Posttraumatic growth and interpersonal forgiveness in persons with physical disabilities.

Abstract

Purpose/Objective: To investigate whether there is a relationship between posttraumatic growth (PTG) and forgiveness in people with physical disabilities, and whether contextual factors moderate the association. Research Method/Design: Two hundred and sixty seven persons with physical disabilities completed Polish versions of three inventories: Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), Decision to Forgive Scale (DTFS), and Emotional Forgiveness Scale (EFS). The participants also assessed contextual factors of offenses, such as transgression severity, apology being offered, and quality of the relationship with the offender. The associations between the variables were examined using correlation and moderation analyses. In the moderation model, PTG was posited as a predictor, offence-specific factors as subsequent moderators, and forgiveness (decisional and emotional) as outcome variables. Results: PTG was positively associated with decisional and emotional forgiveness, and not related to contextual factors. Transgression severity, apology, and relationship quality were correlated with forgiveness. The quality of the victim-offender relationship was the only contextual variable to moderate the association between PTG and emotional forgiveness. Conclusion/Implications: PTG and forgiveness are positively related and their association is moderated by the context of the transgression to a minor extent.

Differential effects of decisional and emotional forgiveness on distress and well-being: A three-wave study of Indonesian adults

“…Whereas decisional forgiveness was associated with subsequent improvements in seven of the 10 components of well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, physical health, sense of purpose, promote good, delayed gratification, content with relationships, satisfying relationships), emotional forgiveness was associated with improved subsequent well-being on a single outcome (i.e., satisfying relationships). Our findings generally diverge from earlier studies that have reported evidence of stronger associations with different indicators of well-being (e.g., satisfaction with relationships, character strengths) for emotional forgiveness relative to decisional forgiveness (e.g., Chi et al, 2019 ; Wu et al, 2022 ), although some evidence of stronger associations for decisional forgiveness has also been reported for select indicators of well-being (e.g., perceived posttraumatic growth; Byra et al, 2022 ). There could be several potential explanations for the dissimilarities between the pattern of findings in our study and those reported previously, such as differences in sample characteristics (e.g., participants from cultures that are more vs. less collectivistic), research design (e.g., cross-sectional vs. longitudinal), and analytic decisions (e.g., more vs. less comprehensive adjustment for potential confounders).…”

“…Consistent with this theorizing, existing evidence generally suggests that emotional forgiveness tends to have stronger negative associations with indicators of distress (e.g., depression symptoms, stress) and stronger positive associations with different indicators of well-being (e.g., relationship satisfaction, gratitude) compared to decisional forgiveness (e.g., Chi et al, 2019;Cowden et al, 2019a;Wu et al, 2022). However, not all evidence is consistent with this picture, as some studies have reported stronger correlations with some indicators of distress (e.g., depression symptoms; Mróz et al, 2022) and well-being (e.g., perceived posttraumatic growth; Byra et al, 2022) for decisional forgiveness rather than emotional forgiveness. These findings suggest that emotional forgiveness may not always perform a dominant function in lowering distress and improving well-being.…”