Forgiveness: A determinant of adolescents’ happiness

Pages: 1119-1123
Suvashisa Rana, Meena Hariharan, Durgesh Nandinee and Kallavarapu Vincent (Centre for Health Psychology, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh)

As forgiveness plays a vital role in the process of building healthy relationship, this study explored the contributions of forgiveness on happiness among adolescents. A convenience sample of 200 adolescent participants from two leading educational institutions was selected. The participants completed a survey assessing the forgiveness (forgiveness of self, others, and situations) and happiness. The results revealed that there were significant contributions of forgiveness and its domains on happiness of the adolescents. The role of age was also found to be significant indicating that the older adolescents were found to be higher in forgiveness compared with their younger counterparts. Since there was an impact of forgiveness on happiness, adolescents need to be taught the prosocial behavior during childhood and adolescence in order to foster positive health, both at individual as well as community levels.