Relational spirituality and forgiveness of intergroup offenses.
McElroy, Stacey ; Choe, Elise ; Westbrook, Charles 等
Many religious individuals use forgiveness to cope with
interpersonal offenses. There has been much work on
religion/spirituality and interpersonal forgiveness, but little theory
or research has focused on religion/spirituality and intergroup
forgiveness. The current study extends a model of relational
spirituality to the context of intergroup forgiveness. Undergraduates (N
= 166) identified an intergroup offense and completed measures of
religious commitment, personality, relational spirituality, and
forgiveness. After controlling for personality and religious commitment,
appraisals of relational spirituality predicted additional variance in
forgiveness of an intergroup offense. This study extends the literature
on religion/ spirituality and forgiveness to the intergroup context.
**********
Forgiveness has been linked with a variety of benefits for physical
and mental health (Fehr, Gelfand, & Monisha, 2010; Myers, Hewstone,
& Cairns, 2009). Although most work has focused on interpersonal
offenses, scholars have also begun to study intergroup offenses. This
work has focused on societies transitioning out of ideological or ethnic
conflict (e.g., Hamber, 2007) and has tended to focus on specific
intergroup conflicts (e.g., South Africa-Chapman, 2007; Northern
Ireland-Noor, Brown, Gonzalez, Manzi, & Lewis, 2008; for a review,
see Van Tongeren, Burnette, O'Boyle, Worthington, & Forsyth,
2014). Many of these intergroup conflicts have involved religious/
spiritual elements (e.g., Protestant-Catholic conflict in Northern
Ireland); however, there is limited work on how religious/spiritual
constructs affect intergroup forgiveness.
Therefore, in the present article, we sought to begin addressing
this gap. Namely, we extended recent theorizing on religion/spirituality
(R/S) and interpersonal forgiveness and examined the degree to which
predictions generalize to the intergroup context. We have first defined
R/S and intergroup forgiveness. Then, we have reviewed the very limited
prior research on R/S and intergroup forgiveness. Finally, we have
extended a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness to this
context and described a study designed to examine initial evidence for
the predictions of the model.
Definitions
Spirituality is defined as one's sense of closeness or
connection with the Sacred. The Sacred is what one considers central to
one's spirituality, such as God, nature, humanity, or the
transcendent (Davis, Hook, & Worthington, 2008). Religion is the
practice of spirituality within a community with established and
accepted ways (i.e., rituals, sacred texts, prescribed behaviors) of
relating to the Sacred (e.g., Hill et al., 2000). Relational
spirituality is a term that has been used by a variety of theorists
(e.g., Davis et al., 2008; Jankowski & Sandage, 2011; Mahoney, 2010)
who have posited that the experience of spirituality borrows on
cognitive systems and dynamics that regulate human relationships. More
specifically, relational spirituality refers to the sense of attachment,
commitment, closeness, and trust one feels towards the Sacred.
Forgiveness is defined as the reduction of negative thoughts,
cognitions, emotions, and motivations towards an offender (Exline,
Worthington, Hill, & McCullough, 2003). These intrapsychic changes
often result in behavioral changes as well. Accordingly, intergroup
forgiveness involves forgiveness of an offense attributed to a
collective group. Intergroup forgiveness is defined as "an internal
transformation of motivation toward a perceived perpetrating out-group
that is situated within a specific collective, political, or societal
context" (Van Tongeren et al., 2014, p. 81). Similar to
interpersonal forgiveness, intergroup forgiveness involves a reduction
in negative thoughts, feelings, and motivations towards the offending
group. In countries where prolonged conflict has led to severe hurt and
unforgiveness, individuals may have to extend forgiveness to a larger
group or collective (e.g., Staub, Pearlman, Gubin, & Hagengimana,
2005). Similarly, individuals may seek to forgive perpetrating groups of
historical offenses (Wohl & Branscombe, 2005). Thus, the key
difference between intergroup forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness
is that victims attribute an offense or pattern of offenses to a larger
group or collective.
R/S and Intergroup Forgiveness
Despite growth in studies on intergroup forgiveness, we found only
four studies that have examined R/S and intergroup forgiveness
(Hewstone, Cairns, Voci, Hamberger, & Niens, 2006; Moeschberger,
Dixon, Niens, & Cairns, 2005; Myers et al., 2009; Noor et al.,
2008). For example, in a study in Northern Ireland, Moeschberger et al.
