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South Journal of Educational Psychology and Counseling
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The Relationship between Marital Conflicts and Early Maladaptive Schemas with Psychological Well-being among Couples in Tehran
Maryam Jalali*1 , Syead Hossin Hossini 2
1
(M.A Student of Counseling, Islamic Azad University,KhominiShahr Branch, Iran).
2
(M.A Student of Counseling, Hormozgan University.Hormozgan, Iran).
*Corresponding author : Maryam jalali
To cite this paper: Jalali, M, Hosseini, H.(2017). The Relationship between Marital Conflicts and Early Maladaptive Schemas with Psychological Well-being among Couples in Tehran
South journal of Educational Psychology and Counseling, 4, 1, 53-59.
Abstract:
Introduction
Well-being which is an issue that has preoccupied the minds of thinkers for centuries most recently has become the focus of a branch of psychology called positive psychology (Aghababaei and Farahani, 2011). People, who feel higher well-being, experience positive emotions and have a positive assessment about their surrounding events, but people with low sense of well-being assess their situations and life events unfavorably and experience more negative emotions such as anxiety, depression and anger (Myers and Diener, 1995).
A sense of well-being includes both emotional components and the cognitive components (Hosseini, Farahbakhsh and Klantar Kousheh, 2014). Psychological well-being is the individual's emotional and cognitive assessment of his/her life and includes the experience of pleasant emotions, low levels of negative mood and high life satisfaction (Clarke and Goosen, 2009), and is considered as the positive performance in the individuals' lives (Keys, 2007). Ryff (1989) has defined psychological well-being as an attempt for perfecting and maximizing personal potentials. Family is one of the basic pillars of society and the most important social unit in which well-being has been greatly considered and attention to it is of great importance.
One of the variables which affect couples’ psychological well-being is schema. By emphasis on schemas, Young stated that the schemas may be inactive at a special time and then gain energy due to a change in the type of inputs received from the environment and quickly become active. This fact may cause bias in the interpersonal psychopathology of couples and realize as misunderstanding, distorted attitudes, false assumptions, unrealistic goals and expectations (Young, Gluhoski and Wishar, 1997). As defined by Young, early maladaptive schemas are immersive and surrounding patterns or themes that are formed in childhood or adolescence, continued on the path of life, related to the individual’s relation with self and others are intensively inefficient. Also considering to the five basic needs, there are five areas of early maladaptive schemas that are associated with these needs. He has identified several special schemas for each area. Most people have at least two or three schemas. These five areas are disconnection and rejection, impaired autonomy or performance, impaired limits, other-directedness, over-vigilance/inhibition (Young et al., 2003). In this study, we intend to investigate the maladaptive schemas in the field of disconnection and rejection.
People whose schemas are in the field of disconnection and rejection cannot establish secure and satisfying attachments to others. Such individuals believe that their need for stability, security, affection, love and devotion will not be met. Their main families are usually unstable (abandonment/instability), abuse (mistrust/abuse), cold and heartless (emotional deprivation), rejected (defectiveness/shame) or isolated (social isolation/alienation) (Young et al., 2003).
Bidadian, Bahramizadeh and Poursharifi (2011) found that the aspects of life quality are negatively correlated with early maladaptive schemas. Yousefi et al., (2011) showed that the schemas of mistrust/abuse, unrelenting standards/hypercriticalness, and emotional inhibition could highly and significantly predict divorce.
there are hostile behaviors such as insult, blaming, criticizing and physical attack, and couples feel animosity, hatred and anger towards each other, and each believe that "his/her spouse is an incompatible and maladjusted individual who causes his/her suffering and pain" (Farahbakhsh, 2004). Conflict becomes the inseparable and permanent part of marriage and marital relations and if the couples could not solve it well, it will bring about adverse effects for family (Tafreshi et al., 2013). The relationship problems are the key points in communication approaches to family. These approaches analyze marital conflict as a maladaptive relationship (Rezazadeh, 2008).
Therefore, regarding the issues raised and that the marital conflicts and the early maladaptive schemas are correlated with marital health and family well-being and affect the marital psychological well-being, the present study seeks to answer the question that "are the marital conflicts and the early maladaptive schemas related to psychological well-being of couples in Tehran or not?
Research method
In terms of data collection method, the research method was descriptive and of correlational type.
Study population, sampling method and sample size: The statistical population of
this study was the couples in Tehran. In the present study, the random sampling method was used and thus 200 people among the couples referred to counseling centers of Tehran were selected as the sample size.
Data collection instruments Young's Schema Questionnaire
Young and Long (1998) Schema Questionnaire (short form) was used to measure early maladaptive schemas for exclusion and disconnection. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for subscales of the non-clinical population were obtained 0.5-0.82. In Shanbadi (2016), to measure the early maladaptive schemas of exclusion and disconnection areas, the first 25 items of the Young's early maladaptive schema questionnaire were used. Cronbach's alpha for this study was 0.79.
