The Effect Of Emotion Regulation On Interpersonal Forgiveness

Interpersonal forgiveness can not only improve interpersonal relationship,but also promote social harmony.Previous studies have divided interpersonal forgiveness into decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness,but a fat lot studies have explored the different effects of different ways of emotional regulation on decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness,and the possible mediating role of cognitive inhibition in them.Based on this,three experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of different emotion regulation strategies on decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness,as well as the mediating role of cognitive inhibition.Through the above studies,we hope to reveal the effect of emotion regulation on cognitive inhibition in the process of interpersonal forgiveness,and provide a theoretical basis for promoting interpersonal relationship and social harmony.In the first study,Chinese college students were asked to revise the decisional and emotional forgiveness questionnaire.601 questionnaires were collected,of which441 were used for exploratory factor analysis and the remaining 160 were used for validation.Two weeks later,165 valid questionnaires were retested.The results indicate that the questionnaire has fairly reliability and validity,and can be used for follow-up research.The second study explored the direct relationship between emotion regulation and interpersonal forgiveness,and the specific relationship between cognitive reappraisal and inhibition of expression in emotion regulation and decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness.In this study,172 subjects were selected by using the revised decisional and emotional scale and the emotion regulation scale.The results show that emotional regulation is positively correlated with interpersonal forgiveness,cognitive reappraisal is positively correlated with emotional forgiveness,and expression inhibition is positively correlated with decisional forgiveness.Based on the second study,The third study explored the mediating role of cognitive inhibition in the process of expression inhibition and decisive forgiveness,as well as in the process of cognitive reappraisal and emotional forgiveness.155 subjects were selected in this experiment.The dictator task was adapted to investigate the forgiveness response in real situations,and the Stroop task was used to measure cognitive inhibition.The results show that expression inhibition can significantly predict the level of decisional forgiveness,and cognitive inhibition plays a mediating role in it;cognitive reappraisal can significantly predict emotional forgiveness,but no mediating role of cognitive inhibition is found.Studies have shown that cognitive reappraisal and emotional forgiveness have a strong adaptive function,and can achieve true forgiveness without strong cognitive inhibition.Therefore,cognitive reappraisal and emotional forgiveness should be widely concerned.