IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwsop/diw_sp1172.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Personality Growth after Relationship Losses: Changes of Perceived Control in the Years around Separation, Divorce, and the Death of a Partner

Author

Listed:
  • Eva Asselmann
  • Jule Specht

Abstract

Background: Previous research suggests that romantic relationships play a crucial role for perceived control. However, we know surprisingly little about changes in perceived control before and after the end of romantic relationships. Methods: Based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), a nationally representative household panel study from Germany, we examined changes of perceived control in the years around separation from a partner (N = 1,235), divorce (N = 423), and the death of a partner (N = 437). Results: Multilevel analyses revealed that external control beliefs were higher in but not beyond the first year after separation from a partner. Internal and total control beliefs increased gradually in the years after separation. Moreover, internal control beliefs were higher in and especially beyond the first year after the death of a partner compared to the years before. No evidence was found that perceived control already changed in the years before relationship losses or in the years around a divorce. Conclusion: Taken together, these findings point toward stress-related growth of perceived control after some relationship losses-especially separation and the death of a partner.

Suggested Citation

  • Eva Asselmann & Jule Specht, 2022. "Personality Growth after Relationship Losses: Changes of Perceived Control in the Years around Separation, Divorce, and the Death of a Partner," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1172, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1172
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.851287.de/diw_sp1172.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malte Preuss & Juliane Hennecke, 2017. "Biased by Success and Failure: How Unemployment Shapes Stated Locus of Control," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 943, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Denis Gerstorf & Christina Röcke & Margie E. Lachman, 2010. "Antecedent--Consequent Relations of Perceived Control to Health and Social Support: Longitudinal Evidence for Between-Domain Associations Across Adulthood," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 66(1), pages 61-71.
    3. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Stefanie Schurer, 2013. "Two Economists' Musings on the Stability of Locus of Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 358-400, August.
    4. Eva Asselmann & Jule Specht, 2020. "Taking the Ups and Downs at the Rollercoaster of Love: Associations between Major Relationship Events and the Big Five Personality Traits," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1100, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    5. Rachel G Curtis & Oliver Huxhold & Tim D Windsor, 2018. "Perceived Control and Social Activity in Midlife and Older Age: A Reciprocal Association? Findings From the German Ageing Survey," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(5), pages 807-815.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Olivia Jean Arcangeli & Anastasia Ejova, 2025. "Does Time Heal All Wounds? Life Satisfaction Trajectories in Australian Middle-Aged Women Before and After Relationship Dissolution," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 1-36, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frondel, Manuel & Osberghaus, Daniel & Sommer, Stephan, 2021. "Corona and the stability of personal traits and preferences: Evidence from Germany," Ruhr Economic Papers 903, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    2. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Schurer, Stefanie, 2012. "The stability of big-five personality traits," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 11-15.
    3. Churchill, Rejoice E.A. & Asante, Augustine, 2024. "Locus of control and the long-term effects of parental smoking on mental health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 361(C).
    4. Marco Angrisani & Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2022. "Strategic Sophistication and Trading Profits: An Experiment with Professional Traders," Staff Reports 1044, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    5. Poutvaara, Panu & Steinhardt, Max Friedrich, 2018. "Bitterness in life and attitudes towards immigration," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 471-490.
    6. Caliendo, Marco & Künn, Steffen & Weißenberger, Martin, 2016. "Personality traits and the evaluation of start-up subsidies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 87-108.
    7. Krishnan, Pramila & Krutikova, Sofya, 2013. "Non-cognitive skill formation in poor neighbourhoods of urban India," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 68-85.
    8. Esteban García-Miralles & Miriam Gensowski, 2020. "Are Children's Socio-Emotional Skills Shaped by Parental Health Shocks?," CEBI working paper series 20-21, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    9. de Araujo, Pedro & Lagos, Stephen, 2013. "Self-esteem, education, and wages revisited," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 120-132.
    10. Mendolia, Silvia & Walker, Ian, 2014. "The effect of personality traits on subject choice and performance in high school: Evidence from an English cohort," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 47-65.
    11. Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Gangadharan, Lata & Maitra, Pushkar & Mani, Subha, 2017. "Searching for preference stability in a state dependent world," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 17-32.
    12. Shoji, Masahiro, 2020. "Early-Life Circumstances and Adult Locus of Control: Evidence from 46 Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 99987, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Mark A. Andor & Thomas K. Bauer & Jana Eßer & Christoph M. Schmidt & Lukas Tomberg, 2025. "Who Gets Vaccinated? Cognitive and Non‐Cognitive Predictors of Individual Behaviour in Pandemics," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 87(3), pages 562-585, June.
    14. Eva M. Berger & Luke Haywood, 2016. "Locus of Control and Mothers’ Return to Employment," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 442-481.
    15. Juliane Hennecke, 2020. "Locus of Control and Female Labor Force Participation," Working Papers 2020-03, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    16. Caliendo, Marco & Mahlstedt, Robert & Mitnik, Oscar A., 2017. "Unobservable, but unimportant? The relevance of usually unobserved variables for the evaluation of labor market policies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 14-25.
    17. Niels-Hugo Blunch & David C. Ribar & Mark Western, 2020. "Under pressure? Assessing the roles of skills and other personal resources for work-life strains," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 883-906, September.
    18. Schurer, Stefanie, 2014. "Bouncing Back from Health Shocks: Locus of Control, Labor Supply, and Mortality," IZA Discussion Papers 8203, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Etilé, Fabrice & Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A., 2021. "Measuring resilience to major life events," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 598-619.
    20. Ao, Xiang & Chen, Xuan & Zhao, Zhong, 2022. "Is care by grandparents or parents better for children's non-cognitive skills? Evidence on locus of control from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1172. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sodiwde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.