You’ve heard it before: Behind every great man is a great woman. And visa versa, as Facebook COO and “Lean In” author Sheryl Sandberg so wisely noted at
a conference for women in 2011. “The most important career choice
you’ll make,” she said, “is who you marry.” Now new research confirms
it. Your spouse’s personality, according to a study to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, strongly influences how quickly you climb the career ladder.
“This is kind of the ‘lean on’
phenomenon,” study author Joshua Jackson, an assistant professor of
psychology at the University of Washington in St. Louis, told Yahoo
Health. “You lean on your spouse to help advance your career.”
It’s no surprise that your home
life spills over into your work life — a phenomenon that psychologists
refer to as the “crossover effect.” However, the work-home connection
has primarily been studied in the short term — for example, how a spat
with your spouse in the morning may make your fuse a little shorter at
the office throughout the day.
The researchers in this case
wanted to take a broader look at the connection: Specifically, how does
your spouse’s personality affect your workplace success? To answer this,
they tracked the career progress
of 4,544 married people over a period of five years, and assessed
couples’ division of household duties, how they spend their free time
together, and their level of relationship satisfaction.
The study participants also took a
personality test assessing what’s commonly referred to, in psychology,
as the “Big 5” traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness, and neuroticism. “They’re ‘big’ because these five
constructs are supposed to define most of human individual differences —
the ways we differ in terms of personality,” Jackson said.
Interestingly, only one spouse personality trait emerged as a significant predictor of career success: conscientiousness,
which encompasses a number of positive qualities. “Conscientious people
tend to work hard, follow rules, be orderly and organized, responsible
and reliable, and they’re able to control their impulses and delay
gratification,” Jackson said. “They understand that they’re going to
feel better and accomplish more just by working hard, as opposed to
procrastinating.”
In the study, employees with a
conscientiousness partner tended to make more money and receive more
promotions. This was true regardless of the spouse’s employment status —
in other words, people’s careers enjoyed a boost when they were married
to a reliable person, whether their spouse stayed at home or worked.
And gender wasn’t a factor: Both men and women benefited from a
conscientiousness significant other.
Why is conscientiousness so
critical? The most obvious explanation is that, if you have a reliable
spouse, you’ll likely feel less pressure at home — that is, he or she
will absorb some of the household duties that would otherwise distract
you from getting the job done at the office. The study showed, in fact,
that partner conscientiousness was associated with “outsourcing,” or
assigning domestic duties to your spouse.
The benefit boils down to mental
energy and time. “If you can come home after a hard day of work and not
have to do a number of different tasks, then you can get the rest you
need to start afresh the next day,” said Jackson. “You can also take
your work home, allowing you to work even harder.”
Outsourcing even played a role
for dual-income families — not just those where one spouse stayed home.
How? Working partners can still help manage finances, remember
appointments, or even hire a nanny, all of
which can ease your stress at
home, allowing you to excel in your career.
Jackson speculated that highly
conscientious couples divide responsibilities according to their
strengths, rather than traditional gender roles. That may make them more
efficient at completing household tasks — if you enjoy your chores,
they probably won’t feel like work. “You’re doing your specialty,” he
said. “Maybe you’re the person who cooks — and you enjoy that. You could use that task as a way to decompress after a hard day.”
Another factor at play: Over
time, your spouse’s reliability may rub off on you. Psychologists widely
agree that married couples tend to adopt each other’s traits,
especially positive ones, which means years of living with a spouse
who’s on top of things could eventually make you more conscientiousness.
“View the relationship as a new entity, a group, that’s influenced by
both spouses,” said Jackson. “If your spouse is working hard, it kind of
sets the tone. That could easily rub off on you, in terms of what is
acceptable, what is prioritized within the relationship.”
Finally, spending lots of time
with a responsible person may enhance your satisfaction in the
relationship, which can carry over to your attitude on the job.
“Conscientiousness is related to happy, better relationships,” explained
Jackson. “Better relationships lead to better work — you’re able to
focus on the job instead of worry about your relationship.”
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