Correlations Of Gratitude And Forgiveness Psychology Essay

Correlations Of Gratitude And lenity psychological science EssayGratitude has only been focused within the expanse of psychology in the past decade although historically it had been discussed at length in theology, religion and philosophy (Emmons McCullough, 2003). Looking back a little into the past, keen philosophers such as Aristotle, Epicurus and La Rochefoucauld were convinced that manifestations of gratitude were due to human beings egotism interest and messy emotional ties that make people unnecessarily beholden to their benefactors (Harpham, 2000 Roberts, 2000 as cited in McCullough, Emmons, Tsang, 2002). However when this topic was reintroduced into the field of scientific studies, seekers argon convince that gratitude has associations with more positive(p) outcomes than the cast outs (Naito, Wangwan Tani, 2005 Wood, Joseph, Linley, 2007 Froh, Yurkewicz Kashdan, 2009). check to McCullough, Emmons, Tsang (2002), gratitude like other affects could exist as an emoti ve trait, an emotion or feeling which they called gratitude disposition. It is individuals universal predisposition to distinguish and act in response with gratifying feeling to the actions of those whom provides positive experiences and outcomes. Other scholars working on dispositional gratitude remembers that it is interrelate to a more optimistic and enthusiastic attitude toward animateness (Wood, Jospeh Maltby, 2008 Froh, Yurkewicz Kashdan, 2009). There are four facets (otherwise cognize as elements) that influence ones gratitude disposition known as intensity, frequency, span and density which co-occurs.The first facet of gratitude disposition is intensity that can be measure by level of thankfulness one feels upon the event of positive event. An individual whom is dispositionally glad will experience greater intensity of gratefulness as compared to a person whom is slight disposed out of the comparable positive event. Frequency, the second facet can be defined as the number of times an individual feels grateful within an allocated period. Dispositionally grateful individual in general will report experiencing more grateful events a day as compared to their counterparts. Their gratitude might be cause by even the smallest favor or act of courtesy (McCullough, Emmons Tsang, 2002).Gratitude span (the third facet) is, at a given timeframe, the number of life circumstances a person feels grateful for. A dispositionally grateful individual will definitely have more appreciation aspects such as feeling grateful about their families, jobs, friends and even simply living life itself. The last facet of gratitude disposition is density which is rebounded by the number of persons an individual feels grateful for a single positive outcome. If a dispositionally grateful person is study who they appreciate for obtaining good exam results, the list may include many significant others such as parents, teachers, friends, neighbours, siblings (McCullough, Emmo ns Tsang, 2002).ForgivenessForgiveness is an action likely to puff two or more individuals, namely the offender and victim closer together as benevolent is universally recognize as a sociable act. No doubt that mounting researches on grace had been carried out yet scholars are more readily to agree upon what pardon is not (McCullough, Pargament Thoresen, 2000). Many of them are convinced that forgiveness should be separated from justifying, pardoning, condoning and reconciliation (Rye, Loiacono, Folck, Olszewski, Heim genus Madia, 2001 Worthingon, Witvliet, Pietrini Miller, 2007 Fincham, 2010). Even until present the precise definition of forgiveness and how to measure it remains an open discussion among psychologists.Rye, Loiacono, Folck, Olszewski, Heim Madia (2001) had compartmentalized forgiveness into two factors called the Absence of Negativity (AN) and the Presence of Positivity (PP). Absence of negativity is measured by negative opinions, affections and action tende ncies (disparaging thinking, anger and trust to avoid or retaliate against the offender) one holds towards individual that wronged them. On the other hand, presence of positivity is the extent whereby individuals have love and compassion towards their offenders as headspring as carrying out favorable action tendencies toward them (Rye et al., 2001).Despite years of research on this character strength psychologists are still unable to come to an organisation whether one or both factors are necessary in the measure of ones forgiveness. Some forgiveness scholars are convinced that absence of negative affect is more often than not sufficient to define the forgiveness process (Fincham, 2010) others insisted that it is not adequate as they trust experiencing positive affects toward ones transgressor is a critical point in completely forgiving someone (Edwards et al., 2002 Kearns Fincham, 2005). Romig and Veenstra (1998) pointed out that individuals ability to resolve developmental ta sks from Eriksons Psychosocial Developmental stages requires both