The Psychology And Educational Research Of Forgiveness Of Chinese College Students

Forgiveness, being in Philosophy and Ethics, has become a significant theme of Psychology and Pedagogy today. It is both art and science. From view of Moral Psychology and Education, the research explored forgiveness of Chinese college students. Its main target was to resolve interpersonal conflict and violence in schools and to improve mental health of college students. The research methods were both the theoretical and empirical research, qualitative and quantitative research.First of all I reviewed the research of forgiveness in psychology. Because of the advancement of modern psychology, the forgiveness of scientific research in the West is developing rapidly in recent years since this century. The research of forgiveness is not limited to traditional theology, philosophy and ethics areas but becomes an important topic in psychology, education and other research areas. There are several major topics about forgiveness in the modern psychology research, including the psychological model of forgiveness, forgiveness and its psychological factors (cultural background, the injured person and injury events, awareness, empathy, personality, etc), forgiveness therapy and forgiveness education. But in China, the scientific research of forgiveness has hardly been found now. Finally we defined forgiveness as a psychological process of cognitive, emotional regulation and behavioral adjustment. The current research covered the interpersonal forgiveness of college students.In Chapter One, I reviewed and analyzed the relevant literature about forgiveness to clarify the concept of forgiveness and the basic theoretical issues of forgiveness. Worldwide, forgiveness is an ancient concept. It once belonged to religious or non-religious areas in different cultures. There are different interpretations in West and East cultures about forgiveness. It was differs and contacts with some concepts: tolerance, reconciliation, justice, mercy, patient, pardon and excuse. The necessary, boundaries, subject, limitations and applicability of forgiveness are all important topics we should sort out. For studying forgiveness in China, we should pay attention to the different social and cultural foundations between East and West. In Chinese forgiveness which is based on the Confucian secular culture is different from West's forgiveness which based on the Christian culture. Traditionally, the perspectives about human nature are different between west and China; forgiveness is absolute in West but relative in China; forgiveness is personal in West but social in China. The difference of forgiveness in traditional results also difference in modern society between West and China. We can understand the meaning and essence of forgiveness in different ways through the analysis of relevant literatures and theories. According to the above analysis, cultural psychology, evolutionary psychology, and the theory of moral intuition, we proposed an integrative theoretical model of psychological process about forgiveness. The core of the model is that individuals with some kind of active force on the emotional adjustment process; the force is not only one's own character and experience, but also includes the influence from social (cultural) and others. The force usually is moral and the result is always altruistic.So basically we can see forgive as a moral process. Is this assumption correct? Is forgiveness manifested in different moral levels and are they having the same effect on emotion regulations? Furthermore are we able to intervene in this process or not? Next we used empirical methods to test these assumptions.Chapter Two included five researches. In the current study, participants are 872 students coming from three universities in Shandong Province. The morality of forgiveness were investigated in six qualitative and quantitative studies.Study one reported the general condition of forgiveness of college students, using qualitative research paradigm, interviews and survey. The results showed that understanding of forgiveness of college students in our cultural is related to two main angles: First, to view forgiveness as a quality of personality (character), and second, to view forgiveness as a way of interaction with others. There are two types of forgiveness : the"self-oriented"forgiveness, including the forgiveness for self-emotion (a kind of non-moral forgiveness) and the forgiveness for self- moral character, and the"other-oriented"forgiveness (forgiveness of moral empathy). Results showed that in Chinese culture, there are two kinds of forgiveness of college students, moral and non-moral forgiveness.Study two explored the forgiveness development of college students and compared their forgiveness styles to justice moral development stages, with dilemma story methods (two stories of fair moral judgments and two stories of forgiveness). It showed that students were at higher levels (level 5 and 6) in their justice morality but their forgiveness styles were spread at different levels (both higher levels and lower levels, mostly in level 2 and 5).The development styles of forgiveness were to some extent related to the stages of justice morality, but did not correspond perfectly. In addition, there were gender differences of moral justice and forgiveness development in college students. It was found that the development of forgiveness and justice were not synchronized and moral forgiveness of college students needed to be improved.Study three examined the relationship between distorted conviction or belief, some moral dimensions and forgiveness of college students, using questionnaires of forgiveness, empathy scale, collectivism and individualism scale, altruism questionnaire, etc. The results showed that collectivism, altruism and caring values, empathy were significantly associated with forgiveness, especially with the advanced levels of forgiveness and had a significant effect the last, but not the lower levels of forgiveness. It means that the advanced levels of forgiveness are more moral than the low ones.Study four used of Forgiveness Scale, Positive and Negative Affect Scale, personality - emotional rating scale, PLC traumatic stress scale, etc. to explore the relationship between motivation of forgiveness of students and their emotional benefits. It was found that moral beliefs, feelings of love (high motivation of forgiveness) played a role to increase positive emotions and reduce negative emotions; Obedience to authority and emotional benefits (such low-level motivation of forgiveness) increased negative emotions and reduced positive emotions; forgiveness motivation of empathy and interpersonal harmony had different impact on emotions. Therefore, a general conclusion was that high motivation of forgiveness (the morality of forgiveness) has positive effect on emotional regulation. The effects of low motivation of forgiveness (forgiveness of non-moral) were counterproductive.Study five was a training program of the forgiveness of college students, using the method of awareness and empathy training. It showed that cognitive behavioral intervention of class and intervention of small group both improved the forgiveness scores; intervention of classes helped to improve ante-ruminant, trust and forgiveness behavior score; intervention of group improved the ability of empathy. In addition, students who had rural background benefited more from the forgiveness education. It indicated that forgiveness intervention (forgiveness training) had short-term adjustment effect on the forgiveness state.In short, our empirical studies showed that Chinese students have moral forgiveness and non-moral forgiveness. Different moral levels of forgiveness showed different correlations with other ethical dimensions, and their influences on emotion regulations were also different. In addition, the features of forgiveness and its development of college students had been found in the research. It provided us a good theoretical foundation for forgiveness education.In Chapter Three, we discussed the forgiveness education of the college students. It referred to the necessity and possibility of forgiveness education on college students, and some principles and strategies in the education. The main principles include Two-way education, moral core education; multiple parallel moral education, localization education, differences education and so on. More research are necessary to explore the psychological forgiveness and education.