SPOUSAL COMMUNICATION, OPENNESS AND EXTRAVERSION AS PREDICTORS OF MARITAL INSTABILITY AMONG MARRIED TEACHERS IN SAGAMU LOCAL GOVERNMENT, OGUN STATE

Abstract

Marital instability has been a huge problem in our society from the problem of divorce, single parenting, abusive relationships, rebellious children because of lack of proper training by both parents; these problems have fueled the passion to uncover the correlation of personality types and spousal communication as predictors to marital instability.

The study adopted a descriptive research design. The research instrument was validated and reliability test was done using Cronbach alpha analysis. The population is comprised of all married teachers in public schools in Sagamu local government in Ogun state. There are a total of 924 teachers in the 24 public schools, of which 108 out of the 924 teachers are either widowed, divorced, separated or single. A sample size of 300 was generated using Yamane Formulae.

The findings showed that personality types and spousal communication do not significantly contribute to marital instability in young couples in Ogun State. (6,274)=30.950p<.005). Also, there was no statistically significant contribution between openness and marital instability (Beta =.029, t =.484, p >.05) and extraversion (Beta = -,049,t = -.1.024, p >.05). Lastly, there was a significant contribution of spousal communication to marital instability among young couples in Ogun State. The result revealed significant results (Beta = -.608, t = 12.796, p < .005).

Based on these findings, it could be concluded that openness, extraversion and spousal communication are predictors of marital instability. The study proposes that marital relationship with good and effective communication improves stability in marriage.