How Religion Promotes Forgiveness: The Case of Turkish Muslims

Abstract

Due to developments in positive psychology, the theme of forgiveness has increasingly been observed in psychological studies in recent years. Forgiveness has now become one of positive psychology's favourite topics. It is conceived as an element of religiosity and hence studies focus on the relation between forgiveness and religiosity. This study is carried out to determine the relation between the propensity to forgive and socio-demographic variables (gender and age) and religiosity in the case of the Turkish-Muslim sample. Furthermore, this article aims to describe the relation between forgiveness, humility and pride. In order to investigate these relations, the Interpersonal Forgiveness Scale and Brief Islamic Religiosity Measure have been developed and applied to a sample of 321 people from different parts of Istanbul, Turkey. The findings show that religiosity is positively related to the propensity to forgive and negatively related to feelings of revenge. Furthermore, forgiveness is correlated positively with humility and negatively with pride.

Intellectual Humility and Reactions to Opinions about Religious Beliefs

“…Much ink has been spilled in such arguments without resolution, and in recent times-quite likely to reduce the decibel level of the discussion as much as to contribute to the conversation-research scientists have begun to employ empirical methods to ascertain whether virtuous behavior is indeed found in greater measure among those that profess religion than among those who do not. For example, a study of Turkish Muslims found that religiosity was positively associated with forgiveness and negatively related to a desire for revenge, two of the many possible aspects of virtuous comportment (Ayten, 2012). Other research has shown that in some-but not all-cases religiosity can lead people to behave more altruistically (for a review, see Galen, 2012).…”

Bullying Experience among Adolescents with a Turkish Migration Background in Germany: Ethnic Class Composition, Integration, and Religiosity as Protective Factors?

“…The analyses presented here showed that adolescents that engage in active bullying did so independently of their religiosity, i.e., they could not activate the aggression-regulative potential of religiosity, which is usually found in Muslim-majority countries [ 60 , 61 ]. Secondly, high religiosity was accompanied by a lower level of victimization and bullying–victimization [ 64 ], even taking into account several other factors, which seems to indicate that religiosity has a salutogenic effect [ 54 , 55 , 56 ] and acts as a buffer against highly negative experiences [ 58 , 59 ]. Thirdly, religiosity did not play any role in the bullying–depressiveness relationship.…”

“…In general, religiosity, in regard to individual lived religion (which encompasses religious behavior, cognition, and emotion), has been proven to be a predominantly salutogenic factor among Muslims [ 54 , 55 , 56 ] showing positive links with, for example, life satisfaction and happiness [ 50 , 57 ]. More specifically, the high religiosity of Turks was found to be a protective factor against depressive symptoms [ 58 ] and suicidality [ 59 ]; furthermore, it was shown to play a positive role in prosocial behavior [ 60 ].…”

Comparison of Turkish and Iranian University Students’ Forgiveness, Tolerance and Happiness Levels

“…Ayten (2009) showed that religiosity had a positive relationship with forgiveness and negative relationship with revenge in a study conducted on 321 people in Turkey. Moreover, another study undertaken by Ayten (2012) in the same country showed that there was a positive correlation between forgiveness and modesty, but a negative relationship between forgiveness and pride.…”

“…This concept has been the subject of research conducted by social and clinical psychologists since the 1990s (McCullough et al, 1998). This is largely due to empirical proof that forgiveness is an effective way to significantly alter and even end interpersonal conflicts (Bugay & Demir, 2010, 2012Bugay, Demir, & Delevi, 2012). As previously mentioned, forgiveness can be used differently and have different meanings within different cultures.…”