Forgiveness and its determinants depending on the interpersonal context of hurt

Cyber victimization and well-being in adolescents: The sequential mediation role of forgiveness and coping with cyberbullying

Cyber victimization is an important problem among adolescents and it can have negative effects on well-being. However, efforts to increase the well-being of cyber victims have been increasing in recent years. It is important to uncover the underlying mechanisms that may affect the well-being of cyber victims. This study used the transactional model of stress and coping theory as a conceptual framework, and proposed that hope and coping strategies are sequential mediators for the effects of cyber-victimization on well-being. A total of 337 students aged between 14 and 19 participated in this research (Mage = 16.56). We used the Cyber Victimization Scale, the Forgiveness Scale for Adolescents, the Scale for Coping with Cyber Bullying, and the Well-Being Scale as data collection tools. Pearson Correlation was used to examine the relationships between cyber victimization, coping with cyberbullying, well-being and forgiveness. Afterward, measurement modeling was done using AMOS 22.0 and the PROCESS macro was used for hypothesis testing. The results show that there is a negative relationship between cyber victimization and forgiveness, coping with cyberbullying, and well-being. In addition, forgiveness and coping with cyberbullying was found to have a sequential mediating effect on the relationship between cyber victimization and well-being. The research results provide information on how to increase the well-being of adolescents experiencing cyber victimization.

Rumination Mediates the Longitudinal Associations Between Elementary-School Victimization and Adolescents' Internalizing Problems

Identifying potential mechanisms responsible for victimized children's maladjustment over time is a crucial step in our efforts to alleviate negative consequences of victimization. In this study, we examined whether rumination would serve as a potential mediator of the prospective links between victimization in late childhood and symptoms of depression and anxiety in adolescence. The sample included 552 Finnish students (238 boys; M_age in third grade = 9.85 years, SD = .71) who participated in a longitudinal study. Participants filled out several measures where they were asked about the frequency of different forms of victimization (in third and fourth grade), how much they ruminated about their past victimization and whether it elicited sadness and anger (in seventh grade), and the degree to which they experienced depressive and anxiety symptoms (in third and seventh grade). We found that greater frequency of victimization in elementary school led to increases in symptoms of depression and anxiety through rumination. These findings suggest that at least some victimization-related negative consequences can be minimized if we are able to help young people to stop reliving their painful memories.

The Relationship Between Forgiveness, Bullying, and Cyberbullying in Adolescence: A Systematic Review

The study of bullying in adolescence has received increased attention over the past several decades. A growing body of research highlights the role of forgiveness and its association with aggression. In this article, we systematically review published studies on the association among online and traditional bullying and forgiveness in adolescents. Systematic searches were conducted in PsycINFO, MEDLINE, PsycArticles, and Scopus databases. From a total of 1,093 studies, 637 were nonduplicated studies and 18 were eventually included. Together, these studies provided evidence that forgiveness and bullying behaviors are negatively related: Adolescents with higher forgiveness levels bully less. Similarly, forgiveness is negatively related to victimization: Adolescents with higher forgiveness show less victimization. Unforgiveness was positively related to traditional and online bullying. This relationship appears to be consistent beyond types of bullying, certain background characteristics, and forgiveness measures. These findings are discussed, and clinical implications and guidelines for future research are presented.

The Children's Forgiveness Card Set: Development of a Brief Pictorial Card-Sorting Measure of Children's Emotional Forgiveness

Friendships have important influences on children's well-being and future adjustment, and interpersonal forgiveness has been suggested as a crucial means for children to maintain friendships. However, existing measures of preadolescent children's forgiveness are restricted by developmental limitations to reporting emotional responses via questionnaire and inconsistent interpretations of the term “forgive.” This paper describes development and testing of concurrent and discriminant validity of a pictorial measure of children's emotional forgiveness, the Children's Forgiveness Card Set (CFCS). In Study 1, 148 Australian children aged 8–13 years (M = 10.54, SD = 1.35) responded to a hypothetical transgression in which apology was manipulated and completed the CFCS and extant measures of forgiveness and socially desirable responding. Following an exploratory factor analysis to clarify the structure of the CFCS, the CFCS correlated moderately with other forgiveness measures and did not correlate with socially desirable responding. Apology predicted CFCS responding among older children. In Study 2 an exploratory factor analysis broadly replicated the structure of the CFCS among a sample of N = 198 North American children aged 5–14 years (M = 9.39 years, SD = 1.67). We also fitted an exploratory bi-factor model to the Study 2 data which clarified which cards best measured general forgiveness, or positive or hostile aspects of responding to transgressions. Apology once again predicted the CFCS, this time regardless of age. The CFCS appears a potentially valid measure of children's emotional forgiveness. Potential applications and differences between explicit and latent forgiveness in children are discussed.