(2005) found that greater religiosity was associated with less
intergroup contact, but religious affiliation (i.e., Protestant or
Catholic) was unassociated with intergroup contact. Hewstone et al.
(2006) sampled 1038 adults from Northern Ireland and found that
identification with one's religious group was associated with less
intergroup forgiveness in Protestants but not in Catholics. Noor et al.
(2008) sampled 309 Catholics and Protestants; they found that
identification with a larger social group that transcended the conflict
between Catholics and Protestants (e.g., Irish) was associated with
intergroup forgiveness in Catholics but not Protestants. Finally, Myers
et al. (2009) sampled 677 Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland;
they found that stronger identification with one's religious group
(as measured by the Group Identification Scale; Brown, Condor, Mathews,
Wade, & Williams, 1986) was related to less forgiveness, and
collective guilt mediated this relationship.
Although the results of these studies are mixed, the most
consistent finding was that strong religious identification predicted
less intergroup forgiveness. This finding is different from most prior
research on R/S and interpersonal forgiveness, which has found small,
positive relationships between R/S and forgiveness (for a meta-analysis,
see Davis, Worthington, Hook, & Hill, 2013). Although it might be
tempting to conclude that R/S may not be helpful for intergroup
offenses, we believe this would be a premature conclusion. Namely, all
of the aforementioned research examined intergroup offenses in one
context (Protestant-Catholic conflict in Ireland). Because the context
involved religious conflict, individuals who were more religious may
have tended to view offenses as more harmful than did individuals who
were less religious. These studies have also used crude measures of R/S
(e.g., religious affiliation). Therefore, more programmatic research is
needed to examine the complex ways that R/S may affect intergroup
forgiveness.
Relational Spirituality and Intergroup Forgiveness
In the current article, we extend a model of relational
spirituality and interpersonal forgiveness to the intergroup context.
Research on interpersonal forgiveness has demonstrated that
dispositional R/S constructs such as religious commitment only weakly
predict forgiveness of specific offenses (Davis et al., 2013). As a
result, investigators began studying R/S constructs that were dynamic
(e.g., experiencing closeness to or anger towards the Sacred, viewing
the offense as a desecration, viewing the offender as spiritually
similar) rather than static (e.g., religious commitment). Indeed,
instead of comparing relatively stable groups (i.e., higher versus lower
religious commitment), this strategy examined constructs associated with
the spiritual context of an offense.
To organize these spiritual constructs, Davis and colleagues (2008,
2012,2014) proposed a model called relational spirituality and
forgiveness. Offenses are interpersonal stressors. Appraisals of the
social context affect how much stress one experiences. Whereas prior
models of forgiveness focused on the secular context of an offense, this
model also considers the spiritual context. Namely, victims may appraise
(a) their own relationship with the Sacred (e.g., anger at God; Exline,
Park, Smyth, & Carey, 2011), (b) the relationship between the Sacred
and the offense (e.g., viewing the offense as a desecration; Pargament,
Magyar, Benore, & Mahoney, 2005); or (c) the offender's
relationship with the Sacred (e.g., viewing the offender as evil; Davis
et al., 2013).
The core hypothesis of the model is based on Worthington's
(2006) emotional replacement hypothesis, which suggests that forgiveness
occurs through replacing the negative emotions of unforgiveness with
positive, other-oriented emotions (e.g., empathy, compassion). Spiritual
appraisals tend to intensify one's emotional reactions to an event.
For example, offenses that involve integrity breaches by leaders are
hurtful, but spiritual appraisals may make them even more hurtful
(McElroy et al., 2014). Thus, spiritual appraisals that intensify
positive emotions ought to accelerate forgiveness, whereas spiritual
appraisals that intensify negative emotions ought to decelerate
forgiveness. This hypothesis has received initial support in a variety
of empirical studies focused on interpersonal forgiveness. In a recent
meta-analysis by Davis et al. (2013), constructs associated with R/S
identity (e.g., religious commitment) were only weakly related (r = .10)
to interpersonal forgiveness, but contextual measures of spirituality
(e.g., anger towards the Sacred) were more strongly related (r = .31) to
interpersonal forgiveness. These findings are also consistent with the
idea that R/S and forgiveness are more strongly related when measured at
a similar level of specificity (McCullough & Worthington, 1999).
