Etienne Mullet

Forgiveness in adolescents, young, middle-aged, and older adults

The evolution of the propensity to forgive an offense was studied in a sample of 236 people from various age groups. The effect of a number of circumstances connected with the offense was considered: intent to harm, severity of consequences, cancellation of consequences, social proximity to the offender, apologies from the offender, and the attitude of others. The method was an application of information integration theory. A global increase in the propensity to forgive from adolescence to old age was observed. Several interactions between age and circumstances were found: (a) The effect of the cancellation factor was higher in young adolescents and in the very old than in the middle-aged, (b) the attitude of others and the restoration of harmony factors were important only in adolescents. Finally, the structure of the Forgiveness schema was shown to be an additive one, regardless of the age of the participants.

Personality Correlates of Risk Perception

The aim of the present study was to systematically examine the variations of the effects of (1) transitional anxiety states and enduring anxiety dispositions, and (2) worldviews (hierarchic, egalitarian, individualist, and fatalist), as a function of the type of hazard considered. Ten risk factors were identified. Transitional anxiety contributed significantly to the prediction of four of these risk factors. The more anxious the respondents, the higher were their scores for the Common Individual Hazards, Pollutants, and Outdoor Activities factors, and the lower were their scores for the Public Transportation and Energy Production factor. Enduring anxiety contributed significantly to the prediction of the Psychotropic Drugs factor. The more anxious the respondents, the lower were their scores. The four worldview factors contributed significantly to the prediction of three of these risk factors. The more fatalistic the respondents, the lower were their scores for the Pollutants factor, and the higher were their scores for the Public Transportation and Energy Production factor; the more egalitarian the respondents, the higher were their scores for the Pollutants factor; the more hierarchic the respondents, the lower were their scores for the Public Transportation and Energy Production factor; and the more individualistic the respondents, the higher were their scores for the Pollutants and Deviance, Sex, and Addiction factors.

“Forgivingness”: Factor Structure in a Sample of Young, Middle-Aged, and Elderly Adults

The effect of various circumstances known to moderate willingness to forgive was studied in a sample of adults whose ages ranged from 18 to 90 years. The factorial structure of these circumstances was shown, as well as the link between age and the different factors. Four factors were extracted: (1) A Revenge Versus Forgiveness factor reflecting a general tendency in people to forgive (or to seek revenge) regardless of circumstances. (2) A Personal and Social Circumstances factor synthesizing the effects of various incentives from the social environment of the person. (3) An Obstacle to Forgiveness factor synthesizing the effects of the circumstance linked to the offense. (4) A Forgiveness Block factor. Age appeared as the strongest determinant of forgivingness.

Conceptualizations of Forgiveness

The objectives of the survey were to examine the extent to which (1) laypeople agree with conceptualizations of forgiveness encountered in literature, notably that forgiveness supposes the replacement of negative emotions toward the offender by positive emotions, (2) forgiveness is a process that can only take place between an offended and an offender who is known to the offended, and (3) forgiveness is not a process that devalues the forgiven but a process that encourages him/her to behave better in the future. It was also aimed at examining the extent to which parents and children share the same conceptualizations about forgiveness. A total of 343 students participated in the study as well as their mothers and fathers. Four conceptualization factors were identified: Change of Heart, More-Than-Dyadic Process, Encourages Repentance, and Immoral Behavior. Only a minority of participants agreed with the idea that forgiving supposes regaining affection or sympathy toward the offender (23%), and with the idea...

Aging and multiple cue probability learning: the case of inverse relationships.

Multiple Cue Probability Learning (MCPL) is an important cognitive ability for all age groups that, like other cognitive abilities, depends on information processing speed and working memory capacity--skills that have been found to decline with age. The relation between age and ability to learn direct and inverse probabilistic relationships was studied in two MCPL experiments involving subjects in three age groups. In the first experiment, subjects learned two three-cue tasks following the MCPL paradigm. In the first task, all cues had a direct relation (DR) with the criterion. In the second, one cue had an inverse relation (IR) with the criterion. In the DR task, older subjects were able to learn nearly as well as younger subjects. In the IR task, older subjects performed significantly worse than younger subjects due to an inability to use the inverse cue. In a second experiment involving the IR task, task information (TI) was given, that is, the relation between each cue and the criterion was explicitly described. This eliminated the need for subjects to discover the inverse relation on their own, thus reducing the burden on working memory. Provision of TI resulted in improved performance for the 20-30 and 65-75 year old groups, but not in the 76-90 year old group. Significant differences in performance among age groups remained. These results cannot be fully explained by differences in working memory capacity. It is suggested that flexibility of functioning also plays a role.

