The relationship between emotional exhaustion and attitudes toward infidelity among married students of Payam Noor Nowshahr University: the mediating role of marital commitment

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between emotional exhaustion and the attitude towards cheating of married students with the mediating role of marital commitment. The current research was descriptive-correlation based on the path analysis method. The research community consisted of all married students of Payam Noor Nowshahr University in the academic year 2022-2023, from whom 300 people were selected as a sample. The tools of this research included Whiteley's Infidelity Attitude Questionnaire (1995, ATIS), Jung's Emotional Exhaustion Questionnaire (2006, JEEQ), and Adams and Jones' Marital Commitment Questionnaire (1997, CPQ). Data were analyzed using path analysis. Data analysis showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between emotional exhaustion and attitude towards marital infidelity and a significant negative relationship between emotional exhaustion and marital commitment at the level of 0.01. In addition, a significant inverse relationship was found between marital commitment and attitude toward marital infidelity (P<0.01). Also, emotional exhaustion through marital commitment has an indirect effect on students' attitudes toward marital infidelity and this effect is (0.071). Based on the above results, the emotional commitment model had a favorable fit in the relationship between emotional exhaustion and attitude towards marital infidelity. As a result, it can be said that emotional exhaustion in married students can cause attitudes toward marital infidelity and reduce their marital commitment.