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Personality influences in the stability of early (teen-age) marriage in the United States

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Abstract

Previous research indicated that similarities and differences in specific personality factors are associated with differences in marital stability. Most findings were based on assessments of personality after marriage, thus confounding the effects of marriage on personality. The findings reported here relate congruence between spouses’ personality assessed prior to marriage with the status of the marriage three to five years after marriage. Each partner in a group of 72 teenage couples completed the 16PF prior to obtaining approval to marry. These data were examined using intraclass and multivariate analyses. The findings indicate that hypothesized patterns of personality factors differentiated stable from unstable marriages.

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Levine, K.S., Hennessy, J.J. Personality influences in the stability of early (teen-age) marriage in the United States. Current Psychology 9, 296–303 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686867

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