This exercise confirmed a significantly negative influence of neuroticism and significantly positive influences of openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness on sexual satisfaction
This implied that we lost one wave of observations so the estimation was based on panel data from the years 2013 and 2017; i.e., sexuality in 2013 was explained by personality traits in 2009 and sexuality in 2017 by personality traits in 2013. The controls were still taken from the respective actual year. However, the coefficient on extraversion was less precisely estimated. This was likely due to the substantially lower number of observations.
Item nonresponse might lead to a non-randomly selected estimation sample. A non-randomly selected sample, in turn, can result in biased estimates if there are unobserved factors influencing both a person’s sexuality and his or her propensity to answer the corresponding question. To account for such unobserved factors, we used Heckman’s two-stage sample selection correction. In the first stage, we used a probit regression to estimate the determinants of answering the question on sexual satisfaction. The probit results were used to calculate the inverse Mills ratio. In the second stage, the inverse Mills ratio was included as an additional explanatory variable in the satisfaction regression. To avoid that identification relies solely on the inherent nonlinearity of Heckman’s approach, we imposed an additional exclusion restriction. The first-stage probit, but not the second-stage regression, included a variable for the interviewee’s expressed willingness to participate in future waves of the survey. Moreover, we also excluded some controls from the second-stage regression which did not emerge as significant determinants of sexual satisfaction. The inverse Mills ratio did not take a significant coefficient in the satisfaction regression. Most importantly, including the inverse Mills ratio did not change the key results in the satisfaction regression. Thus, the key results persisted even when correcting for possible sample selection due to item nonresponse.
Furthermore, in order to mitigate the remaining endogeneity concerns, we used 4-year lags of the Big Five personality traits in our main regression on sexual satisfaction
Furthermore, we examined whether the link between personality and sexuality is heterogeneous and depends on circumstances. In particular, we examined if the influence of personality on sexuality depends on the duration of the relationship. A longer duration of the relationship means that the partners have more experience with each other and may indicate that the relationship becomes more serious. In order to examine the moderating role of relationship duration, we added interaction terms of relationship duration with the Big Five to the regressions. While this exercise also confirmed our key pattern of results, we additionally found some significant interactions with conscientiousness and neuroticism. The positive influence of conscientiousness on sexual communication, fulfillment of the partner’s sexual wishes, and frequency of intercourse is increasing with the duration of the relationship. The negative influence of neuroticism on own sexual satisfaction, sexual communication, and frequency of intercourse is decreasing with relationship duration.
Finally, note that our study focuses on persons who have a partner. This reflects our interest in the role personality plays in romantic relationships. Of course, personality can also have a role in the sex life of singles since singles may engage in casual sex. Thus, as a check of robustness, we added singles to our estimation sample. We expanded the specification of the regressions by including a dummy for singles and variables for the interaction of this dummy with the Big Five personality traits. This exercise also confirmed our key results. Moreover, it showed that extraversion plays an even stronger role for singles in sexual satisfaction, fulfilling the partner’s sexual wishes, sexual communication, and frequency of sex.
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