Personality and Sexual Satisfaction in Marriage

The role of personality in marital sexual satisfaction was investigated in 102 married couples, studying three major measurable personality dimensions–extraversion-introversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. The results indicated that for females greatest sexual satisfaction in marriage occurred when the male's personality was essentially identical to the female's for extraversion-introversion and neuroticism; for these same couples, however, the males sexual satisfaction was not related to such personality similarity or dissimilarity. Interestingly, for males, greatest sexual satisfaction in marriage was found when spouses were essentially identical in the personality dimension of psychoticism. Thus, all three personality dimensions were shown to be related to sexual satisfaction in marriage. Personality “fit” between marital partners would appear to be important for sexual satisfaction, with females perhaps being more sensitive to personality than males. If the three personality dimensions are ranked in terms of their psychiatric illness implications, from extraversion-introversion (least) to neuroticism to psychoticism (most), one might speculate that females resonate to the more normal aspects of personality, relative to males who may resonate to less healthy aspects of personality. These results have not before been reported in marital analyses. They open up a fascinating range of new approaches to understanding the sources of male and female marital sexual satisfaction.