Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2014

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

Volume

6

Issue

2

First Page

150

Last Page

161

DOI of Original Publication

10.1037/a0035186

Comments

Author's post-print. Originally published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035186.

Date of Submission

January 2015

Abstract

Religious communities, like other communities, are ripe for interpersonal offenses. We examined the degree to which group identification predicted forgiveness of an in-group offender. We examined the effects of a victim’s perception of his or her religious group identification as a state-specific personal variable on forgiveness by integrating Social Identity Theory into a model of Relational Spirituality (Davis, Hook, & Worthington, 2008) to help explain victim’s responses to transgressions within a religious context. Data were collected from members of Christian congregations from the mid-west region of the United States (Study 1, N = 63), and college students belonging to Christian congregations (Study 2, N = 376). Regression analyses demonstrated that even after statistically controlling for many religious and transgression-related variables, group identification with a congregation still predicted variance in revenge and benevolence toward an in-group offender after a transgression. Additionally, mediation analyses suggest group identification as one mechanism through which trait forgivingness relates to forgiveness of specific offenses. We discuss the importance of group identity in forgiving other in-group members in a religious community.

Rights

© 2014 American Psychological Association. This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2014, vol. 6 no. 2, 150-161. The final publication is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035186. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.

Is Part Of

VCU Psychology Publications

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