Why Do People With Self-Control Forgive Others Easily? The Role of Rumination and Anger

Kong, Fanchang; Zhang, Haibo; Xia, Haishuo; Huang, Bo; Qin, Jingkuan; Zhang, Yan; Sun, Xin; Zhou, Zongkui

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00129

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…Influenced by the Confucian Golden Mean philosophy, the Chinese may value social harmony much more than Westerners ( Drummond and Quah, 2001 ; de Greck et al, 2012 ; Liu, 2014 ). In light of Chinese culture, expressing anger could be labeled as lacking in self-control ( Kornacki, 2001 ; Kong et al, 2020 ). In contrast, for Westerners, sincerely expressing emotions could be deemed as a way to enhance interpersonal understanding ( Gross and John, 2003 ; Murata et al, 2012 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture, Sex, and Group-Bias in Trait and State Empathy

et al. 2021

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Empathy is sharing and understanding others’ emotions. Recently, researchers identified a culture–sex interaction effect in empathy. This phenomenon has been largely ignored by previous researchers. In this study, the culture–sex interaction effect was explored with a cohort of 129 participants (61 Australian Caucasians and 68 Chinese Hans) using both self-report questionnaires (i.e., Empathy Quotient and Interpersonal Reactivity Index) and computer-based empathy tasks. In line with the previous findings, the culture–sex interaction effect was observed for both trait empathy (i.e., the generalized characteristics of empathy, as examined by the self-report questionnaires) and state empathy (i.e., the on-spot reaction of empathy for a specific stimulus, as evaluated by the computer-based tasks). Moreover, in terms of state empathy, the culture–sex interaction effect further interacted with stimulus traits (i.e., stimulus ethnicity, stimulus sex, or stimulus emotion) and resulted in three- and four-way interactions. Follow-up analyses of these higher-order interactions suggested that the phenomena of ethnic group bias and sex group favor in empathy varied among the four culture–sex participant groups (i.e., Australian female, Australian male, Chinese female, and Chinese male). The current findings highlighted the dynamic nature of empathy (i.e., its sensitivity toward both participant traits and stimulus features). Furthermore, the newly identified interaction effects in empathy deserve more investigation and need to be verified with other Western and Asian populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture, Sex, and Group-Bias in Trait and State Empathy

et al. 2021

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“…Further work to explore potential mechanisms is also needed. Recent studies, mostly cross-sectional, have suggested that rumination, anger [41], empathy [42], selfregulation [43], and emotional regulation [11] as possible mechanisms of forgiveness. Further studies on such mechanisms with longitudinal data and formal mediation analyses would be warranted.…”

Section: Forgiveness Mental Health and Psychosocial Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forgiveness of others and subsequent health and well-being in mid-life: a longitudinal study on female nurses

et al. 2020

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Background Forgiveness is a concept of growing interest within psychology and of potential relevance to public health. While there has been increasing evidence suggesting positive associations between forgiveness of others and a range of psychosocial well-being and mental health outcomes, its associations with health behaviors and physical health are less clear. Methods This study used longitudinal data from the Nurses’ Health Study II (2008 Trauma Exposure and Post-traumatic Stress Supplementary Survey to 2015 questionnaire wave, N = 54,703), to conduct an outcome-wide analysis among a cohort of female nurses in the United States (age range: 43–64 years). The study prospectively examines the association between spiritually motivated forgiveness of others and a number of of subsequent psychosocial well-being, mental health, health behavior, and physical health outcomes in midlife. A set of linear, logistic, and Poisson regression models were used to regress each outcome on forgiveness in separate models. Sociodemographic factors, prior religious service attendance, and prior values of all outcome variables were controlled for wherever data were available. To account for multiple testing, we performed Bonferroni correction. Results Forgiveness was associated with subsequent improved psychosocial well-being and reduced psychological distress outcomes in a monotonic pattern. For instance, the top versus bottom level of forgiveness was associated with substantially higher levels of subsequent positive affect (β = 0.18, 95% CI: 0.15, 0.21) and social integration (β = 0.15, 95% CI: 0.13, 0.17), and was inversely associated with several indicators of subsequent psychological distress such as depressive symptoms (β = − 0.16, 95% CI: − 0.19, − 0.14). However, in this sample, there was little evidence that forgiveness was associated with health behaviors or physical health outcomes. Discussion This study suggests that forgiveness may be a health asset for promoting population mental health and psychosocial well-being, and moreover may also be understood as a good in itself. Further investigation on the dynamics between forgiveness and physical health is warranted to explore the discrepancy between the results here and some past research.

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“…Recent research suggests that reducing rumination may facilitate forgiveness [ 37 ]. Forgiveness explained a significant amount of variation in ARS (anger rumination) scores, even when the thoughts of revenge subscale was removed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent research suggests that reducing rumination may facilitate the cognitive decision to forgive [ 37 ], that rumination negatively predicts forgiveness, and that the possibility of forgiveness can be increased by reducing rumination [ 38 , 39 , 40 ]. These results have also been found in cross-cultural research [ 41 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Anger Rumination and Mindfulness: Mediating Effects on Forgiveness

Anuncibay

González-Barbadillo

Sánchez

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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(1) Background: Different investigations relate mindfulness practice as a strategy to cope with and improve negative repetitive thinking states and forgiveness. (2) Methods: The aim is to analyze the mediating processes of mindfulness as a trait and the changes in the anger rumination on forgiveness. This sample comprised 264 undergraduate students (M = 24.13 years, SD = 11.39). The instruments used were the Anger Rumination Scale (ARS), the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS). For data analysis, the spillover effect was calculated using 10,000 bootstrap samples for the bootstrap confidence intervals (CI). (3) Conclusions: The results confirm that the relationship between mindfulness practice and forgiveness is mediated by changes in mindfulness trait and anger rumination. Given the results obtained, it is considered appropriate to extend the study to samples from other countries, as well as to contexts of depressive rumination or anxiety.

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Why Do People With Self-Control Forgive Others Easily? The Role of Rumination and Anger

Cited by 10 publications

References 40 publications

Culture, Sex, and Group-Bias in Trait and State Empathy

Culture, Sex, and Group-Bias in Trait and State Empathy

Forgiveness of others and subsequent health and well-being in mid-life: a longitudinal study on female nurses

Anger Rumination and Mindfulness: Mediating Effects on Forgiveness

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