The dyadic effects of Type D personality on health in romantic couples

Abstract

Objective: An individual’s own personality traits are powerful predictors of their health outcomes (actor effects). However, the effect of personality on health may also occur at an interpersonal level, whereby the personalities of people close to the individual also affect his or her health outcomes (partner effects). Our objective was to examine the actor and partner effects of Type D personality on health in romantic couples for the first time.

Design: Cross-sectional questionnaire-based study (N = 364), consisting of 182 romantic couples from the general population (mean age = 35.7 years).

Main outcome measures: Each participant completed self-report measures of Type D personality (DS14), health behaviours (GPHB), mood (DASS-21) and quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF).

Results: Data were analysed using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM). The APIM showed no actor or partner effects of the overall Type D construct. However, there were actor effects of negative affect for both males and females on depression and quality of life, a male actor effect of social inhibition on quality of life, and a female partner effect of social inhibition on depression.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that there are both actor and partner effects of the Type D components on some health outcomes.

Keywords:

• Type D personality
• actor-partner interdependence model
• romantic relationships
• health behaviour
• quality of life
• mood

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.