Fatal flaws in “The relationship between personality traits and marital satisfaction: a systematic review and meta-analysis”

The core results from a recent BMC Psychology meta-analysis represent errors of extraordinary magnitude and implausibility, with reported correlations between marital satisfaction and the Big Five traits as high as r = .90. Inspection of the paper reveals that standardized z-statistics were misinterpreted as correlation coefficients, producing effect sizes far beyond plausible limits. Despite the error’s remarkable implausibility, the article has remained unretracted for five years and accumulated over two hundred citations, none expressing doubt. The handling journal acknowledges the problem but reports no process for publishing error-only reports. This episode illustrates a failure of science’s self-correction mechanisms and highlights the demotivating effect of uncorrected errors on conscientious researchers. It also raises broader questions about journal accountability and impact-factor systems that equate venues regardless of their capacity for post-publication correction.