Developing and Evaluating a Structural Model of the Relationship Between Attachment Styles and Emotional Schemas Related to the Desire for Marriage Regarding the Mediating Variable of Emotion Regulation and Cognitive Flexibility

Attachment styles are related to the ability to regulate emotions and cognitive flexibility; Therefore, there is this hypothesis that people's desire to marry is influenced by secure, avoidant, and ambivalent attachment styles, and positive emotional schemas; Also, emotional regulation and flexibility can be important in this case. In this way, the present research sought to investigate these relationships.

This study is a type of correlation design based on the analysis of structural relationships (structural equation modeling). The statistical sample in this study was 500 students of Shahed University of Tehran and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2020-2021. The tools used in this study include the following questionnaires: Por-Etemad et al.'s Marriage Desire Scale, which was created in 2012, Gross's Emotional Regulation Questionnaire was created in 2003, Leahy's Emotional Schemas Questionnaire was created in 2012, and the Flexibility Questionnaire. The recognition was developed by Dennis et al., 2010, and the Besharat adult attachment scale was developed in 2016. Questionnaires were completed through sharing in virtual space. In analyzing the findings of this study, descriptive statistics methods were used using SPSS software, and path coefficients between model variables in Lisrel software and other fit indices were used.

The findings showed that all kinds of attachment styles can affect the desire to marry. Also, attachment styles had significant relationships with cognitive reappraisal, emotion suppression, and cognitive flexibility. Among the emotional schemas, only the emotion controllability schema was able to significantly predict the desire to marry. In the investigation of indirect relationships, we saw that the effect of attachment styles and control schema on willingness to marry decreased with the inclusion of mediator variables. And the biggest effect was related to cognitive flexibility variable.

The findings of the research showed the effect of attachment styles and emotional schemas on the degree of people's willingness to marry, relying on the methods of evaluation and management of emotions and their cognitive flexibility. Therefore, these variables can be taken into consideration in the scope of interpersonal communication and psychological problems in creating and maintaining effective relationships and increasing willingness to marry.