Understanding the Influence of Gratitude and Life Satisfaction on Forgiveness: The Role of Self-efficacy as a Mediator

Description

Minkashi¹, Aditya Rai², and Pankaj Tripathi³ (Department of Psychological Sciences, Central University of South Bihar, Gaya, Bihar¹ and Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh^2,3)

Forgiveness is a key idea in positive psychology and it is frequently seen as a transformative coping strategy that reduces negative feelings like rage, resentment, and rumination. By empowering people to replace negative emotions with acceptance and empathy, it improved the interpersonal connections, promotes psychological well-beings, and develops emotional resilience. Despite its significance, forgiveness is affected by personal and situational factors which is still an important area of research. Present study tries to understand the influence of gratitude, life satisfaction on forgiveness along with the mediating role of self-efficacy. Purposive sampling was used to select 191 adults between the ages of 18 and 40 for the correlational research design. The Gratitude Questionnaire-Six-Item Form by McCullough, Emmons, and Tsang (2002), the Heartland Forgiveness Scale developed by Thompson et al. (2005), the Mindfulness-Based-Self-efficacy Scale-Revised by Cayoun et al. (2012), and the satisfaction with life scale by Diener et al. (1985) were among the psychological tool were used. Pearson correlation, regression and mediation statistics used for data analysis using SPSS-20 and Jamovi. Result revealed that gratitude, life satisfaction, forgiveness and self-efficacy significantly correlated and gratitude significantly predict the forgiveness. Despite this, self-efficacy significantly fully mediates between life satisfaction and forgiveness while significantly partially mediating between forgiveness and gratitude. Findings assist in formulating intervention and also help individuals in enhancing forgiveness by cultivating gratitude, improving life satisfaction and building confidence in one’s emotional and behavioral capacities.