Exploring the Relationship between Life Satisfaction and Love-relationship Experiences under the Light of Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Conflict Resolution: The Consequences of their Interplays

Abstract

This research focuses on the associations between cognitive emotion regulation processes, conflict resolution strategies and life satisfaction of persons having different types of love and relationship experiences. Cognitive emotion regulation indicates cognitive reactions, related to the emotional involvement, of our brain to an event that attempts to influence the elicited emotions or that event itself. The study is a cross-sectional one with 310 Bangladeshi respondents in the age range 20-34. Several groups and sub-groups were formulated. For the overall sample, satisfaction with life had a statistically significant positive correlation with adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and conflict resolution styles, while it had a statistically significant negative correlation with less-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies (p < 0.01). ANOVA and t-test analysis showed some crucial findings by comparing the primary groups and sub-groups of the study, regarding differences in life satisfaction and the differences in the uses of specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies for various love experiences. Standard regression analysis of data also revealed that the model explained a large portion of variance (50.40%) in life satisfaction (p < .001).