The purpose of this study was to identify communication patterns and to investigate the relationship with marital satisfaction of multicultural women. This study focused on whether self-esteem plays a mediating role between the relationship of communi...
The purpose of this study was to identify communication patterns and to investigate the relationship with marital satisfaction of multicultural women. This study focused on whether self-esteem plays a mediating role between the relationship of communication patterns and marital satisfaction. Findings of this study provide information and knowledge base for the development of services and programs that could enhance the marital satisfaction of multicultural women and suggest policies to improve the welfare of multicultural family.
This data were collected using questionnaire from multicultural women living in Daegu and Gyungbuk areas between June to September 2017. The questionnaire consisted of items which reflect communication patterns, self-esteem, marital satisfaction, and social demography characteristics. For the analysis, total 220 sample data were applied. The common factor and hierarchial multiple regression were used for the purpose of this study. Multicollinearity between the independent variables were verified by variance inflation factor. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS/PC program.
The data analysis applied in this study is as follows. Factor analysis was applied to identify the patterns of communication. Then, several regression analyses were conducted and Sobel test was applied to examine the mediating effect of self-esteem on marital satisfaction. In the regression analysis, final dependent variable was marital satisfaction, and self-esteem was applied to verify the mediating effect. This study proceed several steps to examine either partial or complete mediation pertinent for the analyses in which several regression analyses were conducted and significance of the coefficients was examined at each step. First, confirm that there is a significant relationship between patterns of communication and self-esteem. Second, ensure that self-esteem has a significant relationship with the marital satisfaction. Third, confirm that the effects of communication patterns on marital satisfaction increase or decrease when controlling the effect of the self-esteem.
As a result of factor analysis based on the communication items, it was categorized into 7 factors; critical, distributed, open, other-oriented, rigid, self-centered, and objective pattern. Those communication patterns perceived by multicultural women had cause-and-effect relationship with self-esteem as well as marital satisfaction. Regression analysis showed that the patterns of critical, distributed, open, rigid, and objective were significantly related with self-esteem. But among the patterns, other-oriented and self-centered pattern were not significant.
The relationship between self-esteem and marital satisfaction was analyzed and it was found that self-esteem was positively related with marital satisfaction at the significant level of p<0.01. This suggests that marital satisfaction of multicultural women tends to be improved as self-esteem increases. To establish that self-esteem partially or completely mediates communication patterns to marital satisfaction relationship, the effect of communication patterns on marital satisfaction controlling for self-esteem should be zero. Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to test whether the effect of communication patterns on marital satisfaction varies when controlling the effects of self-esteem. Analysis was performed in two steps. At first, only the pattern of communication, which was a predictor variable, was included as independent variable. Then, self-esteem as a mediator and communication patterns were analyzed. Based on the results, it is verified whether the β value of the communication patterns in the two models changes or not.
The results showed that all of the patterns except other-oriented were found to be significant. This first part of the results suggests that the significant relationship between communication and marital satisfaction was confirmed. The coefficients of open and objective pattern were positive indicating that the higher level of these factors, the more satisfied with their marriage. However, critical, distributed, rigid, and self-centered had negative relationship with marital satisfaction, suggesting that the more experienced with these factors, the less satisfied they.
Once these relationships were identified, further analysis was performed to determine whether self-esteem acts as a mediator in this relationship. The important point of the results was that compare with only communication patterns were included in the analysis, β value decreased significantly when both of the communication patterns and self-esteem were included. The analysis results showed that all of the β coefficients of communication patterns decreased significantly.
Sobel's Z-values were calculated to test the significance of the mediating effect on marital satisfaction. All of the mediating effects on marital satisfaction turned out to be statistically significant. This findings of this study clearly indicate that the effects of communication patterns on marital satisfaction vary when controlling the effect of self-esteem. These results show that in identifying the relationship between communication patterns and marital satisfaction, self-esteem plays important role of mediator.
Key words : women of multicultural family, communication patterns, self-esteem, marital satisfaction