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Besharat M, Tajdin S, Gholamali Lavasani M. (2017). The mediating role of difficulty in emotion regulation on the relationship between attachment styles and marital conflicts . Journal of Psychological Science. 16(61), 20-44.
URL: http://psychologicalscience.ir/article-1-155-en.html

Attachment is a behavioral system formed to regulate proximity of the child to the parent or the primary care-giver when danger or anxiety to increase his/her chance of survival. It is supposed that different attachment styles are related to marital conflicts in different ways, and there are many factors that can influence the relationship between attachment styles and marital conflicts. The present study aims to examine the mediating role of difficulty in emotion regulation on the relationship between attachment styles and marital conflicts. A total of 270 married adults (145 men, 125 women) participated in the present study. Participants were asked to complete Adult Attachment Inventory (AAI), the Golombok-Rust Inventory of Marital State Questionnaire (GRIMS), and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Method of the present descriptive study was correlational. Analysis of the data involved both descriptive and inferential statistics including means, standard deviations, correlation, and path analysis. The results reveal that avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles and difficulty in emotion regulation had significant positive association with marital conflicts (p< 0.001), but there was no significant association between secure attachment style and marital conflicts. The results of the path analysis demonstrated that difficulty in emotion regulation plays a mediating role on the relation between avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles with marital conflicts (p <0.001). Based on the findings of the present study it can be concluded that people with insecure attachment styles have problem in establishing interpersonal relationships, especially with their spouse’s; problems which are partly influenced by difficulty in emotion regulation and management.