Abstract:

In this study, the impact of emotion regulation on marital satisfaction in married individuals and the mediating role of self-compassion were investigated. It was assumed that married individuals with high levels of self-compassion would use emotion regulation more effectively to increase marital satisfaction. The study was conducted with 207 female and 193 male participants aged between 17-61 who were married and had at least a high school diploma, living in Turkey. The data collection tools used in the study were the Demographic Information Form, the Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Scale (CERS), and the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS). Simple regression analysis was applied between variables. According to the analysis results, adaptive emotion regulation strategies positively and significantly predicted marital satisfaction and self-compassion, while maladaptive strategies negatively and significantly predicted marital satisfaction and self- compassion. As a result, when self-compassion was added to the equation for both dimensions of emotion regulation, the predictive effect of the independent variable that predicted the dependent variable at a significant level was lost. Therefore, it was found that self-compassion had the characteristic of a full mediator between emotion regulation skills and marital satisfaction. After discussing all these findings in the light of relevant literature, suggestions were made for researchers and practitioners.

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