Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-2000

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Warren H. Jones

Abstract

Recently, considerable research attention has been devoted to the process of forgiving interpersonal transgressions. An unresolved issue in this literature concerns the measurement of the construct of forgiveness. The primary purpose of this research project was to develop a valid and reliable measure of state forgiveness, that is, the degree to which a respondent has forgiven a specific person or a specific instance of betrayal or hurt. Three separate phases of research were conducted.

In Phase 1, an initial pool of items were written and subsequently refined using both traditional Likert analyses and itemmetric analyses. Initial estimates of reliability were computed from responses to the items by 397 college students. Subsequently, a 45-item scale, called the Act of Forgiveness Scale (AFS) was shown to be both internally consistent and reliable over time. Furthermore, the factor structure of the AFS was explored and appeared to be consistent with current conceptualizations of forgiveness. In Phase 2, the convergent and discriminant validity of the AFS was assessed in analyses involving data from over 1,000 college students. Specifically, the average correlation between the AFS and other state measures was found to be greater than the average correlation between the AFS and trait measures of forgiveness. In addition, significant correlations were found between forgiveness, as measured by the AFS, and related constructs, such as cynicism and attachment. In Phase 3, non-test validity analyses were undertaken by comparing AFS scores to coded narrative accounts of betrayal by students (n=311) and by a semi-structured interview with students (n=50) about betrayal and forgiveness. In the narrative study, forgiveness was reliably associated with perceptions of the severity of the offense and consequences for the relationship and victim, but relatively unrelated to objective characteristics of the betrayal (e.g., type of offense). Several of these findings were replicated in the interview studyFor example, participants' AFS scores were related to severity of the offense, apology, and an impressionistic rating of forgiveness. Taken together, results strongly supported the utility of the AFS as a measure of state forgiveness and suggested several hypotheses of relevance to future research.

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