This study investigated the impact of solution-focused thinking on marital satisfaction via mediating roles of father involvement in childcare and marital conflict. A questionnaire survey was conducted among mothers with infants, living in Busan, Daegu and Yangsan, South Korea. Data from 264 mothers were analyzed using several multiple regression analyses and bootstrapping method with SPSS 25.0 and PROCESS macro (model 6) to test the serial double mediation model. The results of this study are as follows. First, mothers’ solution-focused thinking had a significant direct and indirect positive influence on marital satisfaction through both father involvement in childcare and marital conflict. Second, the sequential mediating effects of father involvement in childcare and marital conflict were statistically significant in the relationship between solution-focused thinking and marital satisfaction. The model accounted for 60% of the variance in mothers’ marital satisfaction. The results highlight the importance of solution-focused thinking that can enhance the marital satisfaction of mothers with infants and act as a resource for increasing father involvement in childcare and decreasing marital conflict. Based on the results, it is necessary to include solution-focused thinking, father involvement in childcare, and marital conflict as key elements in the intervention to improve marital satisfaction of mothers with infants.

The present study examined whether enjoyable couple activity and common dyadic coping as daily positive couple interactions have direct or indirect effects on marital satisfaction through the mediation of sexual intimacy among urban Chinese women in the early years of marriage. The subjects were 182 urban women born under the one-child policy, who live in Heilongjiang, Anhui and Beijing provinces of China, and have been married up to six years. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. We conducted a hierarchical multiple regression analysis in SPSS software and tested the significance of the mediation effects using bootstrapping method in Mplus software. The results of the study are as follows. First, both enjoyable couple activity and common dyadic coping had positive direct impacts on urban Chinese women’s marital satisfaction and positive indirect impacts on marital satisfaction via sexual intimacy. Second, enjoyable couple activity was the strongest predictor of marital satisfaction, followed by common dyadic coping and sexual intimacy. The path model explained 48% of the variance in marital satisfaction. The results suggest that enjoyable couple activity, common dyadic coping, and sexual intimacy should be considered in the design of interventions to enhance urban Chinese women’s marital satisfaction in the early years of marriage.

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