“…It is known that there are negative and significant relationships between individuals’ characteristics such as optimism (Carver & Scheier, 2005; Pacheco & Malagris, 2020), self-compassion (Hou et al, 2020; Stanziano, 2019), altruism (Krieger & Falcone, 2017; Reed, 1983) and gratitude (Jung et al, 2014; Ramsey, 2019) and cognitive distortions and that the development of these personality characteristics significantly reduces cognitive distortions through mutual interaction (Jung et al, 2014; Karagöz, 2011; Kılıç & Tunç, 2020; Ulusoy & Duy, 2013). When studies on these personality characteristics are examined in the literature, it is seen that optimism (Ramadhani et al, 2021), self-compassion (Booker, 2019; Wu et al, 2019), altruism (Ergi et al, 2021; Oliner, 2005) and gratitude (Hermaen & Hussain Bhutto, 2020; Ramsey, 2019) seem to be facilitating factors for individuals to forgive themselves. In this context, with the support from the literature, it can be said that optimism, self-compassion, altruism and gratitude, which are the mediating variables of the current study, can be potential variables that can reduce the negative effects of cognitive distortions and increase the self-forgiveness of individuals.…”