***
-.10**
|Mean|
.09*
.31***
.01
.00
.03
.03
.14***
.35***
.05
.04
.10**
.08*
Note. Overall N = 703. Exra. = Extraversion; Agree. = Agreeableness;
Cons. = Conscientiousness; Neur. = Neuroticism; Open = Openness.
* p < .05, two-tailed ** p < .01 *** p < .001, two-tailed
Table 2
Correlations between Self and Partner Romantic Relationship Satisfaction
and FFM Dimensions for Being and Partner-Context Acting – Study 2
Five-Factor Model Dimension
Context
Extra.
Agree.
Cons.
Neur.
Open.
|Mean|
Self-Reported Satisfaction
Being
Acting – around partner
.13
.07
.35***
.41***
.15
.14
-.30***
-.24**
.10
.07
.21
.19
Partner-Reported Satisfaction
Being
Acting – around partner
.06
.06
.18*
.31***
.07
.26**
-.15
-.21**
.09
.02
.11
.17
Note. Overall N = 703. Exra. = Extraversion; Agree. = Agreeableness;
Cons. = Conscientiousness; Neur. = Neuroticism; Open = Openness.
* p < .05, two-tailed ** p < .01 *** p < .001, two-tailed
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 37
Figure Captions
Figure 1. Hierarchical model of being (global personality traits) and acting (contextualized
personality traits) and their influence on life outcomes.
Figure 2. Mediation analyses – Study 1. Panel A: Mediation of being agreeable and relationship
satisfaction by acting agreeable. Panel B: Mediation of being conscientious and relationship
satisfaction by acting conscientious. Panel C: Mediation of being neurotic and relationship
satisfaction by acting neurotic. Panel D: Mediation of being open and relationship satisfaction by
acting open. Values are standardized beta weights from three separate regression analyses.
* p < .05, two-tailed ** p < .01, two-tailed *** p < .001, two-tailed
Figure 3. Mediation analyses – Study 2. Panel A: Mediation of being agreeable and relationship
satisfaction by acting agreeable. Panel B: Mediation of being neurotic and relationship
satisfaction by acting neurotic. Panel C: Mediation of being agreeable and partner’s relationship
satisfaction by acting agreeable. Values are standardized beta weights from three separate
regression analyses. * p < .05, two-tailed ** p < .01, two-tailed *** p < .001, two-tailed
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 38
BEING
Global Trait
(e.g., Agreeableness)
ACTING
Romantic relationship
Contextualized
Personality
(e.g., warm towards
partner)
Outcome
(e.g., relationship
satisfaction)
Figure 1.
At work
Contextualized
Personality
(e.g., argumentative
with co-workers)
At school
Contextualized
Personality
(e.g., cooperate with
classmates)
Outcome
(e.g., does not get
promoted)
Outcome
(e.g., gets good
grades)
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 39
A
.58***
Being
Agreeable
B
Acting
Agreeable
.14*** (-.12**)
.49***
Relationship
Satisfaction
.66***
Being
Conscientious
C
Being
Neurotic
Relationship
Satisfaction
D
Acting
Neurotic
-.21*** (.08)
z = 9.37, p <.001
Figure 2.
.19*** (.04)
.25***
z = 5.20, p < .001
z = 9.77, p < .001
.64***
Acting
Conscientious
-.46***
Relationship
Satisfaction
.54***
Being
Open
Acting
Open
.09* (-.11**)
z = 7.71, p < .001
.37***
Relationship
Satisfaction
Contextualized Personality and Relationships 40
A
.39***
Being
Agreeable
B
Acting
Agreeable
.35*** (.23**)
.25**
.32***
Being
Neurotic
Relationship
Satisfaction
-.30*** (-.25**)
z = 1.77, p <.08
z = 3.16, p < .002
C
.39***
Being
Agreeable
Acting
Agreeable
.18* (.07)
z = 2.68, p < .007
Figure 3.
Acting
Neurotic
.28***
Partner’s
Relationship
Satisfaction
-.18*
Relationship
Satisfaction