DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/H93Q-BT93
Defense Date
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Counseling Psychology
First Advisor
Everett Worthington
Abstract
Research on forgiveness has been expanding rapidly in the last decade with a subset of studies looking at how religious people forgive. A discrepancy persists between Christians’ level of valuing forgiveness and forgiveness of actual transgressions. Several methodological issues and offense-specific variables have been presented as explanations. This present thesis examines the role of the congregation as a group identity, and applies it to a theory of relational spirituality, as a measure of the relationship between a victim and the Sacred. No existing research has polled congregants about offense-specific forgiveness of church peers. I collected data from members of Christian congregations throughout the United States (Study 1, N = 63) and college students belonging to Christian congregations (Study 2, N = 387) concerning group identity and within group forgiveness. In the present studies, group identification with a congregation predicted lower unforgiving and higher forgiving motivations towards an in-group offender.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
May 2011