MEDIATION EFFECT OF AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN TRAIT FORGIVENESS AND INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

Xiaofeng Yang¹*, Wei Li²

¹Associate Prof. Dr. Mr., Inner Mongolia Normal University, PR China, steveyangxf@hotmail.com 
²Associate Prof. Dr. Mrs., Inner Mongolia Normal University, PR China, lily2669@hotmail.com
*Corresponding author

Abstract

Interest in forgiveness has explored in recent years as researchers and clinicians began to recognize its value for maintaining emotional well-being, physical health, and healthy intimate relationships. Individuals who tend to adopt forgiving rather than revengeful strategies generally have less aggressive behaviours and better interpersonal relationships with others. We hypothesized that an individual’s interpersonal relationship could be predicted by his/her trait forgiveness and aggressive behaviour. We tested this hypothesis using a survey, in which five hundred and thirty-eight college students (195 males and 343 females) from five universities in China were investigated with Trait Forgiveness Scale (TFS), Interpersonal Disturbance Scale (IDS), Social-support Scale (SS) and Aggression Questionnaire (AQ). Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were adopted to analyse the data of survey in SPSS 21. Results indicated that (a) significant gender differences existed in trait forgiveness, that is, trait forgiveness of female students was significantly higher than that of male students (t = -2.252, p< 0.05); (b) trait forgiveness positively correlated with social support (r = 0.27,p< 0.001), and negatively correlated with interpersonal disturbance (r = -0.35,p< 0.001) and aggressive behaviours (r = -0.40,p< 0.001); (c) trait forgiveness was the best predictor of interpersonal relationship; (d) aggressive behaviour served as a partial mediator variable between trait forgiveness and interpersonal relationship. These results imply that although trait forgiveness and aggressive behaviour both affect an individual’s interpersonal relationship, the affecting paths were different. Trait forgiveness may directly affect interpersonal relationship, or indirectly through aggressive behaviour.

Keywords: trait forgiveness, interpersonal relationship, aggressive behavior, mediation effect