Distress of Marital Relationship: The Predictive Role of Positive Meta-Emotion and Machiavellianism in Married People

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of positive meta-emotion and Machiavellianism in predicting distress of marital relationships in married people in Rasht. The method of this study was descriptive-correlational. The whole couples of Rasht city in the summer of 2019 were constituted the statistical population of this study. Two hundred people from this statistical population were selected randomly by multi-stage cluster sampling and participated in this study. The instruments of Marital Taxon Self-Report Measure of Whisman and et al (MTSRM) (2009), Meta-Emotion Scale of Mitmansgruber and et al (MES) and short version of dark triad personality traits) SDTPM( of Jonason & Webster were used for gathering data. The collected data were analyzed using Pearson correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis by spss23 software. The results showed that positive meta-emotion has a negative relationship with the distress of marital relationships and Machiavellianism has a positive and significant relationship with the distress of marital relationships. Also, total positive meta-emotion and Machiavellianism explain 60.8% of the variance in distress of marital relationships. The results of this study show that the lack of awareness of couples about their personality and emotional characteristics can be a risk factor for marital distress, so holding workshops for couples can reduce the severity of marital distress.