1. No genuine self-forgiveness without accepting responsibility: Value reaffirmation as a key to maintaining positive self-regard.
- Author
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Wenzel, Michael, Woodyatt, Lydia, and Hedrick, Kyli
- Subjects
ANALYSIS of variance ,CHI-squared test ,COLLEGE students ,FORGIVENESS ,LONGITUDINAL method ,PSYCHOLOGY ,QUESTIONNAIRES ,REGRESSION analysis ,RESEARCH evaluation ,RESEARCH funding ,RESPONSIBILITY ,ROLE playing ,STATISTICAL sampling ,SCALES (Weighing instruments) ,SELF-perception ,STATISTICAL hypothesis testing ,VALUES (Ethics) ,THEORY ,DATA analysis software ,DESCRIPTIVE statistics - Abstract
Measures of self-forgiveness that merely focus on the outcome of positive self-regard risk neglecting the process through which offenders restore it. They may thus tap pseudo self-forgiveness where offenders downplay their responsibility for the wrongdoing. For genuine self-forgiveness, the process should instead involve an attenuation of the negative link between responsibility acceptance and positive self-regard. In this paper, we examine how acts of value reaffirmation facilitate genuine self-forgiveness. In Study 1, a role-play experiment (N = 90), participants either confessed their wrongdoing to the victim or not. Although responsibility acceptance was strongly negatively related to reported self-forgiveness (i.e., self-regard), this relationship was tempered when participants confessed their wrongdoing to the victim and, through this, reaffirmed the violated values. In Study 2, a longitudinal study referring to self-reported transgressions (N = 74), responsibility acceptance was negatively related to self-forgiveness measures as well as self-esteem when offenders showed little value reaffirmation, but not when they more strongly reaffirmed the violated values. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
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