Intrapersonal and interpersonal facilitators of forgiveness following spousal infidelity: A stress and coping perspective.
J Clin Psychol
; 75(10): 1896-1915, 2019 10.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-31347701
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
Forgiveness includes processes that involve a decision to stop bitterness and thoughts of revenge (i.e., decisional forgiveness), which further motivates the forgiver towards the restoration of positive emotions (i.e., emotional forgiveness). Using stress and coping framework, this study investigated intrapersonal and interpersonal facilitators of decisional and emotional forgiveness in a Chinese marital context.METHOD:
Participants were 154 respondents who had experienced or were experiencing spousal infidelity.RESULTS:
Solidarity-oriented personality and perceived partner's reconciliation motivation facilitated benign attributions and empathy, then facilitated higher levels of decisional forgiveness, which promoted emotional forgiveness. Strength of marital bond before the infidelity directly predicted higher levels of emotional forgiveness.CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings provide evidence for the differentiated decisional and emotional forgiveness processes after spousal infidelity and delineate different coping mechanism that triggers them, thus lending culturally appropriate evidence for clinicians who work with clients facing spousal infidelity.Key words
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Stress, Psychological
/
Adaptation, Psychological
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Spouses
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Extramarital Relations
/
Forgiveness
/
Interpersonal Relations
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
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Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Year:
2019
Type:
Article