| Summary: | 碩士 === 中原大學 === 心理學研究所 === 97 === Forgiveness is very important in theology, philosophy, and psychotherapy literature. It is the gold key that unties the wound and heals people psychologically. Forgiveness is not merely related to mental health, but also manifests in different ways according to different religions. Religious contents affect personal life belief deeply, and one’s religiosity helps unite his or her body, psychology, and personality. Religiosity is also related to positive psychological constructs. Nevertheless, holistic wellness should not lack spiritual aspect, so this study attempted to study the relationship among religiosity, forgiveness, and spiritual well-being.
The participants of this study were 20 to 65 year-old adults with Chinese religious beliefs (including Buddhism, Taoism, I-Kuan Tao, and Taiwanese Folklore Belief), Western religious beliefs ( including Protestantism and Catholicism), or atheists selected by using purposive sampling method. There were 444 valid cases. The instruments used in the study included the Intrinsic-Extrinsic Religious Orientation Scales, Quest Scale, Religious Attitude Scale, Objective Scale of Forgiveness, and Spiritual Well-Being Scale.
The results of this study showed that: (1) the intrinsic religion orientation of the people with Western religious beliefs was higher than that of the people with Chinese religious beliefs, while for the extrinsic religion orientation the opposite was true; (2) intrinsic religion orientation positively predicted the third or fourth level of forgiveness cognitions, and extrinsic religion orientation positively predicted the first or second level of forgiveness cognitions; (3) religiosity variables had significant correlations with spiritual well-being; (4) regardless of having religious beliefs or not, forgiveness had no significant indirect effects between religiosity and spiritual well-being, but religiosity possessed significant direct effects on spiritual well-being. Therefore forgiveness was not a mediator between religiosity and spiritual well-being.
This study discovered that different religious beliefs had different ways of forgiveness because of their different meaning systems, and religiosity could predict spiritual well-being directly. This demonstrated that religious faith could drive people to work hard toward the ultimate goal. But no matter what the religious belief was, forgiveness could bring about the integration of spiritual values and the meaning of life.
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