Abstract
This study examines the variation in similarity between spouses in personality, as assessed by selected items of the Comrey Personality Scales (CPS), over 22 years of marriage. The sample consisted of 138 professional couples in Jerusalem. An analysis of 57 CPS items showed mild convergence for five out of the seven Comrey dimensions over the marriage span investigated and divergence for one Comrey dimension. Convergence and divergence were identified as reduction and increase, respectively, in extreme differences between spouses with length of marriage. These findings underline the necessity of considering the actual scattergrams with marriage length when dealing with assortative mating estimates, in addition to calculating correlation coefficients or comparing means over time. A detailed analysis of spouse correlations for Comrey items in the most recently married subgroup suggests possible mate selection for “self-other centeredness.” Implications for such selection are discussed.
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Guttman, R., Zohar, A. Spouse similarities in personality items: Changes over years of marriage and implications for mate selection. Behav Genet 17, 179–189 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01065996
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01065996