Although the model of relational spirituality and forgiveness has
been examined in several studies on interpersonal offenses, it has not
been applied to intergroup forgiveness. The primary modification
required to conduct such a study involves measurement specificity. To
study the model for intergroup offenses, one would need to assess both
forgiveness and appraisals of relational spirituality at the group-level
of specificity. For example, to assess the offender-Sacred relationship,
items should focus on how victims view a collective group's
relationship with the Sacred rather than just one offender's
relationship.
Overview and Hypotheses
The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the
predictions of the model of relational spirituality and interpersonal
forgiveness would generalize to the context of intergroup forgiveness.
Importantly, we are testing this model by examining individuals'
forgiveness of a specified group, as in previous studies. We are not
examining a collective group's forgiveness of another group. We
expected that forgiveness of a specific intergroup offense would be more
strongly related to spiritual appraisals of that same offense than to a
dispositional measure of religious commitment. In regard to specific
hypotheses for the spiritual appraisals, first, we hypothesized that
viewing the offending group as spiritually similar would be positively
associated with intergroup forgiveness. Davis et al. (2009) found that
viewing the offender as spiritually similar was associated with greater
interpersonal forgiveness, and this relationship was mediated by greater
empathy. Second, we hypothesized that avoidant and anxious attachment to
God would be negatively associated with intergroup forgiveness. Davis et
al. (2008) found that insecure attachment to God (i.e., both avoidant
and anxious) was related to less interpersonal forgiveness. Third, we
hypothesized that viewing the intergroup offense as a desecration would
be negatively associated with intergroup forgiveness. Several studies
have consistently found that viewing the offense as a desecration was
related to lower interpersonal forgiveness (Davis et al., 2008, 2010,
2014). Fourth, we subjected the model to a more stringent test in which
we examined whether appraisals of relational spirituality predicted
intergroup forgiveness even after controlling for known appraisal (i.e.,
closeness, hurtfulness) and personality correlates of forgiveness (e.g.,
religious commitment-Worthington et al., 2003; the Big Five-Costa &
McCrae, 1992). Indeed, previous studies have shown that individual
differences, such as agreeableness and neuroticism, predict up to 44% of
the variance in forgiveness, suggesting that personality is an important
source of variance for which to control (McCullough &c Hoyt, 2002).
Method
Participants and Procedure
Participants were 166 undergraduate students from a Southern
university (102 women, 64 men) who received partial course credit for
their participation in the study. The sample was racially diverse (44.0%
White, 25.9% Black/African American, 15.1% Asian/ Pacific Islander, 7.8%
Multiracial, 6.6% Latino/a). The average age of the participants was
19.4 years (SD = 2.1). Participants reported the following religious
affiliations: 87.3% Christian; 6.0% Muslim; 3.0% Hindu; 2.4% Buddhist;
0.6% Jewish; 0.6% pagan. Participants were recruited from undergraduate
courses and received partial course credit in exchange for participating
in the study. After indicating consent, they described an intergroup
offense and completed several measures in relation to the offense in an
online survey. At the end of the survey, participants were debriefed.
Measures
Recall of an intergroup offense. Participants were asked to recall
an intergroup offense. They were first asked to respond to the following
prompt:
Please think about a group with whom you strongly identify.
This group can be racial identity, sexual identity (e.g.,
male/female), or any other group that comes to mind in
terms of your identity. Try and pick a group with whom
you strongly identify. Name that group here.
Then participants identified another group who had committed an
offense against their selected group by responding to a second prompt:
"Now, please think about a group that has hurt or offended (once or
repeatedly) your group. Please write down the name of the offending
group here." Next, participants described this offense by
responding to a third prompt: "Take a moment and reflect on what
this offending group has done. Please take a moment to really think
about their actions. Then, without writing any person's name, write
a brief description of what they have done." In this way,
participants self-selected into the study based on what they considered
a perceived group offense. Finally, participants completed several
single items regarding the hurtfulness of the offense (ranging from 1 =
not at all to 5 = extremely), their closeness with the offending group
before the offense occurred (ranging from 1 = not at all to 5 =
extremely), and whether the offense had stopped (1 = yes; 0 = no).
