Parental marital conflict and emotional needs in marriage and love of female college students

In China, the emotional needs in marriage and love among contemporary female college students are gradually increasing. These emotional needs profoundly influence their future choices in marriage, love, and family life. Therefore, exploring the antecedent variables and boundary effects of emotional needs in marriage and love is of great significance. This study utilized a questionnaire method to survey 450 female college students in a specific region of China. It focused on the relationship between parental marital conflict and female college students' emotional needs in marriage and love, particularly examining the mediating role of basic psychological need satisfaction and the moderating role of feminist identity. The results indicated that: (1) Perception of parental marital conflict negatively predicts female college students' emotional needs in marriage and love; (2) Basic psychological need satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between perception of parental marital conflict and female college students' emotional needs in marriage and love; (3) Feminist identity significantly moderates the second half of the mediation model. Specifically, for female college students with a high level of feminist identity, the positive predictive effect of basic psychological need satisfaction on emotional needs in marriage and love is weaker. This means that female college students with a high level of feminist identity can maintain higher levels of emotional needs in marriage and love despite perceiving more parental marital conflicts, even when their basic psychological need satisfaction is lower.