Frequency of borderline personality disorder in a sample of French high school students.

Objective: To estimate the frequency of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in French high school students. Method: A random sample of high school students (n = 1363) ranging in age from 13 to 20 years agreed to complete a questionnaire, the Screening Test for Comorbid Personality Disorders (STCPD); 107 of them volunteered to be interviewed. We assessed this group using the Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines (DIB-R). We conducted a regression analysis to determine a cut-off for BPD diagnosis with the STCPD. Results: We estimated the overall frequency of BPD to be 10% for boys and 18% for girls. After a peak of frequency at age 14 years for both sexes, the frequency increased significantly again in late adolescence. Conclusion: This study found a high frequency of BPD in French adolescents, which adds to questions regarding the validity of diagnosing this disorder in adolescents.

The Propensity to Forgive: Findings from Lebanon

The propensity to forgive a severe offense is studied in a sample of 48 people from three religious communities in Lebanon: Catholics, Maronites, and Orthodox. The effects of a number of circumstances: intent to harm, cancellation of consequences, religious and social proximity to the offender and apologies from the offender, on the propensity to forgive, and the variation of these effects as a function of age, gender, and educational level, were considered. The method was an application of Norman Andersons functional theory of cognition. Twenty-four stories were constructed by varying systematically the levels of each of the four factors quoted above. Participants were asked to rate in each case their propensity to forgive on a forgiveness scale. The more important results concern: (a) the overall level of propensity to forgive, which was higher than expected, (b) the impact of the religious proximity factor, which was very slight, and (c) the effect of the apologies factor, which was extremely important.

Forgivingness and Satisfaction with Life

The present study was aimed at examining the link between satisfaction with life and forgivingness using a dispositional measurement for forgiveness. The participants were 810 adolescent and adults living in France, and 192 college students living in Portugal. They were presented with the Forgivingness questionnaire (Mullet, E., J. Barros, L. Frongia, V. Usai and F. Neto: 2003, Journal of Personality 71, pp. 1–19), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, E., R.J. Emmons, R.J. Larsen and S. Griffin: 1985, Journal of Personality Assessment 49, pp. 71–75). The link between satisfaction with life and all three components of forgivingness (enduring resentment, sensitivity to circumstances, and overall willingness to forgive) was weak, and most of the time non-significant. This result is consistent with previous findings showing that (a) forgiving an offense to an offender does not result in a strong increase in overall satisfaction, and (b) strictly self-referential traits (e.g., self-esteem and loneliness) are typically not linked with forgivingness. Possible reasons why forgivingness and satisfaction with life are not linked are discussed.

Age, religious beliefs, and sexual attitudes

Age effects on sexual attitudes were examined using the Hendrick and Hendrick (1987a) Sexual Attitude Scale. The study was cross‐sectional, including people from various age groups, from young adults to older adults. The religious beliefs variable, which covaries substantially both with age and sexual attitudes, was controlled. Three main questions guided the study: (a) Is the four‐factor structure (Permissiveness, Instrumentality, Communion, and Sexual Practices) previously identified in a sample of young students able to accurately account for data gathered over a full range of adult ages, (b) are older adults much less permissive and less instrumentalist than young people, and (c) to what extent are believers less permissive and instrumentalist than young people when age is taken into account? Factor analyses showed that at least five correlated factors were needed to account for the data; the fourth factor, Sexual Practices, divided itself into two distinct factors: Pleasure and Responsibility. Older adults and believers were shown to be less permissive than young people and nonbelievers, and this result held regardless of the participants’ educational level. As regards to instrumentality, however, the pattern of differences was extremely complex.

Cross-Cultural Variations in Attitudes Toward Love

Using the Love Attitude Scale, the first objective of this study was to examine the extent to which Lee’s six-factor colors of love model was able to account for data gathered across a large number of countries in Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the structure postulated by Lee could be applied across multiple cultures. The second objective was to study possible cross-cultural variations in attitudes related to love. The hypotheses were that (a) factors involving strong personal feelings, such as mania, Eros, and agape, would be largely free of cultural influences and (b) factors involving strict social rules, and consequently low affects, such as Pragma, Storge, and Ludus, would be dependent on cultural influences. Each of these hypotheses was well supported by the data.