Reviewer Response Letter

1. The Reviewer made an excellent point in reference to personality traits vs. affective states. The Reviewer discussed confusion as to which is the focus of the paper. I agree with the Reviewer that this distinction is important. Therefore, I have included in the literature review a section on personality development and assessment based on the Five-Factor Model of personality. I have also placed greater emphasis on interpersonal theory of personality, specifically outlining how stable personality traits are developed through interpersonal transactions.
2. The Reviewer requested a distinction between depression and anxiety resulting from a CVD diagnosis and symptoms and pre-existing depression and anxiety. I have two responses to this request. Our first is that while this distinction is important, I argue that the NEO-PI-R assesses for enduring personality traits, rather than time or context specific states. Second, I feel that I failed to highlight the fact that our sample was recruited based on healthy status, and exclusion criteria included a CVD diagnosis. The ambulatory symptoms I assessed for are indicators of risk for CVD, and not CVD itself. Therefore, depression and anxiety related to CVD are not a focus of this paper.
3. The Reviewer suggested a clear and deliberate definition of marital quality and marital satisfaction, and I agree that these concepts need to be defined upfront. I have included these definitions, as well as discussions on how these particular constructs relate to interpersonal processes and personality. The Reviewer also suggested tying the concepts of marital satisfaction to childhood attachment security. While I agree that a discussion on childhood attachment security would add to the depth and make the paper more comprehensive, I feel that it is not an essential component, and due to the length restriction it would not be optimal to include it.
4. The Reviewer recommended that I provide a more detailed explanation of how partner personality affects CVD development. While the Reviewer referenced this as a more minor point, I would actually argue that partner effects need to be highlighted as the main focus of the paper. This is because there is scant literature on the effects of partner personality on physiological indicators of CVD development, and my hope is that this study will contribute to this literature and emphasize the need for expansion. Therefore, I have more directly addressed this gap in the literature, and expanded on our discussion of why I reason that partner personality will impact CVD related physiology. I focus primarily on how a