Episodic forgiveness in young American adults and its pathways to distress by health, outlook, spirituality, aggression, and social support.

Abstract

Background: Forgiveness is one form of emotion-focused coping, and the positive effects of such a practice on mental well-being have been confirmed by numerous meta-analyses. The biopsychosocial model assumes that feeling burdened is determined by a number of physical, psychological, and social factors, suggesting a multidimensional relationship between forgiveness and distress. In this study, we tested a model according to which various sociopsychological variables (i.e., health, outlook, spirituality, aggression, and social support) mediate the negative association between episodic forgiveness (also known as state forgiveness) and distress.

Participants and procedure: We tested the model on a cross-sectional sample of 436 young adults from the United States (62% of whom were women) using structural equation modelling (SEM).

Results: The results of the overall model supported our indirect effects hypotheses. An analysis of specific indirect effects revealed that variables such as health, a negative outlook, aggressiveness, and social support play a special role in adaptation to stressful life events in forgiving individuals.

Conclusions: The relationship between episodic forgiveness and distress can be explained through complex sociopsychological mechanisms, including feelings of health, outlook, or social support, and attitudes, experiences, and behaviours related to these mechanisms can influence each other and collectively contribute to preventing or reducing perceived burden in young American adults.