Thesis Title: Personality, Empathy and Marital Conflicts in Married Individuals
Author: Amara Ilias
Supervisor: Waqas Hassan & Farah Malik
Year: 2017
Degree: MSC
Department: Institute of Applied Psychology
University: Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan
Corresponding Address: Department of Applied Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Email: chairperson@appsy.pu.edu.pk, Phone: 92-42-9231245
Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between personality, empathy and marital conflicts in married individuals. It was hypothesized that there is likely to be a positive relationship between agreeableness and openness to experience and empathy and negative relationships between empathy and marital conflicts. Further it was also hypothesized that the women may more responsible for creating conflicts in marital relationship. Correlational research design and convenient sampling technique was used to collect the data from married individuals (N = 103; male = 60 and female = 43 with age range between 25 to 45 years. The data was collected from different households. A demographic information sheet, Big Five Inventory (BFI) (John & Srivastava, 1999), Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) (Spreng, McKinnon, Mar & Levine, 2009) and Romantic Partner Conflict Scale (RPCS) (Zacchilli, Hndrick, & Hendrick, 2009) were used as assessment measures. Data was analyzed by using Pearson product Moment Correlation, linear regression and independent sample t-test. Results showed that among five personality factors the openness and agreeableness has strong negative relationship with marital conflicts and empathy has strong positive relationship with separation and submission. Linear regression showed that empathy appeared to be strongest predictor of marital conflicts among married individuals. No significant gender differences were found in marital conflicts among married individuals. This study may contribute to existing literature on marital conflicts and marital counseling in resolving the marital conflicts by identifying and reducing all those factors which cause marital conflicts among married individuals.
Keywords:
Personality, empathy and marital conflicts.
