Everett L. Worthington

Virginia Commonwealth University | VCU · Department of Psychology

How children experience forgiveness within peer relationships is unknown among children in West Africa. In this study, we sought to understand the contributing factors and influences of forgiveness among children in Ghana for peer-to-peer offenses. We conducted a qualitative study on 25 participants (between the ages of 12 and 15 years) in Accra, G...

Importance: Forgiveness interventions have been shown in prior randomized trials to reduce depression and anxiety symptoms. Most such interventions require trained therapists, limiting scalability. Objective: To determine whether a brief self-directed forgiveness workbook intervention could alter forgiveness, depression symptoms, and anxiety sympto...

We respond to Ballantyne’s feature article on intellectual humility from the viewpoint of being interventionists in psychology (Worthington) and political science (Garrett). Philosophers differ from interventionists in discipline, method, and goals. While, philosophers usually seek to describe what is true as uncovered by the methods of analytic (o...

This study aimed to revise and test the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Decisional and Emotional Forgiveness Scale. In experiment 1, 1171 college students and postgraduates were invited to complete the questionnaire that provides the data for this scale. The results from this, following exploratory factor analysis, showed tha...

Interpersonal transgressions threaten victims, offenders, and their relationships, often leading the parties to ruminate about the wrongdoing, not only individually but also together, in acts of co‐rumination. We investigate how two forms of co‐rumination—co‐reflection and co‐brooding—influence, or are influenced by, individual rumination and victi...

Trauma healing is complex and individual. The internal experience of forgiveness can help heal traumas that have been experienced both individually and within a society because it (1) signals some perception of trustworthiness; (2) creates a desire to reconcile (though the person might not act on the desire), and (3) is perceived. Forgiveness can t...

Trauma healing is complex and individual. The internal experience of forgiveness can help heal traumas that have been experienced both individually and within a society because it (1) signals some perception of trustworthiness; (2) creates a desire to reconcile (though the person might not act on the desire), and (3) is perceived. Forgiveness can t...

In this prospective study of US adults with chronic illness (n = 302), we examined the associations of subjective suffering and religious/spiritual (R/S) resources (i.e., religious coping, religious commitment, and spiritual fortitude) with the subsequent experience of R/S struggles. Using a rigorous analytic approach that involved adjusting for nu...

In this chapter, we examine the association between forgiveness and flourishing. We begin by identifying what forgiveness and flourishing are. We then move to considering conceptual models as well as evidence supporting the connection between forgiveness and flourishing. An early model of the forgiveness and mental health relationship offers a begi...

Research has shown that people sometimes report self-perceived growth as a result of dealing with a potentially traumatic event, but relatively few methodologically rigorous studies have examined whether perceived posttraumatic growth is associated with improved subsequent well-being across a wide range of outcomes. In this three-wave longitudinal...

Many studies have reported evidence suggesting that dispositional forgivingness has positive implications for different domains of well-being. However, relatively few methodologically rigorous studies have been conducted in the Global South, particularly in post-conflict settings where forgiveness could play an important role in supporting individu...

Research suggests that interpersonal forgiveness is beneficial to individual functioning, but few longitudinal studies have explored the independent contributions of decisional and emotional forgiveness to reducing different forms of distress and improving multidimensional well-being. In this three-wave (T1: December 2020; T2: January 2021; T3: Feb...

The development and delivery of religiously integrated health interventions is increasing, however lack of nomenclature to specify the religious components presents barriers to replication, implementation, and evidence synthesis. We describe the development of the “Religious Health Interventions in Behavioural Sciences (RHIBS)” Taxonomy, the first...

Forgiveness is a positive method of dealing with an offense that includes a decisional and an emotional phase. How these two types of forgiveness interact in the forgiveness process remains unclear. In this longitudinal study we focused on decisional forgiveness. We provided evidence of how decisional forgiveness occurs over time; whether it is a d...

Spiritually incorporating couple therapy (SICT)-couple therapy that incorporates spiritual interventions-has a growing research base. Information is limited on how spiritual interventions are used in practice; thus we studied treatment-as-usual (TAU). SICT is treatment that, at a couple's request, sometimes draws upon spiritual resources when addre...

Hope has been conceptualized as agency and pathways to achieve goals. However, this goal-directed conceptualization does not encapsulate all situations in which hope may be beneficial. To address the dispositional motivation to endure when a desired goal seems unattainable, unlikely, or even impossible (i.e., goal-transcendent hope), we provide ini...

This handbook aims to bridge the gap between the fields of positive psychology and the psychology of religion and spirituality. It is the authoritative guide to the intersections among religion, spirituality, and positive psychology and includes the following sections: (1) historical and theoretical considerations, (2) methodological considerations...

