Sexual satisfaction in married individuals: The role of sexual self schemas, meta-mood, and emotion expression

Although there are different ideas about the conceptualization of sexual satisfaction, which has been discussed throughout the history of humanity, the issue of its importance for marriages has gathered researchers on a common ground. It is known that many factors can be effective in obtaining sexual satisfaction. Studies on sexual satisfaction were reviewed, and it was noticed that individuals' ability to process their emotions, cognitive generalizations about their own sexuality, and emotional expressions were not addressed; therefore, examining the relationship between meta-mood, sexual self-schemas and emotion expression, which are thought to be related to sexual satisfaction, was the aim of this study. As a result of the correlation and mediation analyses, it was found that all the variables were related to sexual satisfaction, the mediation analysis based on meta-mood was statistically significant, but the mediation analysis related to sexual self-schemas was not statistically significant. Findings showed that meta-mood, which includes the ability of individuals to pay attention to their emotions, explain their emotions, repair their emotions and change them when necessary, related to sexual satisfaction and this relationship was mediated by emotion expression. Evaluations were also made about the non-significant mediating role of emotion expression on the other model. The findings obtained were evaluated and discussed within the scope of the information obtained from the literature, then the contributions of the study to the literature, its limitations and suggestions for future studies were presented.