The Study of Relationship Between Couple's Relational Beliefs and Irrational Expectations With Marital Satisfaction

In this study, the relationship between relational beliefs and irrational expectations of Iranian migrant couples were examined. The sample is composed of 50 Iranian couples (residents of Canada and Australia). Couples were recruited if accessible or volunteered to participate in this research. All the participants completed the following measures: Dyadic Adjustment Scale; Relationship believes Inventory (Epstein, 1992); and Non-logical Expectation Scale (Sahebi, 2005).The results of this study revealed that marital satisfaction and cognitive variables are correlated. Correlation coefficient between marital satisfaction and the belief "Disagreement is destructive" was 0.42; "mind reading is expected" 0.23, "partner cannot change" 0.59, "Sexual perfectionism" 0.32, and "Innate gender differences account for marital problems" 0.12.Correlation between marital satisfaction and non-logical expectations was 0.25.To assess the contribution of these variables in predicting marital satisfaction's variances, linear regression analysis was applied. Furthermore, to determine the specific contribution of each individual variable, a hierarchical regression analysis carried out, which revealed that cognitive variables are predicting in total 0.44 of marital satisfaction’s variance, from which 0.41 of variances is defined by two communication beliefs: "Disagreement is destructive"(0.19) and "partner cannot change" (0.22). The rest of the variables predicted less than 2 percent of the variance.The results of this study have applications in marital education courses and workshops.