Hypothesis

It should be noted that questions 1-4 entail a qualitative approach, and so, no hypotheses

will be constructed for such variables.

Guilt. The researchers hypothesize that guilt will be a significant predictor of self-

forgiveness. Furthermore, a negative correlation between the two variables is expected. This is

because guilt mainly consists of feelings of violation against ones moral code with regard to

ones recent actions (Ausubel, 1955; Tangney, 1995, as cited in Hall & Fincham, 2005). Thus,

conciliatory behaviors may involve delaying or not forgiving oneself as a punishment for the

wrongful acts one has committed, thwarting the self-forgiveness process (Ausubel).

Shame. Shame is predicted to be a significant predictor of self-forgiveness. Similar to

guilt, the researchers hypothesize a negative relationship between the two variables. This is

mainly because shame promotes feelings of self-resentment and self-hate which are self-

referenced emotions that are oppositely implicated in the process of self-forgiveness (Tangney &

Dearing, 2002; Woien, Ernst, Patock-Peckham, & Nagoshi, 2003, as cited in Carpenter, Tignor,

Tsang, and Willety, 2016). Further, there association may also be due to the tendencies of shame-

prone people to externalize blame and anger, which has been found to limit ones capacity to

forgive oneself (Tangney, 1990; Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992, as cited in

Rangganadhan and Todorov, 2010)

Affect. Since a more positive affect has been show to buffer out negative emotions of

guilt and self-resentment ((Folkman & Moscowitz, 2000), we expect this variable to be a

significant predictor of self-forgiveness. Further, the researchers hypothesize that people who are

more happy or have high positive affect will be more inclined to forgive themselves following a

transgression than those who are dominated with negative affect. This is because study have
shown that a more positive attitude towards a transgression allows better coping responses to be

initiated such as acknowledging ones mistake and accepting the self after committing such a

mistake (Hall & Fincham, 2005). On the other hand, negative affect may thwart self-forgiveness

as people in negative states tend to ruminate more on mistakes (Barber, Maltby, & Macaskill,

2005) and entertain thoughts of self-hate and self-resentment (Day & Maltby, 2005).

Attributions.

Locus of attribution. Individuals that tend to adopt internal attributions tend to lead to

guilt and shame (Harvey & Martinko, 2016). With this in mind, those who tend to employ

internal attributions will be less likely to forgive themselves while whose who generally employ

external attributions will be most likely to forgive themselves.

Controllability. Considering that those who attribute events as uncontrollable or global

essentially imply that its going to affect everything that happens to me, it would stand to

reason that it would be much harder to forgive themselves (Buchanan and Seligman, 1995, as

cited in Gratch, Oh, & Woo, 2007). From this, the researchers hypothesize that those who

employ global attributions will be less likely to forgive themselves while those who employ

specific attributions will be more likely to forgive themselves.

Permanence. As the studies of Gundlach, Douglas, & Martinko (2002), (Kovenklioglu &

Greenhaus, (1978) and Weiner, (1985, as cited in Harvey & Martinko, 2016) indicate, individuals

who attribute events with high permanence or stability are less likely to actually be able to

improve themselves. With this in mind, the researchers hypothesize that individuals who use

stable attributions are less likely to forgive themselves while those who use unstable attributions

are more likely to forgive themselves.

 Just-world beliefs (self). The researchers hypothesize that self-oriented just-world

beliefs will be a significant predictor of self-forgiveness. Further, their association is expected to

be inversely proportional. This may be due to the fact that self-oriented just-world beliefs were

found to be linked with more pro-social behavior following an unjust act or transgression

(Worthington & Scherer, 2004, as cited in Strelan and Sutton, 2011). This is because people with

strong self-oriented just-world beliefs are motivated to atone for their mistakes in order to restore

their beliefs of a just world. Thus, an individual may delay self-forgiveness unless he or she has

ascertain that he or she has made the world a fair place again by atoning for her since.

Religiosity. Religiosity is expected to be a significant predictor of self-forgiveness. More

importantly, it is hypothesized to be positive correlated with self-forgiveness. This is because

studies have found that perceived forgiveness from a higher being was positively correlated to

self-forgiveness (Cafaro & Exline, 2003, as cited in Hall & Fincham, 2005). They posited that

this is perhaps due to the fact that people will find themselves worthy of forgiveness if they

perceived that a higher being has already forgiven them. Of course, this is dependent on how

strong their belief of a higher being is, and this is where religiosity comes in to the picture.

Narcissism. Compared to all of the variables mentioned earlier, we are not expecting any

significant relationship between narcissism and self-forgiveness. This is because, if the results of

past researches are correct (e.g., Enright & the Human Development Study Group, 1996; Hall

and Fincham, 2005), then genuine self-forgiveness should not have any traces of narcissistic self-

deception. In fact, narcissism should be significant if pseudo self-forgiveness is measured.

However, this study hopes to contribute to the growing literature of genuine self-forgiveness, and

designed the self-forgiveness instrument to measure exactly that.

 The main reason why narcissism and genuine self-forgiveness are not related is because

narcissists inflated self-views will more likely lead them to dismiss any mistake the commit

instead of acknowledging and taking responsibility for them (Fisher & Exline, 2006). This

behavioral pattern has been negatively linked with self-forgiveness (Hall & Fincham, 2005).

Moreover, the negative long-term effects of narcissism has also been found in patterns of pseudo

self-forgiveness (Hall and Fincham), further supporting the need to solidify its distinction from

genuine self-forgiveness.