Marital Conflict Questionnaire (MCQ)
Marital conflict questionnaire is a 42-item questionnaire to assess conflicts between couples developed by Sanaie in 2000. The questionnaire measures seven dimensions of marital conflict. Collaboration reduction, reduced sex, increased emotional reactions, increased children’s protection, reduction of family relationship with the partner’s relatives and friends, increased personal relationship with his/her own relatives and separating the financial affairs from each other constitute the seven components of marital conflict questionnaire. In a study by Khazaei (2006), the scores of all components of marital conflict questionnaire were from 0.31 to 0.82 which had significant correlations with the total score of marital conflicts at the significance level of 0.01.
Psychological Well-Being Scale
purposefulness in life, environmental mastery, and personal development were 0.93, 0.91, 0.86, 0.87, 0.90 and 0.87 respectively. In Farshad (2015), Cronbach's alpha coefficients for self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, independence, environmental mastery, personal development and purposefulness in life were 0.54, 0.66, 0.65, 0.53, 0.71 and 0.59, respectively; and the total score was 0.72.
Data analysis method
After collecting the data, we used descriptive and inferential methods to analyze them that in the descriptive statistics the mean and standard deviation were calculated and in the inferential statistics the data were analyzed using correlation coefficient and multiple regression method.
Results
In this study, the marital conflicts and the early maladaptive schemas and their relations with psychological well-being have been measured, and the descriptive findings on the research variables are given in table 1.
Table 1. The descriptive findings on the research variables
Statistical indicators No. Mean SD Min. Max.
Marital conflicts 200 5.63 0.99 4.00 9.00
Early maladaptive schemas 200 47.10 20.19 21.00 101.00
Psychological well-being 200 181.20 13.19 46.00 312.00
According to the data in the above table, for marital conflicts the mean and standard deviation are 5.63 and 0.99, respectively; for the early maladaptive schemas, the mean and standard deviation are 47.10 and 20.19; and for psychological well-being, the mean and standard deviation are 181.20 and 13.19, respectively.
Statistical analysis of research hypothesis
In this study, the hypothesis has been designed in accordance with the research subject, which to test it various statistical tests such as Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression analysis were used that are discussed below.
The hypothesis: There is a relationship between marital conflicts and the early
maladaptive schemas with psychological well-being in couples referred to counseling centers.
To test this hypothesis, Pearson correlation coefficient was used that the information is presented in the following table.
Table 2. Pearson correlation coefficient for the research hypothesis
Statistical indicators Variables 1 2 3
Marital conflicts -
Early maladaptive schemas 0.45 -
Psychological well-being -0.43 **-0.31 -
To predict the psychological well-being based on the marital conflicts and the early maladaptive schemas, multiple regression method was used which is presented below. Also, the null hypothesis and its reverse are as follows:
Table 3. Results of regression for psychological well-being based on the marital conflicts and the early
maladaptive schemas
Model Sum of squares df Mean of squares F R R2 R2adj Sig
Regression 1411.32 2 705.66 16.16 0.47 0.22 0.20 0.001
Remainder 4934.22 197 43.66
Total 12661.92 199
As can be seen in Table, the significance value is less than 0.01, which indicates the significance of the regression model, i.e., at least one of the predicting variables has a significant effect on criterion variable. In this study, the value of R2 equals to 0.22 which means that the marital conflicts and the early maladaptive schemas can predict 22% of psychological well-being, and the remainder percentage is related to prediction error.
Since the total model is significant, we must check which of the factors is not zero, or in other words, which variable(s) has (have) a significant impact in the model. For this purpose, t-test is used.
Table 4. Standard and nonstandard coefficients and t-test for variables entered in the
regression equation
Predicting variable Regression coefficients t-test Sig. Significance level
Non- standardized Standardized
Constant 12.24 5.44 0.015 0.05
Marital conflicts 1.84 0.24 -2.94 0.004 0.05
Early maladaptive schemas 0.59 0.35 -4.24 0.001 0.05
As the results in the above table show, the marital conflicts and early maladaptive schemas have a significant effect at the level of 5% on psychological well-being and in fact, being negative the coefficients indicate that by increasing these factors, the psychological well-being reduces.
Discussion and Conclusion
The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between marital conflicts and early maladaptive schemas with psychological well-being among couples. The results of the analysis of data show that there is a significant correlation between couples' marital conflicts and early maladaptive schemas with their psychological well-being.
present research are consistent with those of Mohammadi et al., (2011), Brian et al., (2007), and Young et al., (2003).
Young et al. (2003) showed that people who have maladaptive schemas are encountered with the problem of the life quality and do not experience well-being in its true meaning; which the result of it is consistent with that of the present study which indicates the relationship between psychological well-being and the early maladaptive schemas. Also, Hurley and Barker (2014) in a study similar to the present study concluded the same result; their research showed that the early maladaptive schemas cause a decrease in psychological health in adulthood, which is consistent with the result of the present study.
In explaining the findings of this research, it can be said that those who have a high quality life and enjoy happiness and well-being also have a good life and have less conflicts and early maladaptive schemas. Of limitations of this study, we can refer to this fact that since the research was a correlational one any manipulation and direct control did not perform on research variables. Another limitation was the lack of control on many variables possibly intervening in divorce, including the economic state and social class. Therefore, it is suggested in future researches on the topics about couples, different variables including socio-economic conditions are controlled as much as possible, and also the future researches will be carried out in various study populations and the cluster sampling method is applied; and consultants pay attention to the training for reducing the conflicts and enhancement of psychological well-being in couples.
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