Examining the Relationship Between Thinking and Problem-Solving Styles with Marital Satisfaction in Women Experiencing Spousal Emotional and Cultural Abuse

This research aimed to examine the relationship between thinking and problem-solving styles with marital satisfaction in women who experienced spousal emotional and cultural abuse. The statistical population of the study consisted of all women who had experienced spousal emotional and cultural abuse in Yazd city. Among them, 150 individuals were selected as the sample using purposive sampling method. The research was designed as a descriptive correlational. To collect data, the Enrich Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire (Fowers & Olson, 1989), Thinking Styles Questionnaire (Sternberg and Wagner, 1991), and Problem-Solving Styles Questionnaire (Cassidy and Long, 1996) were implemented. The data were analyzed by applying Pearson correlation coefficient and simultaneous multiple regression as main statistical procedure. The results indicated a significant positive relationship between marital satisfaction, legislative thinking, executive thinking, hierarchical thinking, anarchic thinking, local thinking, introvert thinking, extrovert thinking and effective problem-solving styles. The results also revealed that marital satisfaction was significantly and negatively correlated with judicial thinking, monarchic thinking and inefficient problem solving styles. And that there was not existed a significant correlation between monarchic thinking, global thinking, liberal thinking, conservative thinking styles and marital satisfaction. The findings also showed that legislative thinking, hierarchical thinking, local thinking, introvert thinking, effective and inefficient problem-solving styles predicated 56.9 percent of the marital satisfaction variance (p<0.001). Other variables were not able to predict the marital satisfaction. Therefore, some of the thinking styles and problem solving styles in women who experienced spousal emotional and cultural misbehaviors could improve marital satisfaction by taking advantage of proper social and cultural contexts.