This study examined trajectories of relationship satisfaction for couples (n = 99) who had recently experienced the birth of an infant, and further examined the roles of parent gender, personality, depression, and first-time parent status in initial levels of relationship satisfaction and change over time. Expectant parents reported their personalities during the third trimester of pregnancy, and relationship satisfaction and depression during the third trimester and at 3.5 and 13 months postpartum. Hierarchical Linear Modeling analyses indicated that individuals who were initially more satisfied in their relationships were those whose partners were low in negative emotionality. In addition, first-time fathers had higher initial relationship satisfaction than non-first-time fathers, but experienced fathers had higher initial relationship satisfaction when their partners had greater agency. Declines in relationship satisfaction were more pronounced for mothers and those with higher levels of depressive symptoms across the transition.
BeckA. T.WardC. H.MendelsonM.MockJ.ErbaughJ. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4, 561–571.
2.
BelskyJ.HsiehK. (1998). Patterns of marital change during the early childhood years: Parent personality, coparenting, and division-of-labor correlates. Journal of Family Psychology, 12, 511–528.
3.
BelskyJ.RovineM. (1990). Patterns of marital change across the transition to parenthood: Pregnancy to three years postpartum. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 5–19.
4.
BouchardG.PoirierL. (2011) Neuroticism and well-being among employed new parents: The role of the work-family conflict. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 657–661.
5.
CaughlinJ.HustonT.HoutsR. (2000). How does personality matter in marriage? An examination of trait anxiety, interpersonal negativity, and marital satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 326–336.
6.
ChurchA. (1994). Relating the Tellegen and five-factor models of personality structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 898–909.
7.
CooperM.SheldonM. (2002). Seventy years of research on personality and close relationships: Substantive and methodological trends over time. Journal of Personality, 70, 783–812.
8.
CostaP.McCraeR. (1997). Longitudinal stability of adult personality. In HoganR.JohnsonJ.BriggsS. (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology (pp. 269–290). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
9.
CowanC.CowanP.HemingG.GarrettE.CoyshW.Curtis-BolesH.BolesA. III, (1985). Transition to parenthood: His, hers, and theirs. Journal of Family Issues, 6, 451–481.
10.
CoxM. J.PaleyB.BurchinalM.PayneC. C. (1999). Marital perceptions and interactions across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Marriage and Family, 61, 611–625.
11.
CraigL. (2006). Does father care mean fathers share? A comparison of how mothers and fathers in intact families spend time with children. Gender & Society, 20, 259–281.
12.
CraneD. R.AllgoodS. M.LarsonJ. H.GriffinW. (1990). Assessing marital quality with distressed and nondistressed couples: A comparison and equivalency table for three frequently used measures. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 87–93.
13.
CutronaC. E.TroutmanB. R. (1986). Social support, infant temperament, and parenting self-efficacy: A mediational model of postpartum depression. Child Development, 57, 1507–1518.
14.
DewJ.WilcoxW. B. (2011). If momma ain’t happy: Explaining declines in marital satisfaction among new mothers. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73, 1–12.
15.
DiLallaD.GottesmanI.CareyG. (1993). Joint factor structure of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire and the MMPI in a psychiatric and high-risk sample. Psychological Assessment, 5, 207–215.
16.
DonnellanM.AssadK.RobinsR.CongerR. (2007). Do negative interactions mediate the effects of negative emotionality, communal positive emotionality, and constraint on relationship satisfaction?Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 24, 557–573.
17.
DonnellanM.CongerR.BryantC. (2004). The Big Five and enduring marriages. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 481–504.
18.
DossB.RhoadesG.StanleyS.MarkmanH. (2009). The effect of the transition to parenthood on relationship quality: An eight-year prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 601–619.
19.
FeeneyJ.AlexanderR.NollerP.HohausL. (2003). Attachment insecurity, depression, and the transition to parenthood. Personal Relationships, 10, 475–493.
20.