Forgiveness. An adapted version of the 12-item
Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM;
McCullough et al., 1998) was used to measure forgiveness-related
motivations toward the offending group. The TRIM consists of two
subscales: One measures avoidance motivations (e.g., "I withdraw
from members of the group."), and one measures revenge motivations
(e.g., "I want members of the group to get what they
deserve."). Participants rated items on a 5-point Likert-type scale
(1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The TRIM operationalizes
forgiveness as lower levels of avoidance or revenge motivations; thus,
items were reverse scored such that higher scores corresponded to more
forgiveness. The TRIM had Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging
from .84 to .93 for the subscales (McCullough et al., 1998) and showed
evidence of construct validity. It was positively correlated with other
measures of forgiveness, relationship satisfaction, and commitment
(McCullough et al., 1998). For the current sample, the Cronbach's
alpha was .92.
Religious commitment. The 10-item Religious Commitment Inventory
(RCI-10; Worthington et al., 2003) was used to assess participants'
commitment to a religion. Items (e.g., "My religious beliefs lie
behind my whole approach to life.") were rated on a 5-point
Likert-type scale (1 = not at all true of me to 5 = totally true of me).
In Worthington et al. (2003), Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged
from .88 to .98. The RCI-10 also showed evidence of construct validity,
as it was correlated with measures of religiosity and spiritual
intensity (Worthington et al., 2003). The Cronbach's alpha
coefficient for the current study was .95.
Big Five. The 44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue, &
Kentle, 1991) was used to assess five dimensions of personality
including openness, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and
extraversion. Items (e.g., "I am inventive.") were completed
on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly
agree). The BFI has demonstrated adequate internal consistency, with
Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the subscales ranging from .75 to
.80 (John et al., 1991). The scale also showed evidence of construct
validity, as it was correlated with other measures of personality such
as the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Cronbach's alphas for
the subscales ranged from .70 to .81 in the current study.
Attachment to the Sacred. The 9-item Attachment to God Scale (AGS;
Rowatt & Kirkpatrick, 2002) was used to measure the victim-Sacred
relationship. The AGS has two subscales: Six items assess avoidant
attachment to God (e.g., "The Sacred seems impersonal to
me."), and three items assess anxious attachment to God (e.g.,
"The Sacred sometimes seems responsive to my needs, but sometimes
not."). Participants rated each item on a 7-point Likert-type scale
(1 = not at all characteristic ofme to 7 = very characteristic of me).
Rowatt and Kirkpatrick (2002) found Cronbach's alpha coefficients
for Avoidance and Anxiety were .92 and .80, respectively. Further, the
AGS showed evidence of construct validity, as it was related to
agreeableness and neuroticism. In the present study, the Cronbach's
alpha coefficients for Avoidance and Anxiety were .80 and .71,
respectively.
Viewing the offender as spiritually similar. An adapted version of
the 9-item Similarity of an Offender's Spirituality Scale (SOS;
Davis et al., 2009) was used to assess the offending group-Sacred
relationship. Participants responded to items (e.g., "I thought
about how similar my basic religious beliefs were to the group.")
on a 7-point Likert-type scale (0 = completely disagree to 6 =
completely agree). Cronbach's alphas ranged from .87 to .93 in
previous studies (Davis et al., 2009). The SOS also showed evidence of
construct validity, as it was correlated with measures of empathy and
forgiveness (Davis et al., 2009). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient
for the current sample was .92.
Viewing the offense as a desecration. An adapted version (i.e.,
changing pronouns to focus on intergroup offenses) of the 10-item
Desecration subscale (DS) of the Sacred Loss and Desecration Scale
(Pargament et al., 2005) was used to measure the transgression-Sacred
relationship. Items (e.g., "What they did was an immoral act
against something I valued.") were rated on a 5-point Likert-type
scale (0 = not at all to 5 = very much). Pargament et al. (2005) found
evidence of internal consistency, with a Cronbach's alpha
coefficient of .93. The DS showed evidence of construct validity, as it
was positively associated with anger and rumination (Pargament et al.,
2005). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the present study was
.94.
