You love your spouse, your "better half"... but is he or she an influential factor in your career?
A new study shows that the type of personality your spouse has may affect how successful you are in your career. The study, done by Washington University in St. Louis, interviewed roughly 5,000 married people aged 19 to 89, about their work and home life. About 75 percent of the couples had both spouses working full time.
"Our study shows that it is not only your own personality that influences the experiences that lead to greater occupational success, but that your spouse's personality matters too," said Joshua Jackson, the lead author of the study.
The study gave each spouse a personality test to determine which of the "Big Five" personality types they were. The "Big Five" are open, extroverted, agreeable, conscientious and neurotic.
The researchers also asked each spouse questions about how happy he or she was at work, what salary increases were received, and how likely a promotion seemed.
They found that those married to someone with a "conscientious" personality were more successful at work. This was true for both genders.
Jackson said the influence exerted by the spouses was likely not a single act, like asking for a raise, but a total sum of smaller daily influences affecting work performance.
This may be because having a conscientious spouse means having less personal burden in managing the household, since the conscientious spouse might be more likely to manage and share chores efficiently. The researchers also theorized that some of the good habits of the conscientious spouse might rub off on his or her partner.
This means that if you want to succeed at work, you might do best to start in your marriage, by choosing someone who is highly conscientious, the researchers say.
"This is another example where personality traits are found to predict broad outcomes like health status or occupational success, as in this study. What is unique to this study is that your spouse's personality has an influence on such important life experiences," Jackson said.
This makes sense, because marriage is a constant give and take, with subtle influences exerted over many years.
Want to see which of the "Big Five" personality types you or your spouse fit? You can find out by taking the test here.
