The role of narcissistic personality traits and forgiveness on predicting marital adjustment

It is known that the personality traits of individuals are closely related to marital adjustment. The impact of narcissistic personality traits characterized by interpersonal problems on marital adjustment, has been highlighted in the literature. Forgiveness in marriage is another important concept that affects marital adjustment. Besides the marital adjustment, narcissistic personality traits are closely related to marital forgiveness. Examining the narcissistic personality traits, marital forgiveness, and marital adjustment variables will help to understand the relationship between these variables. The aim of the study is to investigate the role of narcissistic personality traits and marital forgiveness in predicting marital adjustment. In addition to this, the relationship between the variables were also examined. Participants consisted of 345 married individuals (183 women, 162 men). Sociodemographic Form, Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-16), Marital Forgiveness Scale-Event (MFS-E), and Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) were given the participants via an online survey platform. Descriptive analyses to determine socio-demographic variables, t-test to examine the effects of the socio-demographic variables on independent and dependent variables, correlation, simple linear and multiple regression analyses to test hypotheses were conducted by SPSS Statistics. The results demonstrate that narcissistic personality traits did not predict marital adjustment. In contrast, the benevolence dimension of marital forgiveness scale positively and significantly and avoidance dimension of the marital forgiveness scale negatively and significantly predict the marital adjustment. Furthermore, narcissistic personality traits positively and significantly predict the retaliation dimension of marital forgiveness.