GjerdingenD.ChalonerK. (1994). Mothers’ experience with household roles and social support during the first postpartum year. Women & Health, 21, 57–74.
21.
GoldsteinL. H.DienerM. L.MangelsdorfS. C. (1996). Maternal characteristics and social support across the transition to motherhood: Associations with maternal behavior. Journal of Family Psychology, 10, 60–71.
22.
GroteN. K.ClarkM. S. (2001). Perceiving unfairness in the family: Cause or consequence of marital distress?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 281–293.
23.
HelsonR.JonesC.KwanV. (2002). Personality change over 40 years of adulthood: Hierarchical linear modeling analyses of two longitudinal samples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 752–766.
24.
HumbadM.DonnellanM.IaconoW.BurtS. (2010). Externalizing psychopathology and marital adjustment in long-term marriages: Results from a large combined sample of married couples. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 119, 151–162.
25.
JesseeA.MangelsdorfS. C.BrownG. L.Schoppe-SullivanS. J.ShigetoA.WongM. S. (2010). Parents’ differential susceptibility to the effects of marital quality on sensitivity across the first year. Infant Behavior and Development, 33, 442–452.
26.
JokelaM.KivimË«iM.ElovainioM.Keltikangas-J˲vinenL. (2009). Personality and having children: A two-way relationship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 218–230.
27.
KarneyB. R.BradburyT. N. (1995). The longitudinal course of marital quality and stability: A review of theory, method, and research. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 3–34.
28.
KarneyB. R.BradburyT. N. (1997). Neuroticism, marital interaction, and the trajectory of marital satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1075–1092.
29.
KashyD. A.KennyD. A. (1999). The analysis of data from dyads and groups. In ReisH. T.JuddC. M. (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social psychology (pp. 451–477). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
30.
KendlerK. S.MyersJ. (2010). The genetic and environmental relationship between major depression and the five-factor model of personality. Psychological Medicine, 40, 801–806.
31.
KruegerR.CaspiA.MoffittTSilvaPMcGeeR. (1996). Personality traits are differentially linked to mental disorders: A multitrait-multidiagnosis study of an adolescent birth cohort. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105, 299–312.
32.
LawrenceE.RothmanA. D.CobbR. J.RothmanM. T.BradburyT. N. (2008). Marital satisfaction across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 41–50.
33.
Levy-ShiffR. (1994). Individual and contextual correlates of marital change across the transition to parenthood. Developmental Psychology, 30, 591–601.
34.
PaulsonJ. F.BazemoreS. D. (2010). Prenatal and postpartum depression in fathers and its association with maternal depression. Journal of the American Medical Association, 303, 1961–1969.
35.
Perry-JenkinsM.SmithJ.GoldbergA.LoganJ. (2011). Working-class jobs and new parents’ mental health. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73, 1117–1132.
36.
RaudenbushS. W.BrennanR. T.BarnettR. C. (1995). A multivariate hierarchical model for studying psychological change within married couples. Journal of Family Psychology, 9, 161–174.
37.
RaudenbushS. W.BrykA. S. (2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
38.
RobertsB. W.MroczekD. (2008). Personality trait change in adulthood. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 31–35.
39.
RobinsR. W.CaspiA.MoffittT. E. (2000). Two personalities, one relationship: Both partners’ personality traits shape the quality of their relationship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 251–259.
40.
SpanierG. (1976). Measuring dyadic adjustment: New scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38, 15–28.
41.
StroudC.DurbinC.SaigalS.Knobloch-FeddersL. (2010). Normal and abnormal personality traits are associated with marital satisfaction for both men and women: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Model analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 466–477.
42.
TellegenA. (1982). Brief manual for the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
43.
TwengeJ.CampbellW.FosterC. (2003). Parenthood and marital satisfaction: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 574–583.
44.
WhismanM.DavilaJ.GoodmanS. (2011). Relationship adjustment, depression, and anxiety during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Journal of Family Psychology, 25, 375–383.
