Everett L. Worthington

Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships: II. Theoretical elaboration and measurement.

Interpersonal forgiving was conceptualized in the context of a 2-factor motivational system that governs peoples responses to interpersonal offenses. Four studies were conducted to examine the extent to which forgiving could be predicted with relationship-level variables such as satisfaction, commitment, and closeness; offense-level variables such as apology and impact of the offense; and social-cognitive variables such as offender-focused empathy and rumination about the offense. Also described is the development of the transgression-related interpersonal motivations inventory--a self-report measure designed to assess the 2-component motivational system (Avoidance and Revenge) posited to underlie forgiving. The measure demonstrated a variety of desirable psychometric properties, commending its use for future research. As predicted, empathy, apology, rumination, and several indexes of relationship closeness were associated with self-reported forgiving.

The Religious Commitment Inventory-10: Development, refinement, and validation of a brief scale for research and counseling

The authors report the development of the Religious Commitment Inventory-10 (RCI-10), used in 6 studies. Sample sizes were 155, 132, and 150 college students; 240 Christian church-attending married adults; 468 undergraduates including (among others) Buddhists (n = 52), Muslims (n = 12), Hindus (n = 10), and nonreligious (n = 117); and 217 clients and 52 counselors in a secular or 1 of 6 religious counseling agencies. Scores on the RCI-10 had strong estimated internal consistency, 3-week and 5-month test-retest reliability, construct validity, and discriminant validity. Exploratory (Study 1) and confirmatory (Studies 4 and 6) factor analyses identified 2 highly correlated factors, suggesting a 1-factor structure as most parsimonious. Religious commitment predicted response to an imagined robbery (Study 2), marriage (Study 4), and counseling (Study 6).

Religion and spirituality

Many clients highly value religious and spiritual (R/S) commitments, and many psychotherapists have accommodated secular treatments to R/S perspectives. We meta-analyzed 51 samples from 46 studies (N = 3,290) that examined the outcomes of religious accommodative therapies and nonreligious spirituality therapies. Comparisons on psychological and spiritual outcomes were made to a control condition, an alternate treatment, or a subset of those studies that used a dismantling design (similar in theory and duration of treatment, but including religious contents). Patients in R/S psychotherapies showed greater improvement than those in alternate secular psychotherapies both on psychological (d =.26) and on spiritual (d = .41) outcomes. Religiously accommodated treatments outperformed dismantling-design alternative treatments on spiritual (d = .33) but not on psychological outcomes. Clinical examples are provided and therapeutic practices are recommended.

EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON RELIGION AND PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES : A 10-YEAR REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROSPECTUS

A decade of research on religion and counseling, consisting of 148 empirical articles, was reviewed. Methodological sophistication, poor a decade ago, has approached current secular standards, except in outcome research. Religious people cannot be assumed to be mentally unhealthy. Nonreligious and religious counselors share most counseling-relevant values but differ in the value they place on religion. Those religious differences affect clinical judgment and behavior, especially with religious clients. Religious interventions have been techniques imported from formal religious traditions and used as adjuncts to counseling or traditional theories of counseling adapted to religious clients. The authors suggest a research agenda and speculate about future mental health practices.

Dispositional Forgivingness: Development and Construct Validity of the Transgression Narrative Test of Forgivingness (TNTF)

Forgivingness is the disposition to forgive interpersonal transgressions over time and across situations. There is currently no acceptable measure of forgivingness for use in testing theoretical propositions. The authors describe a five-item scenario-based scale, the Transgression Narrative Test of Forgivingness (TNTF). In five studies examining 518 university students from three disparate universities, the authors assess the item and full-scale functioning of the TNTF and its concurrent and 8- week predictive validity relative to trait anger, rumination, neuroticism, agreeableness, and hostility. Test-retest reliability and stability of item locations were both good. Norms are presented by gender, ethnicity, and religious activity. The TNTF is a brief measure of forgivingness that is not theory dependent and is therefore useful in basic and intervention research from a variety of theoretical perspectives.

