Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Forgiveness--Sex differences; Forgiveness; Academic theses;
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the general population's understanding and views of forgiveness and to examine if gender was a factor related to one's understanding of forgiveness and motivation to forgive. In this study, structured interviews were administered which allowed a focus on the personal views and experiences of forgiveness and descriptive statistics were used to explain the common patterns in responses among the participants. Forty-nine participants, ranging in ages from 15 to 54, were selected to be interviewed on their views and practice of forgiveness. Of the 49 participants, 15 were males and 34 were females. Four main findings were discovered through this study. 1. Findings showed that a majority of the participants had accurate knowledge regarding the meaning of forgiveness. Most of the participants gave definitions of forgiveness in line with the definitions commonly given by researchers. Nevertheless, more than half of the participants provided negative or ambiguous responses when asked if they had forgiven someone who had hurt them. Furthermore, even though some participants claimed that they had forgiven their offenders, their forgiving attitudes were based on reconciling with their offenders or forgetting about the hurts. 2. Findings showed that a majority of the participants could distinguish forgiveness from other related concepts such as reconciliation, forgetting, or condoning. However, it was also true that some participants' responses to the differences were not consistent with their definitions of forgiveness.
Year of Submission
2006
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Education
Department
Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations
First Advisor
Suzanne Freedman
Second Advisor
Elana Jordan
Third Advisor
Radhi Al-Mabuk
Date Original
2006
Object Description
1 PDF file (102 leaves)
Copyright
©2006 Wen-Chuan Rita Chang
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Chang, Wen-Chuan Rita, "An Investigation of the General Population’s Understanding of Forgiveness" (2006). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2321.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2321
Comments
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