Dispositional Forgiveness in Emerging Adulthood:The Influence of Family Verbal Aggression, Trait Anger, and Empathetic Concern

Abstract

This study examined how a history of family verbal aggression in childhood calibrates individual differences in trait anger and empathetic concern to explain variability in dispositional forgiveness in emerging adulthood. Three hundred and sixty-eight emerging adults provided responses to measures of a history of family verbal aggression, trait anger, empathetic concern, and dispositional forgiveness. Results indicated that trait anger is negatively associated with self forgiveness, other forgiveness, and situational forgiveness. Empathetic concern is negatively associated with self forgiveness and positively associated with other forgiveness and situational forgiveness. In addition, a history of family verbal aggression is positively associated with trait anger, but not significantly associated with empathetic concern. Toward an integrated model, the analyses demonstrated that trait anger mediated the association between a history of family verbal aggression and self forgiveness.