An exploration of the relationship between empathy, forgiving others and self-forgiveness

This study examines the relationship between forgiveness, empathy, and self-forgiveness, predicting that the following relationships would be found: the presence of empathy skills would positively correlate with the ability to forgive others, the ability of prison inmates to be empathic would correlate positively with the ability to self-forgive and finally, the ability of prison inmates to forgive others would correlate positively with the ability of inmates to self-forgive.; This exploratory/quantitative study was conducted by surveying 80 prison inmates from the Philadelphia Prison System. The subjects have been imprisoned for the following reasons: possession of drugs, theft, prostitution, murder, violating parole, non-violent crimes and other drug related charges. The participants for this study include 38 male and 42 female prison inmates who were randomly sampled, with a mean age of 31.1 years old. Religion was identified as: Catholic/Christian 59%; Muslim 18%; "other" 7%; no religious preference 16%.; Information was gathered using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, designed to measure empathy; the Enright Forgiveness Scale, designed to measure forgiveness; and the self-forgiveness scale, a modified version of Enright's Forgiveness Scale.; Data was analyzed using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients. No significant relationship was found between empathy and ability to forgive. Results of the correlation between a subject's level of empathy and ability to self-forgive indicate no significant relationship. Results of the correlation between level of forgiveness and ability to self-forgive also indicate no significant relationship.; This study indicates that the inmates were highly empathic toward humankind in general, and were in the process of self-forgiving and forgiving another for a specific injustice. The inmates seem to mirror the abusive behaviors they were exposed to as children, and appear to have difficulty completing the forgiveness process. It is recommended that a study be done to compare the three variables in a sample of subjects outside the prison system.