The Evidence-Based Trait Scorecard
Screen partners on the traits that longitudinal data proves actually predict lasting love
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 82%
Drawing on longitudinal studies that assessed people before marriage and tracked them for decades, Tashiro turns the Big Five, attachment theory, and the dark triad into a partner-evaluation scorecard. The green flags are agreeableness, emotional stability, secure attachment, and a demonstrated capacity for growth; the red flags are high uncontrolled neuroticism, excessive sensation seeking, insecure attachment, and any dark triad trait. The critical decision rule is that satisfaction is governed not by how well two personalities match but by whoever holds the worst traits, because it takes two people to make a relationship work and only one to make it fail. Risk factors are not deal-breakers alone but accumulate multiplicatively, and so do good traits, so the goal is stacking healthy traits and screening out the dangerous stack.
Origin
Synthesized by Ty Tashiro from decades of longitudinal personality and attachment research, including University of Minnesota studies tracking people from the womb into adult relationships, and his own graduate mentors' findings.
Core principles
- 01Choose on traits that predict long-term satisfaction, not on chemistry alone
- 02Relationships fall to the level of the worst partner's traits
- 03Risk factors stack multiplicatively, both bad and good
- 04Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior
- 05Traits are stable; betting on someone changing is a bad bet
How to run it
- 1
Screen out uncontrolled neuroticism
Watch for moodiness, high-activation anger, and over-reactivity; if you feel like you walk on eggshells, that is the tell. High neuroticism predicts lower satisfaction for both partners and higher divorce risk.
Pro tip Neuroticism is acceptable when the person is self-aware and actively working on it; it is destructive when unmanaged.
- 2
Select for agreeableness
Prioritize kindness, empathy, and generosity. Agreeable partners trust more, give more freely to the relationship, and are more attentive to your needs.
Pro tip "They're nice" is one of the best things a friend can say about a partner, however unsexy it sounds.
- 3
Limit sensation seeking
High sensation seekers are thrilling early but bore easily and skew toward risky behavior like substance abuse and infidelity. Some is fine; too much predicts spectacular blow-ups.
Pro tip Check whether they have self-awareness and guardrails around their impulsiveness, not just how fun they are.
- 4
Read their attachment style
Assess whether they are securely, anxiously, or avoidantly attached. Anxious push-pull clinginess and avoidant stonewalling are stable and predictive; insecure attachment is a red flag.
Pro tip About two-thirds of people are secure, and some insecure people become 'earn secures' through real work; expecting them to change for you is the mistake.
Watch out Do not bet on changing their attachment style, or on your own optimism that it will resolve itself.
- 5
Avoid the dark triad
Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism are oddly attractive, exciting, and even better in bed early on, but curdle into low impulse control, manipulation, and cheating in a committed relationship.
Pro tip Expect a siren's call toward these traits and pre-commit to being on the lookout.
- 6
Weight capacity for growth
Beyond personality, prize genuine interest and dogged persistence in self-improvement. It is the trait that lets a close-enough starting point move toward a healthier partnership over years.
Pro tip Distinguish loud 'radical' resolutions from the quiet, years-long commitment that actually changes a person.
- 7
Apply the worst-trait rule
Do not evaluate personality match. Identify whichever partner carries the worst traits, because the relationship falls to that level regardless of how healthy the other person is.
Watch out Stacked bad traits (neurotic + disagreeable + sensation-seeking) compound into sociopath-shaped risk; stacked good traits compound in your favor.
In the wild
Tashiro describes meeting friends' partners under mild duress to observe how they respond to stress, and using the wait-staff test to see whether neuroticism cracks through. In one longitudinal example he cites, University of Minnesota researchers tracked children from the third trimester for 30-40 years and found early secure, anxious, or avoidant behaviors robustly predicted how those people managed conflict and emotion with romantic partners decades later.
→ A stable, measurable trait profile forecasts adult relationship behavior, validating screening on attachment rather than hoping chemistry overrides it.
Common mistakes
Optimizing for personality match
Meta-analyses of tens of thousands of couples show matching on personality barely predicts satisfaction; the worst partner's traits matter far more than similarity.
Betting they'll change
Roughly 75-80% of neurotic people stay neurotic; assuming your partner is the exception, or that you'll change them, is a losing wager.
Is it for you?
Best for
Someone evaluating a new or serious partner who wants to convert relationship science into a concrete screen.
Not ideal for
Casual short-term dating where long-term compatibility is explicitly not the goal.
From the transcript
“It takes two people to make it work and only one person to make it not work.”
“What matters is which partner has the worst traits in the relationship.”
From the episode
How To Find The Love Of Your Life - Ty Tashiro - #926
Ty Tashiro