Abstract

Marriage, as a major turning point in life, tends to place spouse and children at the center of individuals’ social networks. By focusing on relational motives of married individuals (i.e., mate retention, parenting), we examined their association with relationship satisfaction and the potential moderating role of neuroticism. Studies have shown that strong motives can be maladaptive when actual-ideal discrepancies generate negative emotions. In line with this view, neuroticism, characterized by heightened sensitivity and reactivity to negative social cues, may reduce the benefits that come from strong relational motives. As predicted, two studies demonstrated that individuals’ mate retention (Study 1) and parenting (Study 2) motives positively predicted their relationship satisfaction, only among the less neurotic. Our findings suggest that hedonic benefits of relational motives may be contingent on the level of neuroticism.