Personality Test for Couples: Attachment Style plus the Big Five

What research says about personality and couples

Three findings are worth knowing before you compare scores.

Your own traits matter more than matching

Portia Dyrenforth, Deborah Kashy, Brent Donnellan and Richard Lucas (2010) analyzed thousands of couples in nationally representative samples from Australia, the UK and Germany. Each partner’s own personality, and their partner’s personality, predicted relationship satisfaction. How similar the two were explained less than half a percent of the difference in satisfaction. Neither “opposites attract” nor “birds of a feather” holds up well.

Neuroticism stands out

John Malouff and colleagues’ 2010 meta-analysis found that people whose partners were lower in Neuroticism and higher in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Extraversion were more satisfied with their relationships. Benjamin Karney and Thomas Bradbury’s 1995 review of 115 long-term studies of marriage also found Neuroticism among the predictors of lower marital quality and stability.

Attachment adds something the Big Five misses

Erika Noftle and Phillip Shaver (2006) found that attachment anxiety and avoidance predicted relationship quality even after accounting for all five traits. That is why this guide uses both.

The two measures, and what to look at

Attachment style

The attachment style test gives each of you two scores. Attachment anxiety is how much you worry about rejection and need reassurance. Attachment avoidance is how uncomfortable you are with closeness and depending on each other. Together they place each partner as secure, anxious, avoidant or fearful-avoidant.

The Big Five in a relationship

The Big Five test scores each trait from 0 to 100. Gaps under about 10 points are within measurement noise; gaps over 15 points are where the conversations are.

The pursue-withdraw loop

The most common pattern in couples therapy runs like this. One partner, usually higher in attachment anxiety, notices distance and moves toward it: raises the issue, asks questions, sends another message. The other, usually higher in avoidance, feels the pressure and moves away: shorter answers, a closed door, “can we not do this now.” Each move makes the other partner’s move more likely.

Andrew Christensen and colleagues documented this as the demand-withdraw pattern. John Gottman’s research on couples in conflict identified stonewalling, the withdrawer’s shutdown, as one of four behaviors that predicted divorce, alongside criticism, contempt and defensiveness. Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy treats the loop itself as the problem, so neither partner has to be the villain.

Three things interrupt it:

• Name the loop together when you are calm: “We do the thing where I chase and you shut down.” Naming it gives you a shared target.
• Make breaks time-limited. The withdrawing partner says when they will come back: “I need 20 minutes; I’ll come find you at 8.” The anxious partner can tolerate a break that has an end.
• Agree on what reassurance looks like. For one person it is a hug; for another it is hearing “we’re okay, we’ll figure this out.” Ask rather than guess.

How to take the tests as a couple

1. Take them separately and do not discuss answers until you both finish. Answer for how you usually are, not for this week’s argument.
2. Before looking, each write down where you expect the other to land. The gaps between prediction and result are often the best conversation.
3. Compare your Big Five scores side by side with the partner link on your results page, or on the compare page.
4. Start with the biggest difference. Leave small gaps alone.
5. Share written reports only by choice. Each report describes one person, and reading someone’s blind spots without their agreement backfires.

Five conversations worth having

1. “What does reassurance look like for you?” Most useful when either partner’s attachment anxiety is above the midpoint.
2. “How long do you need after an argument, and how will you tell me?” The key question for the more avoidant partner.
3. “Which things need to be done a certain way, and which don’t?” For Conscientiousness gaps. Agree on the two or three that matter and drop the rest.
4. “How many social plans a week feels right?” For Extraversion gaps. Pick a number and plan around it.
5. “When you’re stressed, what helps and what makes it worse?” For Neuroticism. Write the answers down; you will both forget them mid-argument.

What the free results and the report give each of you

The free results show each partner’s five trait scores and attachment scores, and the comparison view puts your Big Five side by side.

The $19 report (per person, optional) adds a relationship section written by AI from that person’s attachment scores, Big Five, love-language ranking and conflict answers: what they need to feel secure and what they read as a threat, the six-stage sequence their arguments tend to follow, the blind spot a partner sees more clearly than they do, and five specific lines a partner could say mid-argument that help them stay engaged. Couples who both get the report often find that last part the most useful, because they can swap lists.

Counselors and coaches working with several couples can use the Coach Pack: five report credits for $99, shared through one invite link. See the Coach Pack page, and see the guide for coaches for a session plan.

What a test can’t tell you

A test cannot tell you whether to stay together, and it cannot explain away behavior that hurts. If arguments regularly involve contempt, if either of you feels afraid or controlled, or if the same conflict has gone unresolved for months, see a couples therapist. If you are in the US and feel unsafe, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.

If one partner feels stuck on something specific, such as a decision you keep circling, the free Why You’re Stuck exercise works on one situation in depth. And if you came here from a type-based compatibility quiz, Big Five vs MBTI explains why trait scores work better for this. The career test helps when the tension is about work.