Rumination as a Mediator of the Prospective Association Between Victimization and Bullying

Although there is evidence of concurrent associations between victimization and bully perpetration, it is still unclear how this relation unfolds over time. This study investigates whether victimization in childhood is a prospective risk factor for bully perpetration in early adolescence, and examines rumination as a socio-cognitive factor that may mediate this association. Participants included 553 third graders (43.2% boys; M_age = 9.85), with follow-up assessments when they were in fourth, seventh, and eighth grade. Results indicated that more frequent victimization in grades 3 and 4 was indirectly associated with bully perpetration in grade 8, through rumination in grade 7 about past victimization experiences in elementary school. This pattern remained regardless of whether the rumination elicited feelings of anger or sadness. Our findings demonstrate one pathway through which frequent victimization can lead to perpetration and underscore the important role of rumination in victims’ subsequent adjustment. Implications for future interventions are discussed.

The Juxtaposition of Revenge and Forgiveness in Peer Conflict Experiences of Youth Exposed to Violence

In a sample of 95 urban Colombian mid-adolescents, this mixed-method study examined how youths' retaliatory desires and actions were juxtaposed with forgiveness and nonforgiveness in their narrative accounts of peer conflict. Quantitative analyses examined how retaliatory desire and action were associated with variations in youths' lifetime exposure to violence (ETV) and recent victimization by peers at school. These measures of violence exposure were related to revenge only in the context of unforgiven harms. Qualitative analyses explored aspects of youths' narrative accounts that may underlie the observed associations. Overall, findings suggest that ETV may interfere with youths' capacity to reflect on revenge in ways that recognize their own fallibility and thus open the door to forgiveness.

A Serial Mediation Model of the Relationship between Cybervictimization and Cyberaggression: The Role of Stress and Unforgiveness Motivations

Cyberaggression is often triggered by cybervictimization. However, little attention has been given to the underlying mechanisms in this relationship. Specifically, this study examined the mediating roles of stress as well as unforgiveness (i.e., revenge and avoidance motivations) in the cybervictimization-cyberbullying aggression link. The main goal is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of cybervictimization on cyberbullying aggression while modeling a process in which cybervictimization causes stress, which in turn causes unforgiveness motivations concluding with cyberbullying aggression as the consequent. A total of 979 adolescents (M_age = 13.72, SD = 1.31) completed the relevant scales at two time points spaced four months apart. The results confirm that stress and revenge motivation at Time 1 act as serial mediators between cybervictimization at Time 1 and cyberbullying behaviors at Time 2. Additionally, the results reveal that avoidance at Time 1 was not a significant mediator in the links between cybervictimization at Time 1 and cyberbullying aggression at Time 2. Our findings provide support for the stress-and-coping model of forgiveness in adolescence and offer original insight into the developmental process of bully-victims in cyberbullying context. These results suggest the importance of efforts addressing motivations and emotion-focused coping strategies in adolescents who have been bullied to prevent and reduce those adolescents’ future stress and aggressive behaviors. The contributions and implications of the results are discussed.

Exploring the nature, attributes and consequences of forgiveness in children: A qualitative study

Researchers have unanimously suggested forgiveness to be closely linked with a host of positive life outcomes for people across all developmental periods. The scientific endeavours have largely been confined to the study of adults’ forgiveness mostly employing quantitative methods and, thus, have oversighted the study of children’s forgiveness despite its similar and noticeable relevance to their life outcomes. To bridge this gap, this study aims to explore the nature, attributes and perceived consequences of forgiveness for children. The study was carried out on full-time mothers of 4 male (5-10 years) and 4 female (4.50-9.50 years) children of the same local community. The mothers were interviewed about the nature of perceived wrongdoings, emotional, social and cognitive concomitants of forgiveness of their children. The contents of the interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim followed by their analysis by the Thematic Analysis Method. The findings showed that the children’s transgression related to their immediate and tangible realities of life. The significant others played a facilitative role in their learning phase of forgiveness. The children easily accepted their wrongdoings. Some personality attributes regulated the understanding of their wrongdoings. Moreover, children’s forgiveness was more explicit and, thus, easy to understand spontaneously. The understanding and acceptance of wrongdoings of the children were generally guided by their preferences, relationships, moods and concreteness. In essence, the children’s forgiveness evinced close links with their social, emotional and interpersonal developments. The findings have been discussed considering the current empirical findings pertaining to the children’s forgiveness and some cultural concerns. The implications and directions for future research have been discussed along with some limitations.

