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

Mingxia Ji*, Eadaoin Hui, Hong Fu, David Watkins, Linjin Tao, Sing Kai Lo

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)335-346
Number of pages12
JournalBritish Journal of Guidance and Counselling
Volume44
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 26 05 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

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

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