Cross-cultural Differences In Forgiveness And Its Relationships With Mental Health

Objectives:1.To compare the differences in forgiveness across regional cultures in China.2.To explore the mediating mechanisms between cultural values and different types of forgiveness.3.To investigate the mediating mechanisms between dispositional forgiveness and mental health.Method:A questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of 1210 adults aged from 18 to 65 years from four representative provinces of four regional cultural circles in China,the culture of lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River(Shandong),snowfield plateau culture(Qinghai),the sea culture of coastal areas in the Southeast(Guangdong)and the culture of hilly area in the Southwest(Sichuan).The Cultural Value Orientation Scale,Heartland Forgiveness Scale,Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Scale,Empathy Scale,Self-Esteem Scale,and Depression Anxiety Stress Scales were adopted to measure cultural value orientations,forgiveness,and mental health status.The analysis of variance,correlation analysis and multiple linear regression were used and structural equation models were built to investigate cross-cultural differences in forgiveness at both the regional and individual level and its relationship with mental health.Results:1.Four cultural groups differed in cultural values:Yellow River culture and snowfield culture endorsed higher familism than hilly area culture,while snowfield culture endorsed lower individualism than sea culture and hilly area culture;no significant differences in collectivism were found across four groups.2.Four cultural groups differed in forgiveness:(1)dispositional forgiveness of self:Yellow River culture scored lower than hilly area culture,snowfield culture scored lower than sea and hilly area culture;(2)dispositional forgiveness of others:snowfield participants were higher than coastal counterparts;(3)situational forgiveness of others:the level of decisional forgiveness of snowfield group was higher than that of other three groups,and the level of emotional forgiveness of snowfield group was higher than that of coastal and hilly area groups.3.The differences in forgiveness were significant across groups of gender,age,ethnicity,religion and education level,but not across groups of marriage and economic status.Males were higher in two types of situational forgiveness than females.different ages differentiated in emotional forgiveness,and the level of self-forgiveness increased as age increased;ethnic Han and atheists scored higher in self-forgiveness and lower in decisional as well as emotional forgiveness than minority and religious participants,respectively;the level of self-forgiveness rose and that of two types of situational forgiveness dropped with the increase of education level.4.Different cultural values had different predictions on two kinds of dispositional forgiveness.Collectivism and familism positively predicted interpersonal forgiveness and could not predict self-forgiveness;individualism negatively predicted interpersonal forgiveness and positively predicted self-forgiveness.5.Different cultural values had different total effects on two types of situational forgiveness.Collectivism had more positive effect on decisional forgiveness than on emotional forgiveness;individualism had more negative effect on decisional forgiveness than on emotional forgiveness;familism did not have significant total effect.6.Dispositional forgiveness of others mediated the relationships between collectivism as well as individualism and two types of situational forgiveness,but did not between familism and situational forgiveness.7.Two types of dispositional forgiveness were positively correlated with self-esteem and negatively correlated with depression,anxiety,and stress.Self-forgiveness had greater influence on all the mental health indices than interpersonal forgiveness.8.Self-esteem played a mediation role between dispositional self-forgiveness and depression,anxiety,and stress,but did not between dispositional forgiveness of others and depression,anxiety,and stress.Conclusions:1.At the regional level,participants of four regional cultures in China differed in levels of forgiveness.2.At the individual level,different cultural values had different influences on forgiveness.Cultural values' influences on situational forgiveness were mediated through tendency to forgive others.3.Self-forgiveness had greater effects on mental health than interpersonal forgiveness,and self-forgiveness's effects on negative mental status were mediated by self-esteem.