Think Your Spouse Is Holding You Back at Work? They Probably Are

You may not even realize it, but your personal life could be impacting your success at work.

A new study at the University of Washington in St. Louis found that spousal behavior can affect your work life. Researchers discovered that a satisfying home life created by husbands and wives was linked to promotions, raises, and even job satisfaction.

“Who they are within your relationship can influence who you are at your work — even though they're not there,” study co-author Joshua Jackson explained to Reuters.

Though it’s not exactly news that your home life can have impacts elsewhere, Jackson explained that there’s not a lot of research into how a spouse’s personality can determine a person’s happiness and success.

The study used information from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics survey in Australia from 2005 to 2009. Researchers looked at information for 4,544 heterosexual, married adults between the ages of 19 to 89. In 2005, survey participants took a psychological evaluation which measured openness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. Over the next four years, participants took surveys designed to measure job success and reported overall job satisfaction and their opinions on the likelihood of promotions and raises.

The participants who scored highest in job success tended to be married to those who scored highest in the conscientiousness category of the first evaluation. In this case, conscientiousness could mean the person’s willingness to be efficient around the house and complete chores so as to lighten the burden of housework placed on their partners, it could mean that the person tended to notice their spouse’s willingness to be helpful, or it could just mean making it easier for the worker to have better relationships in general, which could in turn lead to more overall well-being.

Whatever the link is, being in a close relationship with someone whose behavior is positive and caring seems to be the key to happiness. Surrounding yourself with that kind of influence makes it easier for you to adapt to those behaviors and insert them into your own personality as well. We’ve already learned that we tend to mimic the personalities of the people we care about so, you might as well marry someone who’s kind and friendly and generally sunshine-y. If you can’t beat ‘em, right?

[Pic via Flickr - Christopher]