The Effect Of Gratitude And Offense Severity On Interpersonal Forgiveness Among Adolescents

It is inevitable for students to have some offensive incidents during interpersonal interaction in campus life.Therefore,it is extremely important that how to promote interpersonal forgiveness after offending.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of gratitude and offense severity on interpersonal forgiveness among adolescents.This study was conducted using two methods,the questionnaire method and the experimental method.The study was divided into two parts:The first study was to explore the relationship between gratitude and adolescents' interpersonal forgiveness.It was divided into two small studies.Study 1a was conducted through the Gratitude Questionnaire-6(GQ-6)and the Heartland Forgiveness Scales(HFS)to measure 315 adolescents to investigate the relationship between trait gratitude and dispositional interpersonal forgiveness.Study 1b used the situational recall paradigm to provoke state gratitude and explored its impact on the contextual situational interpersonal forgiveness.The second study adopted 2(state gratitude: yes/no)× 2(offense severity: moderate/severe)mixed experimental design and seted up 5 different types of injury events in order to explore how different it is to participate in the situational interpersonal forgiveness of adolescents with different state gratitude under different offense severity.The study had mainly reached the following conclusions:1.Trait gratitude had a positive predictive effect on dispositional interpersonal forgiveness among adolescents,and individuals with strong gratitude tendencies had a higher level of dispositional interpersonal forgiveness.2.State gratitude had a positive effect on adolescent contextual situational interpersonal forgiveness in the context of hurt dody and hurt property.Compared with the control group,the state gratitude start-up group had a higher contextual situational interpersonal forgiveness.The main effect of state gratitude is not significant in the other three types of offenses.3.Offense severity affected interpersonal forgiveness.In the five types of offenses,the main effects of offense severity are significant.The more serious the offense,the less likely it is for offenders to choose forgiveness.4.There was no interaction effect between state gratitude and offense severity on individual contextual interpersonal forgiveness in the case of physical injury and damage to property.In moderate offensive and severe offensive situations,the level of interpersonal forgiveness in the state gratitude group was significantly higher than the control group.This study further confirmed the contribution of gratitude(trait gratitude and state gratitude)to interpersonal forgiveness among adolescents.While enriching the study of gratitude and interpersonal forgiveness among adolescents,it can also provide some theoretical references for the resolution of interpersonal conflicts among adolescents.