Development and validation of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory 30-item version in Argentina

Abstract

Research on forgiveness has received growing academic interest. The Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI) is one of the most widely used interpersonal forgiveness measures in the world. However, its validation study had not been conducted in Latin America. This study aimed to investigate the structural validity of the EFI 30-item version (EFI-30) in Argentina. An online survey was administrated including the EFI-30 and a social desirability scale, as well as demographic questions. A convenience sample (N = 472) was recruited. All participants were originally from Argentina, and 47.2% were married or cohabiting in a relationship. Factor analysis was used to evaluate structural validity. Part of the EFI-30 is a single-item forgiveness question that was used to examine the inventory’s convergent validity. Other conventional psychometric tests were also performed to validate the previous analyses. The results confirmed the six-factor structure of the EFI-30, namely, positive affect, negative affect, positive behaviour, negative behaviour, positive cognition, and negative cognition. Findings are consistent with previous validation studies across countries. The strong scalability of the Argentine EFI-30 provides multiple avenues for future research. The study might be replicated among other demographic groups (e.g., adolescents) in Argentina.