Decisional and Emotional Forgiveness Scales: Psychometric Validity and Correlates with Personality and Vengeance

Abstract

Forgiveness is an internal process to overcome negative aspects (e.g., anger, bitterness, resentment) towards an offender, being associated to a range of variables (e.g., well-being, quality of loving relationships, resilience). Forgiveness can happen through two different types: (1) decisional, which is a behavioural modification to reduce direct hostility; and (2) emotional, which is a transformation of negative emotions into positive. The current research aimed to gather psychometric evidences for the Decisional Forgiveness Scale (DFS) and the Emotional Forgiveness Scale (EFS), using a Brazilian sample. Two studies were conducted. In Study 1 (n = 181), the bifactorial structures were replicated, also providing satisfactory reliability levels. Through Item Response Theory, results indicated good discrimination, difficulty levels, and considerable information to all the items from both measures. In Study 2 (n = 220), confirmatory factor analyses confirmed their structure, presenting good model fit. The measures were also invariant regarding participants' gender. Finally, the measures presented significant results when correlated to personality and vengeance. In sum, the instruments demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties, evidencing the possibility of their use in the respective context.

Forgiveness takes place on an attitudinal continuum from hostility to friendliness: Toward a closer union of forgiveness theory and measurement.

“…Between then and now, a five-item measure of decisional forgiveness was developed to supersede the eight-item version we used here (Davis et al, 2015). Even so, the original eight-item version continues to be widely used (Bartholomaeus & Strelan, 2016; Cavalcanti, de Holanda Coelho, Rezende, Vione, & Gouveia, 2018; Kurniati et al, 2017; Sandage et al, 2015).…”