Was It Really a Personality Clash?

"Incompatible personalities" is one of the most common reasons couples give for breaking up. If you've had the misfortune of "being dumped", have you ever wondered what incompatibility actually means? Today we look at how psychology's BIG5 personality model shapes your romantic relationships.

The BIG 5 Personality Model

Psychology broadly holds that five factors are enough to describe a person's distinctive patterns of behaviour, thought and emotion — in other words, their "personality". The five factors are Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness, and together they make up the BIG5 personality model:

The details of each factor are beyond the scope of this article; if you're curious, you can try the BIG5 personality test for a deeper understanding of your own personality profile.

Low	Personality factor	High
Feels relatively few positive emotions and has little drive to seek out new experiences or opportunities, so tends to come across as more passive in social settings.	Extraversion	Tends to feel more positive emotions. Actively seeks out stimulation and opportunities, especially in social settings.
Sees society as an arena for competition, so conflict arises more easily; but because they aren't afraid of conflict, they are better able to hold the line on their principles.	Agreeableness	Sees society as a platform for building relationships; values other people's emotional needs and feels their pain when they are hurting.
Doesn't hold strong notions of rules and systems when looking at the world, so tends to act more spontaneously and can tolerate messy situations.	Conscientiousness	Views the world through systems and rules, and tends to keep things neat and orderly.
Sees the world as a safe place, so even when faced with danger or hardship doesn't experience much negative emotion.	Neuroticism	Sees the world as a place where danger lurks on all sides; negative emotions help us detect and avoid risk, so they feel relatively more of them.
Understands the world through concrete, tangible things; tends to do things the established way.	Openness	Understands the world through abstract concepts and explores the underlying patterns of things; sees the world as a platform for exploration, so enjoys trying new things.

When we make sense of the BIG5 personality model, we need to bear in mind that both ends of each personality factor are simply ways of responding to the demands of the environment — there is no absolute better or worse.

For example, women in different countries all score higher than men on Neuroticism (Lynn & Martin, 1997), so women experience more negative emotion and a stronger sense of threat than men. When raising a child together, it's common for the father to play some high-risk (even foolish) games with the little one, while the mother nervously tries to stop them. This is one expression of the difference in Neuroticism.

So a woman's higher Neuroticism compared with a man's isn't necessarily a flaw — it may in fact be crucial to the survival of the species. Because under traditional gender roles, women generally shoulder the heavy responsibility of raising the next generation. Infants are soft and vulnerable when they're born, and it is precisely women's sense of threat that protects them from harm.

Should You Look for a Partner With a Similar Personality?

Should we look for a partner who complements our strengths and weaknesses, or one who matches us? Psychological research has found that the more alike a couple's personalities are, the more satisfied they tend to be with the relationship (Gonzaga, Campos & Bradbury, 2007). The reason is that people with similar personalities also tend to feel emotions in similar ways (Emotional Similarity).

For instance, people who are extraverted and low in Neuroticism generally enjoy thrill rides, because extraverts tend to seek out stimulation, and being low in Neuroticism means they don't feel too afraid. Conversely, for someone who is introverted and high in Neuroticism, a thrill ride isn't just no fun — it's an emotional ordeal.

When a couple feels in sync emotionally while doing the same thing, that's the so-called "good sync" feeling. As a couple goes through many such "good sync" moments, they gradually build a sense of intimacy.

Conversely, if a couple's personalities differ too much, their thoughts, behaviour and even worldviews can be poles apart. The psychologist Jordan Peterson once shared in one of his lectures that when a person high in Conscientiousness is with someone low in Conscientiousness, the more conscientious partner will see the other as lazy, careless and lacking in planning; the other, in turn, will feel their partner is too picky and fussy — bringing no shortage of friction to the relationship.

A Love Story That Transcends Personality Traits

If you've found a partner you're "in sync" with, congratulations! But even if you and your partner have clear personality differences, there's no need to worry too much. After all, in real life there are plenty of couples whose personalities are poles apart yet who love each other in a way that complements their strengths and weaknesses. Whether they can pull this off may come down to whether the partners share common goals and a common love story.

The psychologist Dan McAdams (1995) wrote a famous paper: "What do we know when we know a person?". McAdams pointed out that a person is made up not only of their personality traits (Level 1: Trait), but also of their goals, roles and skills (Level 2: Personal Concerns), and their ultimate goals and the meaning they make of their own place in the world (Level 3: Narrative). It's not hard to imagine that an extraverted Christian and an extraverted playboy would behave very differently — even though their personality traits are identical — because their roles and identities, and the meaning they make of life, are not the same.

Coming back to love: if a couple's personalities differ but they share a common longing in love, they may be better able to play to each other's strengths and make up for each other's shortcomings, each bringing their own strengths to a shared love. For example, picture a couple pairing high Agreeableness with low Agreeableness: the low-Agreeableness partner isn't afraid of conflict and is willing to act on principles and interests; the high-Agreeableness partner is good at empathising with others' feelings and building close relationships. When they come together, they can build a wide social network and have someone ready to step up at the crucial moment.

Love calls for mutual understanding and working things through with each other — and though it sounds like a cliché, it's a timeless truth. After you've all tried the BIG 5 test, why not invite your partner to take it too, and then talk over your differences and your needs.

References

Gonzaga, G. C., Campos, B., & Bradbury, T. (2007). Similarity, convergence, and relationship satisfaction in dating and married couples. Journal of personality and social psychology, 93(1), 34.

McAdams, D. P. (1995). What do we know when we know a person?. Journal of personality, 63(3), 365-396.

Lynn, R., & Martin, T. (1997). Gender differences in extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism in 37 nations. The Journal of social psychology, 137(3), 369-373.

Malouff, J. M., Thorsteinsson, E. B., Schutte, N. S., Bhullar, N., & Rooke, S. E. (2010). The five-factor model of personality and relationship satisfaction of intimate partners: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(1), 124-127.

Sternberg, R. J. (1999). Love is a story: A new theory of relationships. Oxford University Press.