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The Relationship Between Dimensions of Love, Personality, and Relationship Length

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Abstract

The present study examined the associations among participant demographics, personality factors, love dimensions, and relationship length. In total, 16,030 participants completed an internet survey assessing Big Five personality factors, Sternberg’s three love dimensions (intimacy, passion, and commitment), and the length of time that they had been involved in a relationship. Results of structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that participant age was negatively associated with passion and positively associated with intimacy and commitment. In addition, the Big Five factor of Agreeableness was positively associated with all three love dimensions, whereas Conscientiousness was positively associated with intimacy and commitment. Finally, passion was negatively associated with relationship length, whereas commitment was positively correlated with relationship length. SEM results further showed that there were minor differences in these associations for women and men. Given the large sample size, our results reflect stable associations between personality factors and love dimensions. The present results may have important implications for relationship and marital counseling. Limitations of this study and further implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. In brackets are the percentages of participants in each category.

  2. It should be noted that there was no significant sex difference in relationship status (i.e., whether a person was single or in a relationship).

  3. The model was also repeated excluding those participants that scored “1” (that is, “not applicable” on relationship length. This computation did not affect the results χ 2 = (6 df, p < .01) 62.4, GFI = .99, AGFI = .99, PGFI = .13, RMSEA = .03, AIC = 140.4.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, UK

    Gorkan Ahmetoglu & Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, London, UK

    Viren Swami

Authors
  1. Gorkan Ahmetoglu
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  2. Viren Swami
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  3. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.

Appendix

Appendix

(1) The Big 5-Short Inventory: Please give your response to every one of these statements to indicate your choice of agreement:

 

YOU ARE:

     

1

Outgoing, talkative, and enjoy meeting people

0

1

2

3

4

2

Considerate, polite and politically correct

0

1

2

3

4

3

Organized, efficient, and try to do things properly

0

1

2

3

4

4

Anxious, worry easily, and have frequent mood swings

0

1

2

3

4

5

Intellectual, creative, and curious about exploring new things

0

1

2

3

4

6*

Shy, quiet, and prefer to avoid crowded parties

0

1

2

3

4

7*

Straight-talking, cold, and rarely feel sorry for others

0

1

2

3

4

8*

Spontaneous, disorganized, and do things last minute

0

1

2

3

4

9*

Relaxed and calm and rarely worry about problems

0

1

2

3

4

10*

Down-to-earth, traditional, and rarely waste time daydreaming

0

1

2

3

4

  1. * Means scale needs to be reversed (0 = 4, 1 = 3, 3 = 1, 4 = 0) before scoring; to calculate scores, one should not use “0” but move the scale one point to right, so that 0 = 1, 1 = 2, 2 = 3, 3 = 4, 4 = 5 (this is for all items and also for the romantic scale below)
  2. 1 + 6 = Extraversion (sociability or how sociable you are)
  3. 2 + 7 = Agreeableness (friendliness or how friendly you are)
  4. 3 + 8 = Conscientiousness (responsibility or how responsible you are)
  5. 4 + 9 = Neuroticism (anxiety or how anxious you are)
  6. 5 + 10 = Openness (creativity or how creative you are)

(2) The triangular love scale: if you are not currently in a relationship, base your answer on your previous relationship.

1

My partner and I share personal information with each other

0

1

2

3

4

2

I am strongly attracted to my partner

0

1

2

3

4

3

I think my relationship with my partner will last forever

0

1

2

3

4

4

I can tell everything to my partner

0

1

2

3

4

5

I find my partner sexually attractive

0

1

2

3

4

6*

I will probably have another love relationship later in my life

0

1

2

3

4

7*

My partner rarely understands how I feel

0

1

2

3

4

8

I tend to feel sexually aroused when my partner is with me

0

1

2

3

4

9*

I often think of being with other men/women

0

1

2

3

4

  1. Note: Same notes as previous table apply
  2. 1 + 4 + 7 = Intimacy (how close you are to your partner)
  3. 2 + 5 + 8 = Passion (how passionate you are about your partner)
  4. 3 + 6 + 9 = Commitment (how committed you are to the relationship)

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Ahmetoglu, G., Swami, V. & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. The Relationship Between Dimensions of Love, Personality, and Relationship Length. Arch Sex Behav 39, 1181–1190 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9515-5

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