Mediating Role of Neuroticism in the Relationship Between Romantic Attachment Styles and Mutual Relationships in Couples Referring to Divorce Centers

Among various factors that threaten marriage, extramarital relationships have become of increasing interest to researchers. Extramarital relationships of any secret romantic or sexual activity suggest that it occurs while the individual is in a completely private relationship, like marriage. The relationships in the foregoing relationships were found that each of them could be influenced by personality traits. Anxiety and neuroticism were also among the personality traits identified with fear, anxiety, malice, despair, hostility, and loneliness. The present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of neuroticism in the relationship between romantic attachment styles and extramarital relationships among couples who are seeking a divorce. We used modeling respecting the relationships between the study variables.

This descriptive-correlational research employed a structural equation modeling. The statistical population of this study included all couples referring to divorce counseling centers in districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 in Tehran City, Iran, in 2019. Furthermore, according to the number of observed variables and the allocation of the coefficient of 20 per observed variable (13 variables observed in the model), 270 subjects were selected as the study sample by purposive sampling method. The inclusion criteria of the study included female gender, referring to districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Tehran, referring to divorce centers for counseling, being married, declaring consent to cooperate in the study, and not presenting biopsychological problems according to the study participants’ self-report. The exclusion criterion of the study included providing incomplete questionnaires. Data collection tools were the Extramarital Relationships Questionnaire (Glass and Wright, 1992), Behavioral Systems Questionnaire-Revised (Farman & Wehner, 1999), and NEO Five-Factor Inventory-Revised (NEO-FFI) (McCurry and Costa, 1992). Mean and standard deviation indices were used to present the obtained descriptive statistics; for inferential statistics, the research data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and path analysis in SPSS and AMOS at a significance level of 0.05.

Safe attachment styles (β=-0.264, p<0.001), distressed (β=0.297, p<0.297), and discrete (β=0.191, p<0.001), as well as neuroticism (β=0.187, p<0.001) provided a direct and significant effect on extramarital affairs. Furthermore, secure attachment styles (β=-0.359, p<0.001), disturbed (β=0.331, p<0.001), and discrete (β=0.270, p<0.001) with the mediating role of neuroticism presented an indirect and significant effect on extramarital relationships. The calculated good fit indices revealed that neuroticism mediated the relationship between romantic attachment styles and extramarital relationships in the explored couples seeking divorce counseling. Additionally, the model for measuring the research variables was suitable (x2/df=2.748, CFI=0.957, GFI=0.993, NFI=0.963, RMSEA=0.42).

Based on the current study findings concerning the mediating role of neuropsychology in the relationship between romantic attachment styles and extramarital relationships in couples seeking a divorce, psychologists and consultants should pay attention to personality traits to reduce divorce rates.