relationship between personality traits and couples’ marital adjustment: the mediating role of love styles

the aim of the present study was to determine the mediating role of love styles in the relationship between personality traits and couples’ marital adjustment. the research method is correlational which was carried out using structural equation modeling (sem). the research population comprised all the couples referring to the family court in tabriz. 280 subjects were selected from this population using the availability sampling method and were matched on the basis of such characteristics as age and duration of marriage. then the subjects were asked to complete the marital adjustment scale, the short neo-personality inventory, and the love attitudes scale (las). to test the theoretical model of the research, the path analysis was utilized and the indirect effects were estimated by amos bootstrapping test. the findings revealed that neuroticism in reverse order (p<0.01) and extroversion, agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness positively (p<0.01) predicted marital adjustment. the path analysis results indicated that friendly, lustful, logical, artistic and devotional love styles can play a mediating role, both partially and completely, in regard to personality traits and marital adjustment. such variables as lovemaking styles can be manipulated and changed due to their dynamic, changeable and trainable nature. hence, confirmation of the role of these processes in the model proposed by the research suggest that marriage and family counselors should focus on improving couples’ communication and lovemaking patterns in their interventions instead of focusing solely on fixed factors.