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Relationship between Chinese Partners’ Marital Attitudes and Conflict Coping: A Network Analysis

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Abstract

The psychology of marriage suggests that the partners’ way of dealing with conflicts affects intimacy. However, related studies have paid less attention to wisdom, and the traditional latent variable theory measures the overall score ignoring the direct effect of the variables. Therefore, considering the latent variable structural equation model, network analysis was used to explore the relationship between wise reasoning strategies and conflict coping. An online survey of 595 (M = 24.43, SD = 4.64) persons in intimate relationships was conducted using the Chinese versions of the Marital attitude Scale, Intimate Relationship Coping Styles Scale, and Situated Wise Reasoning Scale. Structural equation and network analysis models were analyzed. The results show that wise reasoning completely mediated the relationships between marital attitude and voice, and marital attitude and loyalty. The perspectives of others had the strongest centrality, followed by the integration of these perspectives/compromises, recognition of uncertainty and change, and intellectual humility. The perspectives of others had the highest bridge correlation with the coping style, whereas voice had the highest bridge correlation with wise reasoning. Individuals with positive marital attitudes and greater wisdom choose constructive coping methods to solve intimate relationship conflicts and voice methods to solve disagreements based on the perspective of others.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (Grantnumber:KYCX24_1717).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China

    Hongyi Lin, Hong Zheng & Xiao Kong

Contributions

All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript. Author Hongyi Lin: data collection; analysis and interpretation of results; draft manuscript preparation. Author Xiao Kong: analysis and interpretation of results; draft manuscript preparation; enrich the content of the article with processing and polishing. Author Hong Zheng: design the article framework; provide constructive comments for the writing of the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiao Kong.

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Conflict of Interests

Author Hongyi Lin, Author Xiao Kong, and Author Hong Zheng declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics Approval

All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Cite this article

Lin, H., Zheng, H. & Kong, X. Relationship between Chinese Partners’ Marital Attitudes and Conflict Coping: A Network Analysis. Psychol Stud (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-025-00838-1

  • Received
  • Accepted
  • Published
  • DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-025-00838-1

Keywords

  • Marital attitude
  • Intimate relationship
  • Conflict coping style
  • Wise reasoning
  • Network analysis

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