Do Forgiveness Campaign Activities Improve Forgiveness, Mental Health, and Flourishing?

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of a forgiveness public health intervention at promoting forgiveness, mental health, and flourishing. Methods: Colombian students (N = 2,878) at a private, nonreligious university were exposed to a 4-week forgiveness community campaign and were assessed pre- and post-campaign. Results: Forgiveness, mental health, and flourishing outcomes showed improvements after the campaign. On average, participants reported engaging in 7.18 (SD = 3.99) of the 16 types of campaign activities. The number of types of campaign activities that participants engaged in evidenced a positive linear association with forgiveness, although some activities were more popular than others and some activities were more strongly associated with increased forgiveness. For depression, anxiety, and flourishing, engaging in more activities was generally associated with greater improvements, but the patterns were less consistent relative to forgiveness. Conclusion: This forgiveness public health intervention effectively promoted forgiveness, mental health, and flourishing. Effective campaigns in diverse communities involve promoting mental and physical health through forgiveness. However, recent conflict may hinder acceptance, necessitating political capital for leadership advocating forgiveness initiatives.

Development and Validation of the Forbearance Scale.

The character strength of forbearance contributes to peace in broader society, as well as familial harmony. Although forbearance is essential to healthy interpersonal relationships, no psychometrically sound measure has been developed to assess the multi-dimensional nature of forbearance. The present set of studies describes the development and initial validation of the Forbearance Scale (FS). In Study 1, items were generated from focus group interviews with college students (n = 43) to establish the content validity of the scale. In Study 2, the factor structure of the FS was determined using exploratory factor analysis of data from college students (n = 466). In Study 3, the factor structure of the FS was cross-validated with a community sample (n = 579) by means of confirmatory factor analysis. The final scale, the FS-16, consists of 16 items with four factors: (1) emotional calmness, (2) overlook others' misdeeds, (3) tolerance and acceptance, and (4) self-restraint. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses provided evidence of convergent and concurrent validity. The FS-16 demonstrates potential as a new personality assessment tool for measuring forbearance.

The Development and Validation of a Short Form of the Forbearance Scale.

The Forbearance Scale (FS) is a 16-item self-report measure of forbearance. In this study, we examined the psychometric properties of the FS subscale and composite scores and developed a 9-item short form of the measure (FS-SF 9). A sample of 1,137 participants was drawn from community, NGO, and college settings. The sample was split into a derivation sample (n = 567) and a validation sample (n = 570). Exploratory factor analyses of the derivation sample data were used to select short-form items. Using the validation sample, confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess fit for proposed item-to-factor assignments. The results of the confirmatory factor analyses supported that the FS-SF 9 had a theoretically congruent factor structure and that all the subscale and composite scores displayed high internal consistency. Correlations with scores from established measures of a lack of forgiveness and emotion regulation also supported the validity of the FS-SF 9. Our data suggest that the FS-SF 9 subscales and composite score retained the psychometric strengths of their longer FS counterparts. Overall, the short form of the FS provides a brief assessment of the construct measured by the full form. Theoretical and practical applications are discussed.

Boosting older adults' cognitive functioning and psychological Well-Being through Chinese tea therapy: A preliminary study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of Chinese tea therapy on the enhancement of cognitive functioning and psychological well-being among older adults in Hong Kong. METHOD: Seventeen healthy older adults recruited from two senior centers participated in a four-week Chinese tea therapy intervention. Pre-post measures on cognitive functioning and emotional well-being were used to examine the effect of the intervention on cognitive and emotional variables. RESULTS: Results of the paired samples t-test revealed significant differences between the pre-test and post-test results for cognition and well-being. Specifically, the older adults showed enhanced cognitive functioning and improved emotional well-being after they received the Chinese tea therapy. CONCLUSION: Chinese tea therapy is apparently an effective strategy to ensure healthy aging. In particular, this innovative and culturally relevant strategy may exert a protective effect against cognitive aging and decline and may boost emotional wellness of older adults in Asian cultures.

The Role of Self-Regulation in Forgiveness: A Regulatory Model of Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an emotion regulation process that is important for both physical and mental health. Given its benefits, studying the facilitation of forgiveness is important. Researchers have already demonstrated the relationship between self-control and forgiveness. However, in this study, we aim to extend previous research by examining the regulating processes of forgiveness and the possible mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between self-regulatory strength and forgiveness. University students (N = 317) in Hong Kong who were recruited to participate in this study completed an online survey. The results of this study indicated that both self-regulatory strength and emotion regulation were significant predictors of forgiveness. Interestingly, cognitive reappraisal significantly mediated the association between self-regulatory fatigue and forgiveness. This suggests a potential self-regulation mechanism that leads to a prorelationship response and provides evidence for a regulatory model of forgiveness.

State narcissism and aggression: The mediating roles of anger and hostile attributional bias.

Prior research has documented a relationship between narcissism and aggression but has focused only on dispositional narcissism without considering situational factors that may increase narcissism temporarily. This study explored the possibility that an increase in state narcissism would foster aggressive responding by increasing anger and hostile attributional bias following unexpected provocation among 162 college students from China. We created a guided-imagination manipulation to heighten narcissism and investigated its effects on anger, aroused hostile attribution bias, and aggressive responses following a provocation with a 2 (narcissism/neutral manipulation) × 2 (unexpected provocation/positive evaluation condition) between-subjects design. We found that the manipulation did increase self-reported state narcissism. The increase in state narcissism in turn heightened aggression, and this relation was mediated by increased anger. Regardless of the level of state narcissism, individuals were more aggressive after being provoked and this effect of provocation was mediated by hostile attributional bias. The findings indicate that narcissism can be temporarily heightened in a nonclinical sample of individuals, and that the effect of state narcissism on aggression is mediated by anger. Differences between state and trait narcissism and possible influences of culture are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 42:333-345, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Forgiving the self and physical and mental health correlates: a meta-analytic review.