Forgiveness and Justice: A Research Agenda for Social and Personality Psychology

Forgiveness and related constructs (e.g., repentance, mercy, reconciliation) are ripe for study by social and personality psychologists, including those interested in justice. Current trends in social science, law, management, philosophy, and theology suggest a need to expand existing justice frameworks to incorporate alternatives or complements to retribution, including forgiveness and related processes. In this article, we raise five challenging empirical questions about forgiveness. For each question, we briefly review representative research, raise hypotheses, and suggest specific ways in which social and personality psychologists could make distinctive contributions.

Religion and the Forgiving Personality

Forgiveness is a concept with deep religious roots. It is also a basic social and psychological phenomenon. In this article, we explore the links between forgiveness and religion by surveying how they are linked in the major monotheistic world religions, and how they appear to be linked empirically. In attempting to account for the current body of empirical findings, we propose four potential substantive and methodological explanations that should be explored in future studies. Because the concept of forgiveness is (a) both spiritual and social-psychological in nature, and (b) possibly linked to some measures of human health and well-being (concerns that have traditionally been of interest to both reseachers in personality and researchers in religion), the concept of forgiveness could be an important common ground for future research on the interface of religion and personality.

Forgiveness, Health, and Well-Being: A Review of Evidence for Emotional Versus Decisional Forgiveness, Dispositional Forgivingness, and Reduced Unforgiveness

The extant data linking forgiveness to health and well-being point to the role of emotional forgiveness, particularly when it becomes a pattern in dispositional forgivingness. Both are important antagonists to the negative affect of unforgiveness and agonists for positive affect. One key distinction emerging in the literature is between decisional and emotional forgiveness. Decisional forgiveness is a behavioral intention to resist an unforgiving stance and to respond differently toward a transgressor. Emotional forgiveness is the replacement of negative unforgiving emotions with positive other-oriented emotions. Emotional forgiveness involves psychophysiological changes, and it has more direct health and well-being consequences. While some benefits of forgiveness and forgivingness emerge merely because they reduce unforgiveness, some benefits appear to be more forgiveness specific. We review research on peripheral and central nervous system correlates of forgiveness, as well as existing interventions to promote forgiveness within divergent health settings. Finally, we propose a research agenda.

Changes in Supervision as Counselors and Supervisors Gain Experience: A Review

Evidence bearing on whether and how counselors and supervisors receive or give different types of supervision of psychotherapy as they each gain experience was investigated. Theories describing changes in supervision of counselors as they gain experience are reviewed. Most are similar to each other. They posit changes in the supervisee, with supervision environments being matched to the changing needs of the supervisee. There are three theories concerning how the supervisor changes as he or she gains experience. Findings from empirical studies are consistent with theories of counselor development but only weakly supportive of the theory that actual supervision environments are matched to supervisee needs. Findings from empirical research on changes in supervisors as they gain experience reveal few differences in supervisors at any level beyond the master’s degree. Presumably, therapists and supervisors age like wine. In this article, I sample their sounds, sights, bouquets, and tastes as they gain experience. Supervision of prepracticum counselors is not covered in this review (for a recent review, see Kurtz, Marshall, & Banspach, 1985). Rather, this article is a summary of supervision of counselors from their first practicum and beyond. First, the issue of what supervision should be is discussed. Then research on changes in supervision as counselors gain experience is reviewed. Last, research on changes in supervision as supervisors gain experience at supervision is examined.

Cultural Humility: Measuring Openness to Culturally Diverse Clients

Building on recent theory stressing multicultural orientation, as well as the development of virtues and dispositions associated with multicultural values, we introduce the construct of cultural humility, defined as having an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented rather than self-focused, characterized by respect and lack of superiority toward an individuals cultural background and experience. In 4 studies, we provide evidence for the estimated reliability and construct validity of a client-rated measure of a therapists cultural humility, and we demonstrate that client perceptions of their therapists cultural humility are positively associated with developing a strong working alliance. Furthermore, client perceptions of their therapists cultural humility were positively associated with improvement in therapy, and this relationship was mediated by a strong working alliance. We consider implications for research, practice, and training.