Results
Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of all variables
are reported in Table 1. Prior to conducting the primary analyses, we
checked the data for outliers and normality. There were a small number
of outliers (less than 2% per variable), which we recoded to three
standard deviations from the mean. There were no problems with
normality. Most participants described a gender-related offense (n = 43;
i.e., "A male stated that all females can only make it so far in
the corporate world, and that we are better off just leaving 'all
the important jobs' to the men pursuing them.") or an offense
related to social cliques (n = 43; i.e., "Bullies my friends and I
because we don't fight back"). Others described offenses
related to race/ethnicity (n = 39; i.e., "A white male once told me
that I had no future because I was black and the only thing that I will
be able to accomplish is spreading my legs."), religion (n = 34;
i.e., "After 9/11, I was teased about my family being terrorists
just because I was Muslim. It was hurtful since my parents have taught
us compassion and kindness."), politics (n = 3; i.e., "It was
election time and I work with all Republicans, and they were talking
about the current president and it tied all into black people and
welfare, etc."), socio-economic status (n = 2; i.e.,
"Waitressing in the Atlanta airport ... most passengers do
appreciate your service, [but] there are a few that are extremely
demanding, short, and rude and treat the servers more like
servants."), and sexuality (n = 2; i.e., "Verbal abuse,
exclusion from a group, denying of marriage"). The majority (n =
92) of the victims considered the offenses to be ongoing.
We hypothesized that appraisals of relational spirituality would be
related to forgiveness. As predicted, avoidant attachment to the Sacred
(r = -.23, p = .004), anxious attachment to the Sacred (r = -.25 ,p =
.002), and desecration (r = -.31, p < .001) were negatively related
to forgiveness. Appraisals that the offender was spiritually similar
were (marginally) positively related to forgiveness (r = .14, p = .075).
We also hypothesized that appraisals of relational spirituality would
predict intergroup forgiveness, even after controlling for closeness,
hurtfulness, personality, and religious commitment. To test this
hypothesis, we conducted a hierarchical linear regression with
forgiveness as the dependent variable (see Table 2). Hurtfulness,
closeness, and the Big Five personality variables were entered in Step
1; religious commitment was entered in Step 2; and appraisals of
relational spirituality were entered in Step 3. Hurtfulness, closeness,
and the Big Five predicted 20% of the variance in forgiveness scores in
Step 1 (p < .001); religious commitment did not predict additional
variance in Step 2 (p = .295); and appraisals of relational spirituality
predicted an additional 8% of the variance in forgiveness scores in Step
3 (p = .012; see Table 2). However, only desecration was a significant
predictor of forgiveness after controlling for the other variables
([beta] = -.20, p = .02).
Discussion
The study of intergroup forgiveness has largely ignored the role of
R/S. To begin to address this gap, the current study has extended a
model of relational spirituality and interpersonal forgiveness (Davis et
al., 2008) to the context of intergroup offenses. In the current paper,
we sought to extend a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness
to the context of intergroup forgiveness. Specifically, we examined how
spiritual appraisals (i.e., victim-Sacred, offender-Sacred, and
transgression-Sacred relationships) are related to intergroup
forgiveness. Consistent with the model, anxious and avoidant attachment
to the Sacred were associated with greater difficulty forgiving.
Additionally, viewing an offending group as spiritually similar was
associated with greater forgiveness. These findings are consistent with
theorizing by Noor et al. (2008) that drawing on shared aspects of
identity (e.g., religious beliefs and values) can promote forgiveness
(Cehajic, Brown, & Castano, 2008; Davis et al., 2009; Noor et al.,
2008; Van Tongeren et al., 2014). These findings are also consistent
with the idea that appraising an offending group as spiritually
dissimilar can evoke negative moral emotions (e.g., contempt) that make
forgiveness difficult (Davis et al., 2013).
We also found that appraising the intergroup offense as a
desecration was associated with less inter group forgiveness. Given that
sacred matters are of ultimate importance, spiritual appraisals of an
offense may enhance one's sense of injustice, which may enhance
appraisals of offense severity. Prior work has shown that viewing
offenses as more severe makes forgiveness more difficult (McCullough,
Fincham, & Tsang, 2003; Myers et al., 2009). In addition, it is
possible that appraising an offense as the destruction of something
sacred may not only lead to more hurtfulness, but it also may damage the
victims' ability to draw on R/S coping resources, which may cause
further strain on their ability to forgive.
In our attempt to replicate the relational spirituality and
interpersonal forgiveness model in the context of intergroup offenses,
we not only examined the bivariate relationships, but we also subjected
the model to a more stringent test by examining whether spiritual
appraisals predicted forgiveness, controlling known appraisal and
personality correlates of forgiveness. As predicted, appraisals of
relational spirituality--specifically, viewing the offense as a
desecration--predicted intergroup forgiveness above and beyond these
covariates. These findings align with prior research that shows that the
relationship between relational spirituality and forgiveness is not
subsumed by other known predictors of forgiveness, providing additional
evidence for the robustness of the model (see Davis et al., 2013).
