Personality and multiple divorce. A prospective study.

A review of cross-sectional and prospective research in both normal and clinical samples suggests that increased risk of divorce is associated with socially nonconforming, impulsive, and stimulus-seeking personality traits. This exploratory study addresses the question of whether individuals who divorce more than once are especially likely to exhibit such general personality dispositions. Subjects were male physicians (N = 431) who had completed the MMPI before entering medical school and who were followed up more than two decades later by a mail questionnaire that inquired about their health status, health practices, subjective well-being, and marital history. As indicated by higher scores on the MMPI Psychopathic Deviate (Pd) scale and greater likelihood of concurrently reporting several negative health practices (e.g., cigarette smoking), multiply divorced physicians did tend to exhibit greater nonconforming, impulsive, and risk-taking tendencies than both never-divorced and once-divorced physicians. Possible social-psychological processes linking such personality dispositions to the risk of multiple divorce are discussed, along with suggestions for further research.