Absence of Negativity (AN) and the Presence of Positivity (PP) in their forgiveness (as cited in Scherbarth, 2007).Worthington (2005) had another(prenominal) fire explanation mentioning that individuals forgiveness towards strangers is just reducing negative responses simply eliminating unforgiveness will be replaced with the positive affects if offender is someone involving family members, colleagues and friends. He suggested that presence of positive affects is only applicable in situations where victim knows the transgressors (Worthington, 2005). In one way or another, measuring forgiveness through these two factors (AN PP) has gained its popularity among psychologists researching this strength.Gender differences in Gratitude and ForgivenessGender differences are an interesting part in the studies of affective traits including gratitude and forgiveness. Researchers back in the 1990s had begun this research with a broader aspect known as determine orientation. Beutel and Marini (1995) advocate that women tend to show apparent gratitude towards social bloods while men are likely to values competition and materialism. Eisenberg Fabes (1998) showed evidence in their write up titled Prosocial Development that women are more empathic than men, suggesting them to be more people oriented as compared to counterparts. Although both sex activitys display gratitude in daily life, women are believed to be more expressive when it comes to emotions like gratefulness. This also influences them to report experiencing indebtedness more intensely and frequently (Simon Nath, 2004 Gordon, Musher-Eizenman, Holub Dalrymp, 2004 Naito, Wangwan Tani, 2005).A research conducted by Kashdan, Mishra, Breen Froh (2009) had some interesting findings about this topic. They found that women evaluated gratitude to be more interesting and exciting as compared to men, whom reported greater burden and obligation with lesser gratitude upon receiving a gift or favor from others. Besides that, men also mentioned that positive affects will be lesser if their benefactors were of same gender. According to Adetunji Adesida (2008), men may interpret expressions of gratitude as a sign of vulnerability and weakness, which is believe to threaten their masculinity and social reputation. Furthermore, women with higher gratitude are more likely to experience sovereign and fulfilling their belonging needs but men on the other hand may feel vice versa should they portray greater gratitude (Kashdan, Mishra, Breen Froh, 2009).Moving on to forgiveness, Miller, Worthington Mcdaniel (2008) conducted a meta-analytical review on gender differences and forgiveness for 70 researches relating to this theme. The result obtained supported that females are more forgiving as compared to males. The highly possible explanation is that females are prone to be less vengeful as compared to males (Brown, 2004 McCullough, Bellah , Kilpatrick Johnson, 2001). Men are vulgarly encouraged taking justice into their own hands but women are likely to be taught relationship harmony (Miller, Worthington Mcdaniel, 2008). This practice is common among the Western population whom profoundly observe masculinity and feminine theory in their daily life.However in contrary, Kmiec (2009) had various findings to offer. He found that there were no gender differences in terms of general forgiveness but men were more likely to forgive in recalling a specific incident. He justified when both genders are equal in overall forgiveness, men are less detailed in recalling a particular incident that lead to unforgiveness. Females on the other hand may recall thoughts which they had difficulty in forgiving the offender, even though this does not reflect their ordinary model of forgiving (Kmiec, 2009). Fehr, Gelfand Nag (2010) also duplicated similar result supporting that gender does not differ in terms of forgiveness by and by a nalyzing 76 studies containing 11730 participants (r Correlations of Gratitude and ForgivenessGratitude and forgiveness in modern years had been scientifically proven to have associations that enhance better living among individuals and community at large. satisfactory researches had convinced scholars that both gratitude (Froh, Yurkewicz Kashdan, 2009) and forgiveness (Lawler-Row Piferi, 2006 Ysseldyk, Matheson Anisman, 2007) do correlates in predicting individual subjective well up being. Both character strengths are further identified as the sources of interpersonal and intrapersonal strengths that cling to a healthy physical and psychological environment.Experimental data confirms that gratitude and forgiveness are positively correlated with optimistic, life satisfactions (Sastre, Vinsonneau, Neto, Girard Mullet, 2003), physical health (Levenson, Aldwin Yancura, 2006 Worthingon, Witvliet, Pietrini Miller, 2007) and environmental mastery (Wood, Joseph Linley, 2007 Hill Allemand, 2010). In contrary, grateful and forgiving individuals are negatively correlated with pessimistic affect such as stress, anxiety and first (Berry, Worthington, OConnor, Parrott