Limitations and Areas for Future Research
This study has several limitations. First, the participants were
undergraduate students and predominantly Christian. More work is needed
on this model that samples from a variety of religious communities that
may tend to view intergroup offenses in a spiritual way. Second, our
study only used self-reports. Multi-method (i.e., behavioral or
observation-based strategies) studies of forgiveness are needed in order
to triangulate self-reports of forgiveness (Dorn, Hook, Davis, Van
Tongeren, & Worthington, 2014). Third, we utilized only one measure
of forgiveness, the TRIM (McCullough et al., 1998). Though the TRIM is
one of the most widely used measures to study forgiveness (Fehr et al.,
2010), it is limited in its scope. The TRIM is focused mainly on an
individual's ability to decrease the negative. Although this is
congruent with our operationalization of forgiveness, it is possible
that other measures could be included to gain a fuller, more
comprehensive idea of forgiveness. Fourth, this study used a
cross-sectional design. McCullough, Luna, Berry, Tabak, and Bono (2010)
have argued that forgiveness is best studied using longitudinal designs
because forgiveness involves change. Fifth, for studies in which
internal validity is prioritized over external validity, researchers may
want to consider measures of forgiveness that focus on hypothetical
scenarios.
There are also several important directions for future research.
First, it is important to explore potential mediating mechanisms through
which dynamic R/S variables affect intergroup forgiveness. For example,
victims may have an easier time forgiving to the degree that they
relinquish the role of justice to the Sacred. Furthermore, researchers
might focus on other spiritual factors, such as the degree to which
people perceive that the Sacred will actively ensure that justice is
restored after an offense (Davis et al., in press).
Second, there are measurement issues that need to be addressed. The
current study operationalized the Sacred-victim relationship with a
measure of attachment to God. However, the model calls for measures that
assess changes in relational spirituality from moment-to-moment. For
example, it might be interesting to ask participants what they perceive
the Sacred wants in the aftermath of an offense (e.g., "God wants
them to get what they deserve."). This could provide additional
insight into the relationship between R/S motivations for forgiveness
and other factors. Researchers may also want to explore how a variety of
contextual moderators (e.g., severity, time since the offense, duration
of the offense, long-standing consequences) affect the temporal
unfolding of forgiveness.
Third, previous studies have suggested that victims may feel
pressured or obligated to forgive prematurely, especially if they
consider it to be a religious obligation (Vasiliauskas & McMinn,
2013). Sometimes a first step towards forgiveness may involve taking
time to honor the victim's sense of pain and loss. Psychologists
might develop and test specific activities designed to alter negative
appraisals, such as viewing the offense as a desecration or the offender
as evil (see Davis et al., 2014). In addition, psychologists might seek
to promote appraisals that emphasize shared values (e.g., love of the
Sacred and of neighbor; Volf, bin Muhammad, & Yarrington, 2010) or
induce empathy or gratitude.
Fourth, most research on forgiveness has focused on benefits to the
individual, but little is known about intergroup forgiveness and how it
might affect group-level variables (Van Tongeren et al., 2014). Our
study examined an individual's forgiveness of a group not a
group's forgiveness of another group. This is an important
distinction to make because the process of group-to-group forgiveness
may differ significantly. Researchers might explore intergroup
forgiveness in the context of teams or other small groups, such as
business teams within an organization or rival sports teams.
Fifth, more work is needed to address differences in forgiveness
among the most common offenses (i.e., gender, social, race/ethnicity,
and religion). Participants reported offenses related to gender, race/
ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, and politics; however,
differences in forgiveness were not measured. For example, due to sample
size limitations, we did not explore differences in the severity of
offenses or whether certain offenses were more difficult to forgive than
others. Future research may strategically collect samples of
participants experiencing specific types of offenses to see if outcomes
vary by type of offense. This type of work could help researchers and
practitioners determine if different strategies or coping skills are
needed in response to different types of offenses.
Lastly, there is a need for more research looking into a practical
application for the findings. Researchers might begin by taking
strategies from forgiveness interventions designed for interpersonal
offenses and adapting them for intergroup offenses in several ways.
