Consideration of Forgiveness to Enhance the Health Status of Older Male Prisoners Confronting Spiritual, Social, or Emotional Vulnerability

Abstract

Participants in this study included 261 men, aged 45 and older, residing within state-managed correctional facilities in Oklahoma. Path analysis was used to examine an integrated mediation model. Spiritual ambivalence, loneliness, and depressive affect had direct negative associations with forgiveness, controlling for age, race, education, and type of crime. Forgiveness also maintained a direct positive association with perceived health status, whereas depressive affect maintained a direct negative association with perceived health status. In addition, a significant indirect effect of depressive affect on perceived health through forgiveness emerged. Overall, the model explained 38% of the variance in forgiveness and 23% in perceived health. Greater spiritual ambivalence, loneliness, and depressive affect diminish forgiveness among older male prisoners, yet higher levels of forgiveness, are associated with greater perceived health.

The individual experience of ageing prisoners: systematic review and meta‐synthesis through a Good Lives Model framework

“…In response to the hardship of imprisonment, ageing prisoners adopt various coping mechanisms, such as religion and spirituality (Leigey, ). In contrast with younger prisoners, who tend to hide their religious belief from their peers, ageing prisoners often pride themselves over a rich spiritual life (Reed, ), which alleviates feelings of depression, anxiety and fear (Bishop et al , , Allen et al , ; Allen et al , ), thus promoting “inner peace” (see Table ). Attending religious ceremonies also represents an opportunity for social life and connectedness (Reed, ).…”

“…With the passage of time, prisoners may come to accept responsibility for their offence and their sentence. This may bring a change in attitude towards the victim(s) of their crime and the judicial authority, as well as emerging personal forgiveness for their wrongdoing (Bishop et al , ). Ageing prisoners also resort to reminiscing, the recalling of happy memories and/or challenging past events successfully dealt with, to find the strength to face the present (Crawley, ; Leigey , ).…”

Loneliness of adult and juvenile prisoner influences on psychological affect: Mediation role of control source

“…Previous research has found that, for some special populations, state and trait loneliness is closely related to hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal activity when controlling depression and negative emotion (Zilioli et al, 2017). Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between prisoners' forgiveness and their loneliness and depression (Bishop, Randall, & Merten, 2014). Forgiveness is kind of internal control index.…”

Modeling multivariate associations with parental loneliness via perceived closeness and support

“…The variables chosen to be tested have been previously shown to be predictors of loneliness in other populations. Lonely individuals are more likely to be low on extraversion and high on neuroticism (Abdellaoui et al, 2018; Atak, 2009), have lower levels of emotional intelligence (EI) or emotional competence (EC) (Wols et al, 2015; Zou, 2014), have higher levels of anxiety and depression (Fung et al, 2017; Peerenboom et al, 2015), and a lower ability to forgive (Bishop et al, 2014; Day & Maltby, 2005). Situational predictors of loneliness include unemployment (Lauder et al, 2004; Yan et al, 2014), low education (Cohen-Mansfield & Parpura-Gill, 2007; Hector-Taylor & Adams, 1996), low income (Beutel et al, 2017; Cohen-Mansfield & Parpura-Gill, 2007), and marital status (Pinquart & Sorensen, 2001).…”