Spirituality in American Muslim Marriages: An Investigation of Marital Sanctification, Spiritual Intimacy and Emotional Intimacy

The current study investigated how spiritual intimacy and emotional intimacy potentially mediated the impact of marital sanctification on positive and negative marital quality. Moreover, the present study examined if gender differences were present in participants endorsement of positive marital quality and negative marital quality. Through a quantitative analysis, two serial mediation analyses were conducted with marital sanctification as the predictor variable, and spiritual intimacy and emotional intimacy as the mediator variables. In the first serial mediation analysis (the Positive Marital Quality–Serial Mediator Model; PMQ–SMM), positive marital quality functioned as the outcome variable and negative marital quality served as a control variable. The second serial mediation analysis (the Negative Marital Quality–Serial Mediator Model; NMQ–SMM) situated negative marital quality as the outcome variable, and positive marital quality served as the control variable. Additionally, T–tests were conducted to explore if women had a higher score on negative marital quality, and if men scored higher on the measure of positive marital quality. Analyses found spiritual intimacy and emotional intimacy to be significant partial mediators for the PMQ–SMM, but not the NMQ–SMM. The T–tests for gender differences regarding positive marital quality and negative marital quality were not significant. These results suggest that spiritual and emotional intimacy do in fact offer modest protective factors regarding marital quality for American Muslims.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Counseling Psychology (UMKC)

Grantor

University of Missouri--Kansas City

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Raziuddin, Abdul Rafay

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Berkel, LaVerne A.

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10355/97595

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/97595