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. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between political humility (PH) and relationship processes and quality for individuals in politically heterogamous relationships (i.e., couples in which the partners identify with different political ideologies) compared to individuals in politically homogamous relationships. PH is a disposition to recognize and own the limitations of one’s knowledge related to political issues. Data was gathered using survey responses from 320 participants in romantic relationships. Results indicated that while politically heterogamous couples tend to argue more frequently about politics than their homogamous counterparts, they do not experience a difference in relationship satisfaction, commitment, or unforgiveness. Differences in couple type (i.e., heterogamous vs. homogamous) did not moderate the association between political commitment and relationship satisfaction, commitment, and unforgiveness. Additionally, differences in couple type did not moderate the association between PH and relationship satisfaction, commitment, unforgiveness, conflict engagement, and positive problem solving. Though not part of the a priori hypotheses, correlations among variables indicated that conflict and political commitment were more consistently related to relationship quality than couple type and PH.