The Impact of Marital Trust on Marital Conflicts: The Mediating Role of Communication Beliefs and Marital Self-Regulation in Women

Subject Areas : Psychology

Abdolsaleh Khazaei ¹ , Ali Poladei ² , Javad Ainipour ³

1 - PhD student in Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Bushehr, Iran.
2 - Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Payam Noor University, Bushehr, Iran.
3 - Associate professor, Department of psychology and education sciences, Amin Police University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2023-03-02 Accepted : 2023-11-20 Published : 2025-06-10

Keywords: Marital trust, Communication beliefs, Marital conflicts, Marital self-regulation, Women ,

Abstract :

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of marital trust on marital conflicts, with the mediating role of communication beliefs and marital self-regulation among married women who sought counseling services in the city of Bushehr. The statistical population of the study consisted of 487 married women who sought counseling services in the city of Bushehr. A sample of 250 individuals was selected using random sampling method. This study was a correlational research and path analysis was used to analyze the data. The data collection tools were the Interpersonal Trust Scale (Rampalle & Holmes, 1985), the Communication Beliefs Questionnaire (Wapstein & Idelson, 1981), the Marital Self-Regulation Scale (Wilson, Charker, Lizzio, Halford, & Kimlin, 2005), and the Marital Conflict Questionnaire (Sanaei, Alaghemand, Falahati Homan, 2008). The limitation of this study was that it was only conducted on women who sought counseling services in the city of Bushehr. The fit indices of the model showed an acceptable fit. The structural paths indicated that the path from marital trust to communication beliefs, from marital trust to marital self-regulation, from marital trust to marital conflicts, and from marital self-regulation to marital conflicts were significant at the level of p < .001, but the path from communication beliefs to marital conflicts was not significant at the level of p < .05. The R2 value indicated that 45% of the variance in marital conflicts could be explained by marital trust with the mediating role of marital self-regulation and communication beliefs among married women who sought counseling services in the city of Bushehr.

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