Emotional charactristics of personality, cognitive problems, emotional regulation strategies and marital adjustment: a comparative study in women with high and low fear of infidility

Despite the complexities and high prevalence of marital infidelity and its detrimental consequences in addition to its emotional load in marital relationships, particularly in women, not much research has been conducted because the taboo nature of this issue.

As such, the purpose of this study was to compare the emotional characteristics of personality, cognitive problems, emotional regulation strategies and marital adjustment in women with high fear and low fear of marital infidelity.

The present research is a causal comparative research. The sample consists of 89 women from the city of Karaj who referred to counseling centers for marital problems and met the entry and exit criteria and agreed to participate in the study and were selected by available method. The research instrument consisted of the Montreal Cognitive Function Questionnaire, the Emotional Characteristics of Cloninger Personality Questionnaire, the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), the Marital Adjustment Scale (DAS), and a single question assessing fear of infidelity based on a 9-degree likert type. Data were analyzed by SPSS 23 software and factor analysis using independent t-test and non-parametric Mann-Whitney test.

There was a significant difference between emotional characteristics of personality, the rate of re-evaluation strategy and the degree of marital adjustment of women with high fear and low fear of marital infidelity (P<0.05). Also, there was no significant difference between cognitive performance and emotional rejection strategies in women with high fear and low fear of marital infidelity (P>0.05).

Given the present findings with differences in variables in two groups of women with high and low fear of infidelity, it can have practical implications for family and couple councilors