Self-forgiveness has been conceptualized as a coping strategy that may improve health and well-being. To better understand the functions of self-forgiveness, this meta-analysis examines the correlates of self-forgiveness associated with physical and mental health. For physical health, across 18 samples and 5,653 participants, the correlation was .32. For psychological well-being, across 65 samples and 17,939 participants, the correlation was .45. To augment this primary focus on physical and mental health correlates, we estimated the relationships between self-forgiveness and specific mental health constructs and relationship outcomes. Implications for future basic and applied research on self-forgiveness are discussed.

Efficacy of REACH Forgiveness across cultures.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the efficacy of the 6-hour REACH Forgiveness intervention among culturally diverse undergraduates. METHOD: Female undergraduates (N = 102) and foreign extraction (46.2%) and domestic (43.8%) students in the United States were randomly assigned to immediate treatment or waitlist conditions. Treatment efficacy and the effect of culture on treatment response were assessed using measures of emotional and decisional forgiveness across 3 time periods. RESULTS: Students in the treatment condition reported greater improvement in emotional forgiveness, but not decisional forgiveness, relative to those in the waitlist condition. Gains were maintained at a 1-week follow-up. Although culture did not moderate the effect of treatment, a main effect of culture on emotional forgiveness and marginally significant interaction effect of culture on decisional forgiveness were found. CONCLUSION: The REACH Forgiveness intervention was efficacious for college students from different cultural backgrounds when conducted in the United States. However, some evidence may warrant development of culturally adapted forgiveness interventions.

Perspective taking in older age revisited: a motivational perspective.

How perspective-taking ability changes with age (i.e., whether older adults are better at understanding others' behaviors and intentions and show greater empathy to others or not) is not clear, with prior empirical findings on this phenomenon yielding mixed results. In a series of experiments, we investigated the phenomenon from a motivational perspective. Perceived closeness between participants and the experimenter (Study 1) or the target in an emotion recognition task (Study 2) was manipulated to examine whether the closeness could influence participants' performance in faux pas recognition (Study 1) and emotion recognition (Study 2). It was found that the well-documented negative age effect (i.e., older adults performed worse than younger adults in faux pas and emotion recognition tasks) was only replicated in the control condition for both tasks. When closeness was experimentally increased, older adults enhanced their performance, and they now performed at a comparable level as younger adults. Findings from the 2 experiments suggest that the reported poorer performance of older adults in perspective-taking tasks might be attributable to a lack of motivation instead of ability to perform in laboratory settings. With the presence of strong motivation, older adults have the ability to perform equally well as younger adults.

A dyadic model of the work-family interface: a study of dual-earner couples in China.

This study adopted a spillover-crossover model to examine the roles of personality and perceived social support as antecedents of the work-family interface among dual-earner couples in China. Married couples (N = 306) from 2 major cities in China (Shanghai and Jinan) completed questionnaires measuring a relationship-oriented personality trait (i.e., family orientation), perceived family and work support, and work-family conflict and enhancement. The results showed that family orientation and perceived family support was positively associated with family-to-work enhancement and negatively associated with family-to-work conflict for both husbands and wives. Perceived work support was positively associated with family-to-work enhancement for wives and negatively associated with work-to-family conflict for husbands. Similarities in family orientation between partners were positively correlated with the individual's family-to-work enhancement. This study also illustrated the crossover of the work-family interface between dual-earner couples by using the actor-partner interdependence model. The pattern of associations between personality trait and perceived social support varied by gender. Husbands' family orientation was negatively correlated with work-to-family enhancement experienced by wives, and husbands' perceived work support was positively correlated with work-to-family enhancement experienced by wives. Wives' perceived work support was positively correlated with family-to-work conflict experienced by husbands.

Adapting an evidence-based intervention to REACH Forgiveness for different religions and spiritualities.

The REACH Forgiveness intervention has been used in psychoeducational groups, couple and individual counseling and psychotherapy, and workbooks. It has been investigated in over 20 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) worldwide. It has been accommodated to treat Christians and shown to be effective in RCTs. But most research has established it to be effective when not accommodating it to religious or spiritual clientele. In this article, we will claim that it can be accommodated to a variety of religious clients. We describe guidelines about what is essential to the treatment and what might be effectively modified to be acceptable to religious and spiritual clients embracing a variety of beliefs and practices.

The differential effects of forms and settings of exposure to violence on adolescents' adjustment.

This study investigated the link between exposure to violence and psychosocial adjustment for 442 Chinese secondary school students in Form 1-3. The students completed an inventory assessing exposure to violence through witnessing and through direct victimization in different settings (community, school, and home). Multiple measures and informants (i.e., self-report, teacher report, and school report) were used to assess emotional, behavioral, and cognitive functioning in adolescents. The results of this study showed that overall exposure to violence was related to emotional and behavior problems. High rates of exposure to violence across multiple contexts were found in this sample. After controlling for the co-occurrence of risk factors (e.g., exposure to violence in other settings), both witnessing school violence and being victimized by domestic violence were associated with emotional problems, whereas being victimized by community violence was related to behavior problems. These results suggest that there are differential effects of risks associated with different forms and settings of exposure.