PERSONALITY AND QUALITY OF MARRIAGE

The influence of personality on quality of marriage was examined using causal modelling on a sample of 94 couples who had completed a qualit y of marriage scale and the revised short form of the Eysenck Personal ity Questionnaire. Irrespective of gender, quality of marriage was fou nd to be influenced negatively by spouse's neuroticism, but the strong est influence on the quality of marriage of each spouse was the qualit y of marriage of the other. Altogether, the model accounted for over 6 0 per cent of the variance in quality of marriage, and provided an ext remely close fit to the data. Finally, it was argued that valid conclu sions about marital quality can only be derived from couples rather th an from married individuals.