Political humility and relationship quality in politically heterogamous couples

As contempt between parties has increased over the past decades, politically-mixed families, friendships, and romantic relationships may be negatively affected. However, there is support for humility being positively related to relationship satisfaction and negatively related to conflict engagement in other types of relationships vulnerable to worldview differences, such as interracial and interfaith relationships. This study examines the relationship between political humility and relationship outcomes for politically heterogamous relationships (i.e., couples in which the partners identify with different political ideologies) compared to politically homogamous relationships. Data was gathered using survey responses from 320 participants in romantic relationships. Results suggest that while politically heterogamous couples argue more frequently than politically homogamous couples, they do not experience a difference in relationship quality. The type of couple was not related to the relationship between political commitment and relationship outcomes nor between political humility and relationship outcomes. However, relationships among variables indicated that conflict and political commitment were more consistently related to relationship quality than both couple type and political humility.