An inadvertent consequence of advances in stem cell research, neuroscience, and resuscitation science has been to enable scientific insights regarding what happens to the human brain in relation to death. The scientific exploration of death is in large part possible due to the recognition that brain cells are more resilient to the effects of anoxia...

We provide an overview of the science on forgiveness and mental health. We define forgiveness of others and self-forgiveness, summarize a brief history of the science of forgiveness, and review the theory, measurement, and evidence on forgiveness and mental health connections. We suggest that stress-and-coping theories of forgiveness of others and...

Hope focused couple therapy (HFCT) is often spiritually integrated treatment using forgiveness, prayer, sanctification themes, and relational virtues as mechanisms for change. Building on earlier work examining the effects of HFCT, this clinical field study of couple therapy examined trends and predictors of relational outcomes. Couples (N = 236; N...

The COVID-19 pandemic and its sequelae have had significant consequences for many people around the world, precipitating loss of resources in various domains. To date, few studies have reported on how resource loss during the public health crisis has contributed to subjective experiences of suffering, especially among vulnerable populations. Using...

In Ghana, collectivism holds people together in marital relationships, even if partners are religiously different. Married partners still hurt, betray, or offend each other and might develop avoidance or vengeful (i.e., unforgiving) motives. We investigated whether religious homogamy moderated connections of personality and marriage variables to un...

This book explores the implications for psychiatric practice of virtues shown to foster self-control, benevolence, intelligence, and positivity, roughly corresponding to the four cardinal virtues of Plato and Aquinas. Chapter authors highlight the psychotherapeutic relevance of virtues of self-control (accountability, humility, and equanimity), ben...

Spiritual bypassing is the propensity to avoid emotional discomfort and pain through exercising spiritual beliefs and practices. The Spiritual Bypass Scale-13 (SBS-13) was developed to assess the two major components of spiritual bypassing – avoidance and spiritualising. The purpose of this study was to translate the SBS-13 into Korean and examine...

A growing body of research is emerging on the role of adaptive resources and processes that support positive transformation in the aftermath of adversity. However, few studies in this strand have focused on people who have had prolonged exposure to a complex climate of trauma through long-term civil war. This study examined wisdom as a process by w...

Religious coping has emerged as a guiding paradigm for understanding ways in which religion shapes how people adapt to life’s most difficult experiences. Although research on religious coping has advanced substantially over the last two decades, there has been a disproportionate focus on non-interpersonal stressors with samples from predominantly w...

There are two parts to this present article. First, I consider the applied problem of assessing changes in a congregation—how often to assess, why assess, what changes are looked for, what interventions are assessed, why look to the components of interventions, and how to avoid problems interpreting your data. Brief assessments are mandatory. Pasto...

Positive psychology has accumulated a large and ever-growing body of scientific knowledge about human strengths and virtues. However, research on positive psychology interventions (PPIs) to develop such is still in its infancy. In this brief position paper, we summarize the status of PPIs in one of the positive psychology's most important virtues:...

There is high prevalence of depression among people with Chronic Illness and Disease (CID). Positive psychology (PP) and rehabilitation psychology (RP) aim to optimize functioning and wellness. PP focuses on the potential for “good” of the human nature. Lately, PP has supplemented RP in individuals with CID. RP practitioners would benefit from iden...

People who experience a chronic illness or disability (CID) will have to go through a process of psychosocial adaptation. The disability or illness becomes a part of their community, social, and civic life. Religion (a type of coping) and spirituality (a subcomponent of subjective well-being) are considered important toward achieving the optimal st...

More than twenty different models of how forgiveness occurs have been proposed within forgiveness literature. One idea highlighted in many of these models was that forgiveness entails, at some point, a decision to forgive the offender. The Decision to Forgive Scale (DTFS) is a 5-item measure that allows the assessment of this construct. The aim of...

Objective: This study tested three conceptual explanatory models that have been theorized to account for the linkages between religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles and psychological distress: the primary model (i.e., R/S struggles lead to psychological distress), the secondary model (i.e., psychological distress leads to R/S struggles), and the comp...

Suffering has been a topic of considerable discussion in the fields of medicine and palliative care, yet few studies have reported causal evidence linking the experience of suffering to health and well-being. In this three-wave prospective cohort study, we explore the potential psychological implications of suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic by...

Objective: This prospective longitudinal study examined whether coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to changes in psychological and spiritual outcomes among adults with chronic disease. Method: Participants (N = 302) were a stratified, nonrandom sample of adults (Mage = 64.46, SD = 10.86, 45.7% female). The sample was representative of t...

Introduction: The present study examined psychometric properties of the Korean version of the

Previous research finds an association between spirituality and subjective well-being. However, the widespread use of poorly defined concepts of spirituality, tautological spirituality scales, and heavy reliance on cross-sectional samples cast doubts on prior findings. Here, we leverage ten waves of panel data from a nationally diverse longitudinal...

