Predicting relationship quality from self-verification of broad personality traits among romantic couples

Self-verification – how much two individuals agree about one of the individual’s attributes – has been found to be related to higher romantic relationship quality, primarily among married couples (Swann, De La Ronde, & Hixon, 1994). The current research replicates and extends this finding in dating, cohabiting, and married couples within the domain of Big Five personality traits. The prediction of relationship quality from self-verification was analyzed using the actor–partner interdependence model (Campbell & Kashy, 2002). Self-verification – as assessed with overall profile correlations, distinctive profile correlations, and difference scores – predicted higher relationship quality. Self-verification most consistently predicted quality among married couples, supporting the theory that self-verification may be more important for quality among married couples than among other types of couples.