Researchers might provide psycho-education designed to increase both
awareness and ability to respect differences between groups. They might
target specific populations engaged in long-term conflicts, such as
Israelis and Palestinians. Moreover, researchers might use theory to
adapt intervention strategies to the specific challenges of intergroup
offenses. For example, it will likely help promote forgiveness to the
degree that people can resist the tendency to generalize offenses to
depersonalized groups and rather see that offenses occurred within an
interpersonal context with a variety of contextual pressures that
contributed to the conflict. Creating interventions and finding other
practical applications will not only benefit the clinical field but may
also help improve ongoing international conflicts.
Conclusion
Despite the fact that many intergroup conflicts draw on R/S
narratives (Baumeister & Beck, 1999), the study of intergroup
forgiveness has largely neglected R/S variables. We extended a promising
framework for a program of research focused on understanding how R/S may
help or hinder the process of intergroup forgiveness. As basic research
accumulates, we also hope this line of work will eventually inform
interventions designed specifically for religiously-motivated conflicts,
such as long-standing ethnic conflicts with religious roots or disputes
within an R/S community. We are optimistic about the value of relational
spirituality as a point of intervention, since it is likely more
amenable to change than dispositional religious traits.
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Author Information
McELROY, STACEY. MS. Address: Georgia State University, Department
of Counseling and Psychological Services, College of Education, 30 Pryor
Street, Atlanta, GA 30303. Title: Doctoral candidate (Counseling
Psychology). Degrees: MS (Counseling Psychology) Georgia State
University; BS (Psychology) Indiana State University.
CHOE, ELISE. MS. Address: Georgia State University, Department of
Counseling and Psychological Services, College of Education, 30 Pryor
Street, Atlanta, GA 30303. Title: Doctoral student (Counseling
Psychology). Degrees: MS (Mental Health Counseling) Georgia State
University; BS (Psychology) University of Georgia.
WESTBROOK, CHARLES. MS. Address: Georgia State University,
Department of Counseling and Psychological Services, College of
Education, 30 Pryor Street, Atlanta, GA 30303. Title: Doctoral student
(Counseling Psychology). Degrees: MS (Mental Health Counseling) Georgia
State University; BA (Philosophy) University of Georgia.
DAVIS, DON E. PHD. Address: College of Education, Georgia State
University, 30 Pryor Street, Room 950, Atlanta, GA 30303. Title:
Assistant Professor of Psychology. Degrees: PhD (Counseling Psychology)
Virginia Commonwealth University; BA (Psychology) Yale University.
Specializations: humility, forgiveness, positive psychology,
religion/spirituality.
VAN TONGEREN, DARYL R. PhD. Address: Department of Psychology, Hope
College, Schaap Science Center, 35 East 12th Street, Holland, MI
49423-3605. Title: Assistant Professor of Psychology. Degrees: BA
(Psychology) Colorado Christian University; MA (Experimental Psychology)
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; PhD (Social Psychology)
Virginia Commonwealth University. Specializations: social psychological
approaches to meaning, religion, and virtues.
HOOK, JOSHUA, N. PHD. Address: University of North Texas, 1155
Union Circle #311280, Denton, TX 76203. Title: Assistant Professor of
Psychology. Degrees: BS (Psychology) University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign; MS (Counseling Psychology) Virginia Commonwealth
University; PhD (Counseling Psychology) Virginia Commonwealth
University. Specializations: positive psychology, humility, forgiveness,
religion/spirituality, multicultural counseling.
PLACERES, VANESSA. MS. Address: Georgia State University,
Department of Counseling and Psychological Services, College of
Education, 30 Pryor Street, Atlanta, GA 30303. Title: Master's
student (School Counseling). Degrees: MS (Marriage and Family Therapy)
California State University, Fresno; BS (Criminology) California State
University, Fresno.
ESPINOSA, TIFFANY. MS. Address: Warnecke Professional Counseling,
2050 Roswell Road, Marietta, GA 30062. Title: Counselor. Degrees: MS
(Clinical Mental Health Counseling) Georgia State University. BA
(Psychology) Indiana State University.
