Divergent network pathways linking personality, approach–avoidance goals, and marital adjustment to psychological well-being

Marital relationships play a central role in psychological well-being across adulthood, yet prior research has rarely integrated personality, motivational, and relational factors as components of a single interpersonal system. To address this gap, this study—guided by social–cognitive and dynamic-systems perspectives—applied network analysis to examine how personality traits, approach–avoidance goals, spousal support and strain, and marital adjustment are interconnected within a dynamic interpersonal system. Flow network analysis was further used to identify how these dispositional, motivational, and relational factors were directly and indirectly linked to life satisfaction and psychological distress. Participants were 502 married South Korean adults (M = 54.43 years; 49.4% male). The resulting network revealed a closely connected triad of approach goals, spousal support, and marital adjustment, suggesting that motivational and relational factors form a cohesive system underlying marital functioning. Marital adjustment and approach goals emerged as the most central and bridging nodes, linking dispositional, motivational, and relational domains. Flow network analysis indicated that life satisfaction was directly associated with marital adjustment, spousal support, approach goals, higher extraversion, and lower neuroticism, whereas psychological distress was directly associated with higher neuroticism, lower marital adjustment, and stronger avoidance goals. Together, these findings indicate that psychological well-being is shaped by structurally differentiated configurations of dispositional, motivational, and relational factors, rather than by additive or dominant-factor effects within any single domain.