Forgiving Adolescents: Far From Depression, Close to Well-Being

Abstract

Forgiveness has been proven to be an effective way of regulating negative affect and decreasing depression. This study aimed at examining the relationship among constructs particularly relevant to adolescents’ well-being, including forgivingness (dispositional forgiveness) anger, depression and Hedonic Balance (HB). Specifically, using a structural equation modelling approach, the fully mediational role of the different facets of anger in the relationship between forgiveness and depression was tested in 773 adolescents, of which 69% girls. Results showed that forgivingness was positively and negatively related to, respectively, HB and depression, through a general effect of anger, suggesting that more forgiving adolescents had higher HB and lower depression as they reported a lower general tendency to experience anger. Forgivingness was also positively related both to HB and to depression through the mediation of all the facets of Anger. Moreover, only for HB, a specific effect of Anger-control was found, suggesting that more forgiving adolescents had higher HB as they reported higher strategies to control anger in a functional manner. The model invariance was supported across gender. Our results suggest that forgiveness is a significant protective factor against depression for adolescents, helping them to effectively control and manage anger, thus fostering emotional health. An important clinical implication of our study regards the potential of forgiveness as a resource for well-being in therapy: among the various possible protective factors in adolescence, forgiveness has the added advantage that it can be fostered in clinical settings, and working on forgiveness in psychotherapy or in counselling could decrease adolescent depression and improve well-being.

Validation of the Revised Ego-Resiliency Scale in a High-Vulnerable Colombian Population

“…Moreover, the authors found that resilience was a good predictor of well-being. Finally, resilience was negatively correlated with distress (Panchal et al, 2016) and positively predicted humility, gratitude and forgiveness (Baldwin, Jackson, Okon, & Cannon, 2011), variables of effective coping with stressful situations in life and of positive adjustment (Barcaccia, Pallini, Milioni, & Vecchio, 2018;Barcaccia et al, 2019). Strengthening egoresiliency can help vulnerable individuals to better manage stress and can promote higher levels of adaptive coping.…”

Exploring the Psychological Processes That Underlie Interpersonal Forgiveness: Replication and Extension of the Model of Motivated Interpersonal Forgiveness

“…Consider that forgiveness has been shown to be positively associated with many beneficial constructs: psychological well-being ( Karremans et al, 2003 ; Pareek et al, 2016 ; Akhtar and Barlow, 2018 ; Barcaccia et al, 2019 ), physical health ( Lee and Enright, 2019 ), decreased blood pressure for both victim and perpetrator ( Hannon et al, 2010 ), greater health resilience ( Worthington and Scherer, 2004 ), increased longevity [e.g., Barcaccia et al (2020) ; see Witvliet et al (2001) ], and reduced depression ( Toussaint et al, 2012 ). It is also important to consider, however, that forgiveness may not always be the ideal outcome following a transgression.…”

Non-intimate Relationships and Psychopathic Interpersonal and Affective Deficits as Risk Factors for Criminal Career: A Comparison Between Sex Offenders and Other Offenders

“…Finally, an area that deserves further exploration regards the moderator effect of protective factors in the relation between life events and crime type. It would be interesting to examine whether certain protective factors such as the capacity to forgive oneself ( Barcaccia et al, 2019 ) could protect the individual from the criminal behavior.…”