Stacey McElroy, Elise Choe, Charles Westbrook, and Don E. Davis
Georgia State University
Daryl R. Van Tongeren
Hope College
Joshua N. Hook
University of North Texas
Vanessa Placeres and Tiffany Espinosa
Georgia State University
Author Note: Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Stacey McElroy, Georgia State University, Department of
Counseling and Psychological Services, College of Education, 30 Pryor
Street, Atlanta, GA 30303. Email:
[email protected]
TABLE 1 Means, Standard Deviations, Alphas, and
Intercorrelations of Constructs
Construct 1 2 3 4
1. Forgiveness .92 -.20 * .21 ** .06
2. Hurtfulness -- .12 .10
3. Closeness .04
4. Openness .74
5. Conscientiousness
6. Extraversion
7. Agreeableness
8. Neuroticism
9. Religious Commitment
10. Avoidant AG
11. Anxious AG
12. Spiritual Similarity
13. Desecration
M 30.90 3.47 2.93 30.34
SD 11.26 1.23 1.52 5.66
N 159 161 162 162
Construct 5 6 7 8
1. Forgiveness .29 ** .16 .28 ** -.19 *
2. Hurtfulness .03 -.05 .06 .13
3. Closeness .12 .12 .02 .04
4. Openness .35 ** .26 ** .46 ** -.13
5. Conscientiousness .70 .27 ** .54 ** -.39 **
6. Extraversion .78 .20 * -.26 **
7. Agreeableness .81 -.39 **
8. Neuroticism .75
9. Religious Commitment
10. Avoidant AG
11. Anxious AG
12. Spiritual Similarity
13. Desecration
M 30.34 26.29 32.97 22.61
SD 4.87 5.25 5.97 5.20
N 162 163 158 160
Construct 9 10 11 12
1. Forgiveness .12 -.23 ** -.25 ** .14
2. Hurtfulness .08 -.11 -.06 -.01
3. Closeness .02 .00 -.02 .44 **
4. Openness .15 -.04 .00 .19 *
5. Conscientiousness .21 ** -.15 -.12 .10
6. Extraversion .21 ** -.19 * -.19 * .03
7. Agreeableness .12 -.15 -.08 .05
8. Neuroticism .06 .06 .16 * -.02
9. Religious Commitment .95 -.45 ** -.04 .03
10. Avoidant AG .80 .61 ** .12
11. Anxious AG .71 .06
12. Spiritual Similarity .92
13. Desecration
M 27.81 14.11 8.65 25.08
SD 11.23 7.03 4.35 12.06
N 166 166 166 166
Construct 13
1. Forgiveness -.31 **
2. Hurtfulness .27 **
3. Closeness -.08
4. Openness .13
5. Conscientiousness -.04
6. Extraversion -.01
7. Agreeableness -.02
8. Neuroticism .01
9. Religious Commitment .03
10. Avoidant AG .06
11. Anxious AG .07
12. Spiritual Similarity .12
13. Desecration .94
M 28.78
SD 10.82
N 166
Note. Cronbach's alpha coefficients are on the diagonal.
* p < .05. ** p < .01.
TABLE 2
Hierarchical Regression on Forgiveness
Step Construct B SE [beta] P
Step 1 Constant 21.33 10.41 -- .043
Hurtfulness -2.28 0.76 -0.25 .003
Closeness 1.32 0.61 0.18 .031
Openness -0.19 0.19 -0.09 .330
Conscientiousness 0.44 0.22 0.19 .052
Extraversion 0.13 0.19 0.06 .470
Agreeableness 0.38 0.19 0.20 .050
Neuroticism 0.03 0.20 0.01 .881
Step 2 Constant 22.25 10.44 .035
Hurtfulness -2.33 0.77 -0.25 .003
Closeness 1.37 0.61 0.18 .026
Openness -0.19 0.19 -0.10 .305
Conscientiousness 0.40 0.23 0.17 .078
Extraversion 0.10 0.19 0.05 .595
Agreeableness 0.37 0.19 0.20 .052
Neuroticism 0.00 0.20 0.00 .986
Religious Commitment 0.09 0.08 0.09 .295
Step 3 Constant 36.57 10.90 -- .001
Hurtfulness -1.88 0.82 -0.20 .023
Closeness 0.96 0.65 0.13 .142
Openness -0.17 0.19 -0.08 .372
Conscientiousness 0.32 0.22 0.14 .149
Extraversion 0.00 0.19 0.00 .998
Agreeableness 0.38 0.18 0.20 .044
Neuroticism 0.02 0.20 0.01 .924
Religious Commitment 0.04 0.10 0.04 .654
Avoidant AG -0.16 0.18 -0.10 .389
Anxious AG -0.39 0.28 -0.15 .159
Spiritual Similarity 0.07 0.08 0.08 .384
Desecration -0.21 0.09 -0.20 .020
Step [R.sup.2] P
[DELTA]
Step 1 .20 .000
Step 2 .01 .295
Step 3 .08 .012