Several studies have suggested that self-forgiveness promotes psychological well-being. The state self-forgiveness scale (SSFS) and the differentiated self-forgiveness process scale (DSFPS) are two self-report questionnaires that assess self-forgiveness in psychotherapy, personal change, and health. The present study aims to examine the psychometri...

The rise of Chronic Illness and Disease (CID) globally and the increase in lifespan/survival rates among those with CID have boosted the interest on how coping, a psychosocial construct, influences rehabilitation. A relationship between coping and psychosocial adjustment has been repeatedly confirmed. Religious coping (RC), a specific emotion-focus...

Depression is a common psychological experience for those living with a chronic illness and disease (CID). Social support (SS) can influence psychological health by regulating emotional functioning. The functional domain of SS refers to supportive exchange, including the emotional and instrumental functions. Public health measures during the COVID-...

En los contextos de acoso y ciberacoso escolar, estudios teóricos y empíricos sugieren que el perdón podría ser un recurso efectivo para mejorar la salud mental de los adolescentes que han sufrido este tipo de fenómenos, y, a su vez, reducir el riesgo de desarrollar conductas violetas como, por ejemplo, que las víctimas se conviertan en agresores....

This study examined the clinical effects of a brief group experiential therapy treatment centered on psychodrama in a sample of military veterans. The sample (N = 72) comprised male (n = 54) and female (n = 18) United States military veterans (Mage = 44.19, SDage = 12.51) who completed the six-day treatment. Self-reported military-related posttraum...

Multiculturalism, social justice, and peace are important aspects of the Christian faith. However, scholars in the literature seeking to integrate psychology and Christian theology have underrepresented them. In this present article, we review barriers to including them in our psychology–theology integration literature. Thereafter, we provide a tri...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly-discovered coronavirus. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover. However, people with chronic diseases are at increased risk of severe health complications. Chronic Illness and Disability (CID) des...

It has been argued that church attendance benefits mental health by buffering against stress. However, underlying mechanisms are debated and longitudinal evidence is scarce. We use eight years of longitudinal population-representative data from New Zealand to test whether consistent church attendance translates into sustained reductions in distress...

Cyberaggression is often triggered by cybervictimization. However, little attention has been given to the underlying mechanisms in this relationship. Specifically, this study examined the mediating roles of stress as well as unforgiveness (i.e., revenge and avoidance motivations) in the cybervictimization-cyberbullying aggression link. The main goa...

To understand the conceptualizations of forgiveness more comprehensively, both the cognitive and emotional aspects of forgiveness were investigated across different cultures. Two studies examined cultural similarities and differences in the conceptualizations of forgiveness. In Study 1, we compared idioms of the Chinese and English languages. In St...

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...

Most psychological research has investigated victims’ forgiveness and offenders’ self-forgiveness separately, ignoring interactive and dynamic processes between them. We suggest that both parties are interdependent in their attempts to revalidate the values violated by the wrongdoing. In the present study, both partners of close relationships dyads...

Spiritually integrated couple therapy addresses spiritual needs, strivings and struggles as part of a couple’s therapeutic process. It is common for couples to have spiritual distress that coincides with their relationship distress. Research has indicated that marital relationships are often perceived as sacred parts of the couple’s life, and there...

Many studies of forgiveness have found that relatively short psychosocial interventions aimed at promoting forgiveness can result in noticeable increases in participants’ decisional and emotional forgiveness in their day-to-day lives. However, most of those interventions involve engagement in short psychoeducational experiential activities and part...

Several explicitly Christian doctoral psychology programs exist in the United States, providing training in the integration of psychology and Christianity. The purpose of this study was to conduct a program evaluation of student and faculty perspectives on the Christian integration training in six explicitly Christian doctoral psychology programs....

The present study is the first randomized, controlled trial comparing REACH Forgiveness and Forgive for Good, two of the most commonly used approaches to promote forgiveness. Additionally, the combined effects of psychoeducation and a community forgiveness intervention were examined. Psychoeducation participants were 99 Luther College students rand...

Two experiments ( N = 487) tested the effects of receiving an apology (absent, present) and restitution (absent, present) in imagery of a one-sided transgression and common property crime, a burglary scenario. Within a framework of accountability, apology and restitution represent relationally responsive responsibility-taking and repair efforts by...

The present study investigated the efficacy of the REACH Forgiveness psychoeducation program for the first time in Indian college students and examined theoretically-based predictors of program response based on the model of relational spirituality and forgiveness. This was an intervention experiment that spanned 5 weeks and included three measurem...

Restorative justice provides an alternative to retributive justice by seeking to restore criminal offenders to be responsible members of the community. Often offenders will apologize (A) and offer to make restitution (R) for the damage done. Such offers might affect all parties present by promoting forgiveness (though that is not a stated goal of r...

