We examined the mediating roles of communication and marital affect in the association between marital quality and neuroticism. Guided by the social investment theory and the personality-relationship transactions model, we tested the actor-partner interdependence mediation model to examine the associations among the variables. Participants were 268 Chinese newlywed couples who were a maximum of 3 years into their first marriage. The path model indicated that, first, both spouses' marital quality at Time 1 was related with their own neuroticism at Time 3 after controlling for confounding variables. However, after controlling for neuroticism at Time 1, husbands' marital quality was not directly associated with their own neuroticism. Second, for wives, communication and marital affect at Time 2 fully mediated the association between marital quality and neuroticism. Conversely, for husbands, the multiple specific indirect effects were not significant. These findings suggest that communication and marital affect are mediators underlying the association between marital quality and neuroticism. Moreover, the potential mechanisms underlying the relationship effects differ between husbands and wives. The implications and future directions of these results were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Guided by the dynamic-transaction model of health, the current study investigated how the interplay between self-esteem and marital instability affects future depressive symptoms. Based on longitudinal data, the present study demonstrated that higher self-esteem was associated with lower marital instability, thus decreasing the likelihood of depressive symptoms. At the same time, an unstable marital relationship was related to lower levels of self-esteem, which in turn increased depressive symptoms. Thus, the results of the current study provided preliminary evidence regarding the effects of the personality-relationship transaction on depressive symptoms. In addition, the prospective associations between personality-relationship transaction and depressive symptoms was not parallel for husbands and wives. For husbands, the indirect pathway from marital instability to their own depressive symptoms via self-esteem was significant. For wives, the indirect pathway from self-esteem to their own depressive symptoms via marital instability was significant. Theoretical implications and future directions for research are discussed.