The Sexual Double Standard in the Real World

Abstract. The sexual double standard (SDS) has traditionally been studied by examining evaluations of hypothetical targets. Although much knowledge has been gained regarding the SDS by using this methodology, the literature thus far has suffered from a lack of ecological validity. The goal of the present study was to determine whether the SDS emerged in evaluations of participants’ real-life friends and acquaintances. Participants ( n = 4,455) evaluated a single, randomly assigned male or female friend or acquaintance whose sexual history they were familiar with. Women were evaluated more negatively as their number of sexual partners increased, whereas number of partners was not related to evaluations of men. The SDS was not moderated by the closeness of the relationship between the participant and the target person.

Neuroanatomical correlates of forgiving unintentional harms

Mature moral judgments rely on the consideration of a perpetrator’s mental state as well as harmfulness of the outcomes produced. Prior work has focused primarily on the functional correlates of how intent information is neurally represented for moral judgments, but few studies have investigated whether individual differences in neuroanatomy can also explain variation in moral judgments. In the current study, we conducted voxel-based morphometry analyses to address this question. We found that local grey matter volume in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus, a region in the functionally defined theory of mind or mentalizing network, was associated with the degree to which participants relied on information about innocent intentions to forgive accidental harms. Our findings provide further support for the key role of mentalizing in the forgiveness of accidental harms and contribute preliminary evidence for the neuroanatomical basis of individual differences in moral judgments.

What determines forgiveness in close relationships? The role of post-transgression trust

Relationship closeness is one of the best predictors of forgiveness. But what is the process by which closeness encourages forgiveness? Across three studies, we employed a mix of experimental and correlational designs with prospective (N = 108), scenario (N = 71), and recall (N = 184) paradigms to test a multiple mediation model. We found consistent evidence that the positive association between relationship closeness and forgiveness may be explained by levels of post-transgression trust in the offender. Moreover, trust always played the main mediating role in the forgiveness process, even when taking into account several transgression-specific variables associated with both trust and forgiveness (e.g., apology). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of trust as a key indicator of forgiveness in close relationships.

Is popularity associated with aggression toward socially preferred or marginalized targets?

This study was designed to test whether aggression toward easy or challenging targets is more likely to be associated with popularity. More specifically, we tested two alternative hypotheses with a sample of 224 adolescents (12- and 13-year-olds): (a) whether aggression toward highly disliked peers is associated with popularity (the easy target hypothesis) or (b) whether aggression toward highly liked peers is associated with popularity (the challenging target hypothesis). Support was found only for the challenging target hypothesis. In particular, our results indicate that aggressiveness toward peers who are liked by many others has social benefits in the form of greater popularity (particularly for highly preferred adolescents) without social costs (i.e., is unrelated to social preference). In contrast, aggressiveness toward peers who are disliked by many others is associated with lower social preference but bears no association with popularity. These results highlight the importance of studying contextualized aggression in order to understand the conditions under which aggression is most, and least, likely to be associated with social power and dominance.

It Takes Two to Forgive: The Interactive Role of Relationship Value and Executive Control

Previous research demonstrated that perceived relationship value is a strong predictor of forgiveness. Here we suggest that relationship value may not be sufficient. Given that executive control is an important facilitator of forgiveness, we predicted that relationship value and executive control should interact toward promoting forgiveness. Using different indicators of executive control, including adults and children samples, measured or experimentally varied relationship value, and both self-report and behavioral forgiveness measures, across four studies we found support for our main prediction: Relationship value was positively associated with forgiveness; however, this association was mostly pronounced among individuals high (vs. low) in executive control. In addition, executive control was positively associated with forgiveness, but particularly in relationships of high (vs. low) relationship value. These findings suggest that relationship value and executive control in combination are associated with higher interpersonal forgiveness. Implications for the extant literature on forgiveness, and interpersonal relationships more broadly, are discussed.