Direct and Indirect Effect of Perspective-taking on Marital Quality: Testing a Mediation Model

Studies show that perspective-taking can have a significant impact on the couple’s marital quality. This impact can be direct or indirect and can be in interaction with other psychological significant variables such as communication patterns. This study aimed to investigate direct and indirect effects of perspective-taking on marital quality with mediating of Communication Patterns (mutual constructive communication pattern, demand/ with drywal and mutual avoidance communication patterns). The participants of the study were 300 married teachers who were living in Ahvaz and were selected by multiphasic random sampling method. Participants completed marital Quality Index (QMI), Communication Patterns Questionnaire (CPQ), Self-Dyadic Perspective Taking Scale (SDPT), and Other Dyadic Perspective Taking Scale (ODPT). The data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and also the indirect effects were tested by bootstrapping method of AMOS/18 software. The results showed that the proposed model had a good fit for the data. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that other dyadic perspective-taking was directly Positive predictive of marital quality. Self-dyadic perspective-taking and other-dyadic perspective-taking, through mutual constructive communication pattern indirectly was positive predictor of marital quality and mutual constructive communication pattern directly was positive predictor of marital quality. The result also showed that demand/ with drawl and mutual avoidance communication patterns were directly predictor of marital quality. Also, self-dyadic and other-dyadic perspective-taking, through demand/with drawl and mutual avoidance communication patterns were indirectly negative predictor of marital quality.