Abstract
This study examined emotion regulation difficulties (i.e., nonacceptance, daily interference, lack of awareness, lack of control, and lack of clarity) as possible mediators of the association between adult attachment and forgiveness in the context of divorce/separation, and the moderating role of sex and joint children. A sample of 1,185 participants completed measures of attachment, emotion regulation difficulties and forgiveness. Results revealed that in the whole sample attachment anxiety was only directly whereas attachment avoidance was indirectly associated with the degree of forgiveness to the ex-partner through lack of awareness. However, multigroup analysis showed that patterns observed in the whole sample are different for men and women having children or not with the ex-partner. The findings of this research show the importance of attachment and emotion regulation difficulties to understand the process of dealing with resentment and hostility towards an ex-partner in the context of divorce/ separation and demonstrate how sex and parenting differences modulate these relations. Among other aspects, the model had a greater explanatory power in people without joint children. In sum. these findings and their implications are discussed and the importance of considering moderating variables when examining forgiveness and other indicators of adjustment to divorce/separation is highlighted.
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The datasets analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy issues related to the participants but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
As suggested by one of the reviewers, Harman’s single factor test was run to assess whether common method bias (CMB) affected our results. A single factor had a very poor fit (χ2(464) = 9765.96, p < .0001; RMSEA = .130, CFI = .620, TLI = .594) and only accounted for 35.3% of the variance of items. According to the traditional interpretation of the test, these results reveal that CMB may not a critical treat to the hypothesized relationships in our model.
During the review process we were asked to estimate our model using scale scores to test the fit of the structural part of the model. We used summed items to represent each dimension and then, estimated a path model in which all variables were treated as observed. The model had a good fit to the data (χ2(7) = 24.99, p = .001, RMSEA = .047, CFI = .994, TLI = .971). Even though this seems to provide evidence of the validity of our theoretical model, it must be noted that latent variables and scale scores are not equivalent. Latent variables are free of measurement error, whereas scales scores are not. Such error produce biased results (Lord & Novic, 1968; Rdz-Navarro, 2019; Skrondal & Laake, 2001) even when the model fits the data. For this reason, true latent variable models should be given precedence compared to models using scale scores (Rdz-Navarro, 2019).
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This work was supported by the National Fund for Scientific and Technologic Development of Chile [FONDECYT 1150044].
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Guzmán-González, M., Navarro, K. & Tay-Karapas, K. Attachment, emotion regulation difficulties, and forgiveness to the ex-partner: The moderating role of sex and joint children. Curr Psychol 42, 31687–31700 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-04191-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-04191-8