The Discriminating Role of marital Conflict Resolution Strategies in the Levels of mindfulness

Literature describes the concept of mindfulness as a metacognitive ability to gain awareness about internal states. This study assumes that, in the marital relationship, this ability could facilitate the understanding of conflicting needs and resolution through the adoption of constructive conflict resolution strategies. Thus, the objective was to verify the discriminating role of marital conflict resolution strategies in two groups of individuals with high and low levels of mindfulness. The research sample consisted of 281 subjects (69 men and 212 women), over 18 years old (average = 32.94; SD = 8.41), in a stable relationship and cohabiting for at least six months. An online collection was performed in which participants answered the Mindfulness Awareness and Attention Scale (MAAS) and the Conflict Resolution Behavior Questionnaire (CRBQ), and the Conflict Resolution Style Inventory (CRSI). Discriminant multivariate analysis was performed using the SPSS version 22.0 program. The results show that the avoidance, attack, submission, and conflict involvement strategies discriminated the group with the lower levels of mindfulness, while the agreement and positive problem-solving ones differentiated the group with the higher levels of mindfulness, showing that strategies are theoretically consistent with the levels of mindfulness they represent. The strong explanatory power of the avoidance variable stands out, indicating a general difficulty of the participants in facing discomfort. There is a paucity of research on mindfulness in conjugality, which suggests an important relationship in the development of constructive strategies for conflict resolution.