Marital Quality Among Married Individuals: Role of Conflict Resolution Styles and Emotional Intelligence

Marital quality has been explored from many different perspectives both in eastern and western studies. A few indigenous studies have considered impact of communication skills and communication patterns on marital quality but hardly there is any study which has discussed specifically conflict resolution styles that married individuals employ in their marital conflicts and how these styles affect their marital quality. This study was an attempt to analyze the relationship between conflict resolution styles and marital quality and to explore whether emotional intelligence strengthens or weakens this relationship. Moreover, effect of different demographic variables, like age, number of children, etc. on marital quality was also explored. Sample consisted of 201 married individuals residing in Rawalpindi and Islamabad and data were collected through ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale (Fowers & Olson, 1993), Brief Emotional Intelligence Scale (Davies et al., 2010), and Conflict Resolutions Styles Inventory (Kurdek, 1994). Results showed that among conflict resolution styles, only positive problem solving had a positive association with marital quality while all other styles showed either a negative or insignificant relationship.