Forgiveness as a Predictor for Coping Strategies among College Students

Forgiveness is distinct from other ways of dealing with personal insults or injury. Forgiveness is not condoning, excusing, exonerating, justifying, or pardoning an offender (Enright, 2001; Worthington, Witvliet, Pietrini, & Miller, 2007). Neither is forgiveness the same as reconciling a damaged relationship or restoring offenders to their former status (Sutton, 2010).Susan Folkman and Richard Lazarus define coping as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing”. The study was planned to tap the relationship between forgiveness and use of coping strategies. A sample of 140 undergraduate and post graduate students (male= 63 & female=77), studying in different departments of DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur were administered Heartland forgiveness scale (2005) and Carver (1997) coping scale. Obtained data was subjected to correlation and stepwise multiple regression analysis. The results indicates that all the three dimensions of forgiveness showed positive correlation with active and adaptive coping and negative with maladaptive coping. Further the dimensions of forgiveness significantly predicted coping strategies. The implications of the findings are also discussed in the light of empirical evidences.