Wade, 2005 Eaton, Struthers, Santelli, 2006 Wood, Maltby, Gillet, Linley Joseph, 2008 Tse Yip, 2009 Gavian, 2011).A recent research done by Froh, Fan, Emmons, Bono, Huebner Watkins (2011) supported that individuals that regularly experience gratitude in life are more likely to enjoy better well being and longer life satisfaction because they are more capable in adjusting to their positive social environment. This idea was built on previous research by McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons Larson (2001) highlighting that gratitude emotion essentially serve as a (1) moral barometer, motivating individuals to be sensitive towards the help they receive daily, (2) moral repay function that inspire grateful individual to behave prosocially towards others and (3) moral reinforcer function which cultivate s benefactors future moral airs.Besides that, Allemand, Hill, Ghaemmaghami Martin (2012) had also extended previous findings by using future time perspective as a moderating factor in examining adults forgiveness and subjective well being. They found out that individuals whom believe of having limited future time portray stronger positive association between forgiveness and well being. However the moderating effect does not apply for negative affect and pessimism. The discrepancy obtained indicates that positive affect and negative affect (Lucas, Diener Suh, 1996) as well as optimism and pessimism (Herzberg et al., 2006) are not direct opposite characteristics as suggested in preceding studies.Other than focusing solely on non clinical samples, years worth of experiments also manage to induce both psychologists and medical practitioners to consider that suitable gratitude (Ng Wong, 2013 Joseph Wood, 2010 Wood Tarrier, 2010 Chan, 2008) and forgiveness (Witvliet, Ludwing Laan, 2001 Worthington Scherer, 2004 Carson et. al., 2005 Friedman Toussaint, 2006) interventions will be secure towards physically and psychologically ill clients. By adopting gratitude and forgiveness as strength based interventions in percentage clinical settings clients to cope with their complaintes had been verified to be as effective as existing problem focused interventions.For instance Toussaint et. al. (2010) managed to establish that fibromyalgia and chronic fatigues patients showed signs of improvements after learning the art of forgiving during their treatment periods. This is because fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue symptoms are aggravated by patients frustration, anger, stress and fear (Raymond Brown, 2000). Forgiveness is found to be a coping mechanism that will alleviate the exacerbating role of negative emotional reactions hence offering a cure towards these sicknesses (Toussaint et. al., 2010). This favorable outcome was earliest acknowledged by Carson, Keefe, Lyn ch, Carson, Goli, Fras Trop (2005) mentioning that focusing on positive affects in life instead of thinking about failures in treating illness may be beneficial towards chronic fatigue patients because the sickness is partially convoluted by anger, antipathy and stress as stated above.An excellent supporting reason why gratitude and forgiveness are subjective well being booster and effective clinical interventions is because individuals with these character strengths are also equipped with positive emotional attributions such empathy, self compassion and acceptance (Breen, Kashdan, Lenser Finchman, 2010). Several studies advocate gratitude (McCullough Hoyt, 2002) and forgiveness (Brown, 2003 Paleari, Regalia Fincham, 2005) to positively correlates with both cognitive (scenario attributions) and affective (feeling the victims emotion) aspects of empathy. Grateful and forgiving individuals are prone to take in others better by analyzing situations from others point of views which circuitously improve their social supports and interpersonal relationship.Besides empathy, self compassion also reflects an individuals warmth and perspective taking towards self and others. According to Werner, Jazaieri, Goldin, Ziv, Heimberg Gross (2012), self compassion can be defined as the talent to hold a kind and non-judgmental perspective of oneself and be conscious of the similarities between self and others. According to Fehr, Gelfand Nag (2010), self compassion within the context of forgiveness is seen to enhance victims perceptive of why their offenders might have affronted them. This will indirectly reduce their urge for vengeance and anger hence improves the likelihood of forgiveness to occur. The ultimate outcome of these individuals would be healthier physical and better recovery from sickness due to the reduction in unnecessary stress and anger.Lastly, acceptance which is known as individuals willingness in opening up to experiences, thoughts, feelings, physical sensations as well as life events also proved to show indirect relations with gratitude and forgiveness (Breen, Kashdan, Lenser Finchman, 2010). Acceptance provides individuals a platform to respond accordingly to situational demands by fully experiencing