The role of gender schemas by mediating fairness style in predicting sexual pain disorder: Study of structural equation model

The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between gender schemas and sexual pain disorder by mediating social exchange styles. Statistical population was composed of all women that referred to sexual clinics of Tehran city that 220 qualified women selected by clustering sampling method. The research tool included Gender Schemas Scale (Andersen & Cyranowski, 1994) Multidimensional Vaginal Penetration Disorder Questionnaire (Molaie Nezhad, et al., 2014), and Social Exchange Styles Scale (Leybman etai., 2011). The Fitness of the proposed model was estimated through structural equation modeling (SEM) and using Lisrel software package. The mediating relationship in the proposed pattern was tested using the bootstrap procedure. The results of structural equation modeling indicating relative fitness of model and showed that sexual passionate-romantic schema and the sexual shy-prudential schema with the mediation of fairness style had an indirect effect on sexual pain disorder. According to results for the improvement of social exchange styles particularly fairness style must be considered. Training and intervention based on social exchange theory is recommended to therapists of sexual health field for decreasing sexual problems of women with sexual pain disorder.