Marriage may change your personality, states research

Most notably, both partners become less agreeable and cooperative as they get used to married life

Marriage often changes a person’s personality, for better or for worse. A new study from the University of Georgia stated that couples undergo significant personality changes during the first year and a half, reported Huffington Post. .

Researchers studied 169 newlywed couples, checking in with them at different points in their marriage to see how they were hanging in: at the six-month mark, around their first anniversary and at 18 months.

At each check in, the research team asked the couples to assess their levels of what psychologists call the big five personality traits: extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism.

PHOTO: FILE

Some of the findings are a ringing endorsement for marriage. On the whole, husbands became more conscientious as they adjusted to their new roles and wives became less anxious, depressed and angry.

On the less rosy side of things, husbands became less extroverted and both husbands and wives became less agreeable.

Interestingly, the results did not differ by spouses’ age, demographics, initial marital satisfaction, parenthood status or even how long the pair had been an item before marrying. That relationship length mattered very little took lead researcher Justin Lavner by surprise.

PHOTO: INSTAGRAM/SABYASACHI

“I think these findings point to the fact that getting married is an exciting time for couples but is also one that may involve some adjusting to new living arrangements, increased levels of interdependence and in some cases a coming to terms with the fact that the idealised marriage may not be the actual marriage,” said Lavner, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Georgia.

There’s something about putting a ring on it that changes a person, he said. “The patterns of change we observed suggests there’s something about the transition to marriage itself rather than other factors, such as getting older or being with your partner for longer,” Lavner said. “The newlywed period may be marked by even more changes than we had previously thought.”

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