Personality, Not Values, Makes the Marriage -Study

Sun Feb 13, 6:57 PM ET

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shared moral values are less important than compatible personalities as a recipe for a good marriage, according to a study released on Sunday.



Married couples often share the same attitudes about faith and other values, researchers from the University of Iowa found. But those with personalities similar to their spouses were the happiest.


"People may be attracted to those who have similar attitudes, values and beliefs and even marry them," the researchers said, and those qualities are easy to spot in a potential mate. Attitudes toward subjects such as religion or politics "are highly visible," they said.


But how married people behave was shown to have a greater effect on happiness.


"Being in a committed relationship entails regular interaction and requires extensive coordination in dealing with tasks, issues and problems of daily living," the study found.


Differences in how to deal with everyday matters can lead to "more friction and conflict," it said.


Personality-driven traits -- like being open, easy-going or organized -- are likely to play a bigger role in the marriage, the researchers found after studying 291 newly married couples.


The newlyweds were married for an average of five months when the data was culled late in 2000 and had dated for an average of 3 1/2 years.


The couples were participants in the Iowa Marital Assessment Project, a long-term study being conducted by the university with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health under the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites).


Participants were asked to evaluate their own traits and were videotaped interacting with each other.


Partners who rated their marriages as highly satisfactory were found to have more common personalities.


Similar attitudes among the couples, however, showed no clear impact on happiness, according to the study published in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (news - web sites).


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The participants were married for an average of FIVE MONTHS.

Sheesh. Show me someone who WASN'T "happy" five months into marriage!

Let's hear from these folks again in five or ten years.

Chris.

Okay, let's compare two women who are close to me in my life.

My wife and I share the same values overall. Our personalities are COMPLETE opposites. I'm outgoing, vivacious, talkative, a planner... yet can't balance a checkbook. Karen is quiet, although not as quiet as she used to be, spontaneous, and CAN plan a budget and balance a checkbook.

My friend Tammy and I share the same values overall, and as my mother has said, she and I are twins seperated at birth. Exactly the same personalities.

Tammy and I have never dated, and after almost 20 years of friendship, we both agree that not dating was a good thing, as we would have ended up killing each other..

My feeling is that, just like magnetism, opposites attract.

Karen and I worked together when we started dating. One of the older ladies that worked on the assembly line that I ran was my "work Ma". Very sweet, grandmotherly type lady. One day, soon after Karen and I had started dating, my work Ma said to me, "Can I ask you a question?" I said sure, go ahead. She said, "I know it's none of my business, but Karen doesn't seem to be 'your type'". I thought about it for a minute and replied, "You know, Ma, every girl I've ever dated was 'my type'. Where are they now?" And yes, my work Ma came to our wedding...

Cory

"When trouble is solved before it forms,who calls that clever? When there is victory without battle, who talks about bravery? - The Art Of War