Apology and restitution each represents wrongdoers’ accountable repair responses that have promoted victims’ self-reported empathy and forgiveness in crime scenario research. The current study measured emotional and stress-related dependent variables including physiological measures, to illuminate the links between predictors of forgiveness and hea...

Research on the forgiveness of self has largely focused on less severe, more common types of offenses among samples within developed, westernized nations. In this brief report of a study within a developing nation in Africa, applications of self-forgiveness are extended to incarcerated people. The sample comprised N = 310 males (83.87%) and females...

The Christian REACH Forgiveness intervention is a 5-step psychoeducation program that focuses on promoting decisional and emotional forgiveness for an identified transgression and fostering forgivingness in general. In this study, the Christian REACH Forgiveness model was used with Ghanaian Christians (N = 264; 260 are analyzed) who experienced spe...

Hope is a topic widely discussed in the humanities and researched in the field of psychology. To explore the potential public health implications of hope for subsequent health and well-being outcomes, we prospectively examined the relation between baseline hope and a wide range of outcomes that included indicators of: physical health, health behavi...

In two studies (N’s = 515 and 359), we examine the utility of the Dual-Process Model of Self-Forgiveness for conceptualizing and measuring trait self-forgiveness with South African and American adults. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the trait-adapted Dual-Process Self-Forgiveness Scale supported an eight-item, two-factor structure...

In a single comprehensive model, using a large nationally representative sample, we investigate longitudinal relationships between mental distress and “Big Six” personality using an analysis approach sensitive to dynamic effects (i.e., to effects of deviations from individual trajectories). We find that, consistent with a mechanism involving scarri...

According to some theorising, in collectivistic societies, forgiveness is mainly enacted to maintain relationships, not engender emotional transformation. This present study was designed to explore whether forgiveness affects decisional and emotional forgiveness in Indonesia, a country categorised as collectivistic. The evidence‐based REACH Forgive...

Legacies of slavery and colonialism on the African continent have contributed to conflicts that persist into modern times. Forgiveness has been hypothesized to prevent new conflicts, promote reconciliation, and foster peace. We conducted a review of the research on forgiveness in Africa between 1996 and 2018 (N = 99 articles; 33,810 participants)....

Forgiveness frequently occurs in a relational context and is a key ingredient for restoring and maintaining intimate relationships. Yet, certain interpersonal dynamics that sometimes motivate forgiveness (e.g. abuse) have the potential to adversely affect well-being, especially when ongoing exploitation occurs. In this study, we examined the role o...

Couple research, and specifically religion and couple research, is commonly conducted in individualistic cultures. The collectivistic milieu of China makes a useful contrast to Western culture. With Chinese churches, we conducted two studies on marriage relationships. In Study 1 ( N = 810), we report a survey on marriages of parishioners. Satisfact...

In this chapter, we describe a relational humility model that examines how perceptions of humility impact relationships, and we review research that supports the model. First, we describe the development of a relational humility framework in the field of psychology that addressed many conceptual and methodological issues in studying humility. Secon...

These two cross-sectional studies examined whether trauma impacts disaster survivors’ psychological well-being through its influence on positive and negative religious coping and on dispositional forgivingness and hope. Colombia was selected because it is a highly religious country that has endured a protracted armed conflict (1964-present) and rec...

The purpose of this cross‐sectional study was to examine conservation of resources (COR) theory in the context of armed conflict in Africa. Specifically, within the setting of ongoing chronic conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), we tested the COR theory prediction that resource loss contributes to various stress outcomes....

The study of bullying in adolescence has received increased attention over the past several decades. A growing body of research highlights the role of forgiveness and its association with aggression. In this article, we systematically review published studies on the association among online and traditional bullying and forgiveness in adolescents. S...

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 faci...

The overarching goal of this article was to practice a faith-integration process focused on an empirically supported, family-based treatment approach for adolescent depression, Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT). First, we describe the ABFT treatment model and evaluate the extant empirical support for its use. Next, using the theological framew...

This chapter reviews the history of development of several positive psychology interventions. I use forgiveness interventions, and specifically the REACH Forgiveness intervention, as a case study. REACH Forgiveness is described in two main formats—a psychoeducational group intervention not targeted at specific events and a general do-it-yourself wo...

Some religious or spiritual (R/S) clients seek psychotherapy that integrates R/S values, while others may be reticent to disclose R/S-related aspects of struggles in a presumably secular setting. The authors meta-analyzed 97 outcome studies ( N = 7,181) examining the efficacy of tailoring treatment to patients’ R/S beliefs and values. They compared...

Protocol of a brief clinical intervention in Emotion-Focused Therapy and self-forgiveness in undergraduate students