A correlation study of gender differences in secure attachment style, personality and romantic relationship satisfaction

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess the possible correlation between personality type, attachment style and relationship satisfaction in a sample of (N=103) participants, (N=33) men and (N=70) women all part-time students at DBS. The participants were asked demographic questions age, gender and relationship status. The Relationship Questionnaire (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) was used to evaluate attachment styles, personality type was examined using the Big Five Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999), and (Hendrick, Dicke, & Hendrick, 1988) Relationship Assessment Scale was administered to measure romantic relationship satisfaction. A Spearman's rho revealed high romantic relationship satisfaction is significantly correlated with secure attachment (rs(99) = 0.25, p<0.01) and conscientiousness (rs(98) = 0.19, p<0.05). An ANOVA indicated that married individuals have significantly higher relationship satisfaction than non-cohabiting persons (M=3.39, SD=1.02, p=0.018). An independent samples t-test revealed no gender differences in relationship satisfaction. Author keywords: relationship satisfaction, attachment, personality