every occurring event. By having high level of acceptance individual will be sensitive towards the good deed others had done for them that indirectly elevate their gratitude level. On the other hand, forgiveness and acceptance are related in the direction of embracing negative events while responding with objectivity and litheness. Both of these character strengths will then foster good resiliency for individuals to cope with difficult, unsuspected downturn in life.In short, gratitude and forgiveness may oblige discrete attributions (McCullough, Emmons Tsang, 2002) but share a common conceptually linked as positively valence, portraying empathic characters that is associated with both psychological and physical health. It is stro ngly believed that literatures presented here are both promising and convince for current research to focus in exploring the correlations between gratitude and forgiveness within same Asian sample group.References 2.4Wong, W. S., Ng, M. Y. (2013). The differential effects of gratitude and sleep on psychological distress in patients with chronic pain. Journal of Health Psychology, 18(2), 263-271. inside 10.1177/1359105312439733Ysseldyk, R., Matheson, K., Anisman, H. (2007). Rumination Bridging a gap between forgiveness, vengefulness and psychological health. 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(2011). amount gratitude in youth Assessing the psychometric properties of adult gratitude scales in children and adolescents. Psychological Assessment. Advance online publication. DOI 10.1037/a0021590McCullough, M. E., Kilpatrick, S. D., Emmons, R. A., Larson, D. B. (2001). Is gratitude a moral affect? Psychological Bulletin, 127(2), 249-266. DOI 10.1037//0033-2909.127.2.249Lucas, R. E., Diener, E., Suh, E. (1996). Discriminant vali dity of well-being measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 616-628. Retrieved from http//nreilly.asp.radford.edu/psy650/discriminant%20validity%20of%20well%20being%20measures.pdfHerzberg, P. Y., Glaesmer, H., Hoyer, J. (2006). Separating optimism andpessimism A robust psychometric analysis of the revise Life-OrientationTest (LOT-R). Psychological Assessment, 18, 433-438. DOI 10.1037/1040-3590.18.4.433Chan, D. W. (2008). Gratitude interventions Beyond stress debriefing and survivor therapy in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake. 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Olufemi (ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd ACDE conference and general assembly, (pp. 276-289). Victoria Island, Lagos.Brown, R. P. (2004). Vengeance is mine Narcissism, vengeance, and the tendencyto forgive. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 576-584. DOI10.1016/j.jrp.2003.10.003McCullough,M.E., Bellah, G. C., Kilpatrick, S. D.,Johnson, J. L. (2001). VengefulnessRelationships with forgiveness, rumination, well-being, and theBig Five. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 601-610. Retrieved from http//ww w.psy.miami.edu/faculty/mmccullough/Papers/McCullough.pdfMiller, A. J., Worthington, E. L., Mcdaniel, M. A. (2008). Gender and forgiveness A meta-analytic review and research agenda. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 27(8), 843-876. Retrieved from http//www.people.vcu.edu/mamcdani/Publications/Miller,%20Worthington%20%20McDaniel%20(2008).pdfFehr, R., Gelfand, J., Nag, M. (2010). The road to forgiveness A meta-analytic synthesis of its situational and dispositional correlates. Psychological Bulletin, 136(5), 894-914. DOI 10.1037/a0019993References 2.2McCullough, M. E., Pargament, K. I., Thoresen, C. E. (2000). The psychology of forgiveness History, conceptual issues, and overview. In M.E. McCullough, K. I. Pargament, C. E. Thoresen (Eds.) Forgiveness Theory, research and practice (pp. 1-14). New York Guilford Press.Worthington, E. L., Witvliet, C. V. O., Pietrini, P., Miller, A. J. (2007). Forgiveness, health and well being A review of evidence for emotional versus deci sional forgiveness, dispositional forgivingness and reduced unforgiveness. Journals of behavioral Medicine, 30, 291-302. DOI 10.1007/s10865-007-9105-8Fincham, F. D. (2010). Forgiveness Integral to a science of close relationships? In M. Mikulincer P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Prosocial motives, emotions and behavior The better angels of our nature (pp. 347-365). Washington, DC, US.Worthington, E. L. Jr. (2005). More questions about forgiveness Research agenda for 2005-2015. In E. L. Worthington Jr. (Ed.), Handbook of forgiveness (pp. 557-575). New York Brunner-Routledge.Kearns, J.N., Fincham, F.D. (2005). Victim and perpetrator accounts of interpersonaltransgressions Self-serving or relationship-serving biases? Personality and Social PsychologyBulletin, 31, 321-333. DOI 10.1177/0146167204271594Scherbarth, A. J. (2007). Psychological abuse and health What role does forgiveness play? (Master dissertation). University of North Texas. (Unpublished Thesis). Retrieved from http//digital.librar y.unt.edu/ark/67531/metadc3918/m2/1/high_res_d/thesis.pdf