Life-Span Development and Relationships

Long-Term Stability of Relationships and Their Quality

The long-term stability of relationships and their quality follows three principles. First, relationships are the result of the continual interaction between two individuals. Thus, the quality of their relationship is influenced by their personalities (characteristic traits such as extraversion, neuroticism, etc.) and the history of their interaction. Therefore, the long-term stability of their relationship depends on the long-term stability of the two personalities involved. Also, their relationship is often affected by relationships with other people in their social network (external relationships). Therefore, any change of the personality of any of the people involved in these interactions limits the continuation of the relationship and can affect its quality (e.g., changes in satisfaction with the relationship, commitment, and attachment to the partner). The complex interactions between the involved personalities and relationships impose additional constraints on stability. Therefore, the stability of relationships is likely to be less than the stability of personality.

Second, human societies are characterized by continuous social and cultural change, such as economic or political change. As detailed analyses during the American Great Depression and the German Reunification have shown, such changes may have a strong impact on relationships. For example, marriage, divorce, and birth rates dropped considerably in former Eastern Germany during the reunification. Third, individual development is organized in most cultures around life-course transitions, that is, age-graded, socially expected changes such as leaving the parental home, graduating from college, and beginning first full-time job, which, in turn, affect the relationships of the individuals in transition.

Although quantitative reviews of the stability and change in the number and quality of relationships have not yet been published, the few longitudinal studies that have compared relationship stability with the stability of individual personality traits consistently show that relationship quality is less stable than personality, particularly during life-course transitions, and that relationship stability is more challenged by societal change than personality stability.

Personality-Relationship Transactions

If relationships are less stable than personality, the chances are higher for personality to influence relationships rather than vice versa. Indeed, longitudinal studies have found more evidence for personality effects on relationships than vice versa. For example, sociability increases the probability of making new friends, shyness and social anxiety decrease this probability, neuroticism increases the probability of divorce, agreeableness decreases conflict in relationships, and conscientiousness increases involvement in family relationships. Among the few effects of relationships on personality that have been consistently found are effects of attachment security in infants on their later social competence, effects of friendships with antisocial peers on adolescents' antisocial tendencies, and effects of the first stable romantic relationship on neuroticism and shyness (decreases). Thus, there is evidence for both directions of influences, but personality to relationship influences seem to be more frequent than relationship to personality influences.

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