Effects of a culture-adaptive forgiveness intervention for Chinese college students

ABSTRACT

The understanding and application of forgiveness varies across cultures. The current study aimed to examine the effect of a culture-adaptive Forgiveness Intervention on forgiveness attitude, self-esteem, empathy and anxiety of Mainland Chinese college students. Thirty-six participants were randomly allocated to either experimental groups or a wait-list comparison group, with 28 retained finally. Forgiveness, empathy, self-esteem and anxiety were assessed one week before and after a 10-week forgiveness programme integrating Enright process model and Chinese values. The intervention increased participants' forgiveness attitudes. No significant effect was reported on empathy, self-esteem and anxiety. These findings demonstrate that the Culture-adaptive forgiveness intervention is potentially promising to enhance forgiveness attitude in societies where collectivist, cooperative and interdependent principles are dominant.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese culture
• forgiveness attitude
• empathy
• self-esteem
• anxiety

Acknowledgement

This paper is based on Mingxia Ji's PhD project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Mingxia Ji is a post-doctoral fellow at The Hong Kong Institute of Education. Her research interests include forgiveness research, educational psychology, and inclusive education.

Dr Eadaoin Hui is an honorary associate professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. Her research publications mainly focus on forgiveness study, Special Needs, Students' and Teachers' Perception, Students' Adjustment, Teacher Stress, Guidance, Counseling, and Personal-Social Education.

Prof. David Watkins was a full professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong before he retired. His research interests include cross-cultural psychology, self-concept, and forgiveness study.

Prof. Hong Fu is the Dean of School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University. He has extensive experience in conducting research projects in the area of child psychology as well as forgiveness research in China.

Dr Linjin Tao presently works at School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, China. Her research interests focus on forgiveness study and art therapy.

Prof. Sing Kai Lo is the Dean of Graduate School at The Hong Kong Institute of Education. He has a solid track record in securing research incomes; and has published over 200 articles, mainly in journals with high impact factors. His research interests mainly focus on Evidence-based education, Social and personal wellbeing, and Research methods.

Notes

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Additional information

Funding

Mingxia Ji's PhD project was funded by the University Grant Committee, Hong Kong.