The mediating role of emotional expressiveness in the relationship between Hexaco personality traits with internet betrayal in students

According to the cognitive-behavioral approaches in family-related issues, personality and emotional factors play a significant role in the type of tendency of couples to infidelity. This research was conducted to investigate the mediating role of emotional expressivity in the relationship between HEXACO personality traits and internet infidelity in college students.

This descriptive research is a correlational type based on structural modeling. The statistical population of this research was all 324 married female students in the nursing faculty of Babol University in the academic year of 2021-2022. Two hundred and fifty samples were selected via simple random method. Internet Infidelity Questionnaire (IIQ), HEXACO Personality Traits Questionnaire (HEXACO), and King and Emmons Emotional Expressivity Questionnaire (EEQ) were used to collect data. To analyze the results, the Pearson correlation method and structural equations were used with SPSS 18 and AMOS 23 software .

The findings showed that HEXACO personality traits and emotional expressivity had a direct effect of -0.309 and -0.265 on internet infidelity, respectively. The indirect effect of HEXACO personality traits with the mediating role of emotional expressivity on internet infidelity was equal to -0.46. According to the values obtained from the fit indices, the research model was confirmed and a total of 39% of internet infidelity could be explained by the variables of HEXACO personality traits and emotional expressivity.

Emotional expressivity can be a negative and significant mediator in the relationship between HEXACO personality traits and internet infidelity in college students.