Inspiring Better Relationships? The Role of Trait Charisma in Conflict Resolution and Romantic Relationship Satisfaction

Charisma is often viewed as a desirable trait in romantic partners, yet little research has examined whether charismatic individuals and their partners have more satisfying romantic relationships. Drawing on evidence from leadership and workplace contexts suggesting that charismatic people tend to navigate conflict in a more constructive way, we examined associations between trait charisma, conflict resolution strategies, and romantic relationship satisfaction. Since effective conflict resolution is key to satisfying and long-lasting romantic relationships, this research examined whether charisma is linked to greater relationship satisfaction through the use of more constructive and fewer destructive conflict resolution strategies. Across five studies—including cross-sectional, weekly, and daily experience sampling methods ( N = 1,606)— higher trait charisma was consistently associated with greater self-reported use of constructive conflict resolution strategies, higher relationship satisfaction and better perceived conflict resolution. However, the results did not consistently show that charisma was linked with less destructive conflict resolution strategies. Associations between one partner’s charisma and the other partners’ satisfaction were small and did not consistently replicate across studies, providing limited evidence that having a charismatic partner is linked to better relationship outcomes. Associations between charisma, constructive conflict strategies, and a person’s own relationship satisfaction generally remained when controlling for extraversion, agreeableness, and narcissism, although the magnitude of unique effects was modest. Overall, the findings suggest that charisma is most consistently linked to individuals’ own reports of constructive conflict strategies and relationship satisfaction, with weaker and less consistent links to partners’ outcomes.