Session 9: Psychological Perspectives

2nd Global Conference

Friday 13th March – Monday 16th March 2009
Salzburg, Austria

Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers

Forgiveness in the scripts of Guillermo Arriaga
Thomas Riegler
Independent Scholar, Vienna, Austria

Forgiveness is a central theme in the work of Mexican scriptwriter Guillermo Arriaga: Amores perros, 21 Grams, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and Babel all tell tragic stories about “guilty” protagonists who are overwhelmed by forces bigger than themselves. In the course of the film they have to undergo a slow and painful catharsis, which does not guarantee in all cases to purge them of their “sins”. Forgiveness marks the final point of this transformational “journey” into the characters’ inner self, which clarifies their relations with the “world” and provides new hope for them. Since Arriaga’s scenarios are not only valued highly by critics, but also work as intense, gripping drama for the average film buff, this contribution aims to explore the nature of forgiveness by comparing different aspects, formations and constellations in his scripts.

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Introduction – A growing body of literature points to an important relationship between forgiveness and mental health (Toussaint & Webb, 2005). Evidence of this connection has come from many sources including correlational surveys, forgiveness interventions, and longitudinal research. This literature reveals that forgiveness is associated with less depression (Orth, Berking, Walker, Meier, & Znoj, 2007) and enhanced happiness (Toussaint & Friedman, 2008). Unfortunately, much of this research has been conducted solely in the United States. Furthermore, only a few studies have examined potential mechanisms of the association between forgiveness and mental health despite strong evidence that processes such as rumination are centrally involved in both forgiveness (McCullough, Bono, & Root, 2007) and mental health (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Hence, the purpose of this study was to test the forgiveness -> rumination -> depression model first proposed and examined by Brooks and Toussaint (2003) and later tested by Ysseldyk, Matheson, & Anisman (2007). Both of these studies were conducted using western samples. Our main goal was to examine the cultural generalizability of this model by testing it in a Korean sample.

Methods – Participants were 205 Korean college students recruited from a large urban university. All participants in the study completed three questionnaires including: Heartland Forgiveness Scale, (Thompson et al., 2005), Rumination Response Scale (Treyner et al., 2003), and Beck Depression Inventory-II(BDI-II, Beck et al., 1996). These scales were administered in groups. Participation required approximately 30 – 60 minutes.

Results – Correlation analyses showed that forgiveness was negatively associated with rumination and depression at statistically significant levels (|rs| = .28 – .63). When examining the subscale scores of forgiveness and rumination an interesting pattern emerged. Generally speaking, forgiveness of self and situations was more strongly correlated with rumination and depression than was forgiveness of others. There was one exception. Angry/vengeful rumination was more strongly correlated with forgiveness of others than with forgiveness of self or situations.

To examine the extent to which rumination mediated the association between forgiveness and depression, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted using forgiveness of self, others, and situations as the predictors entered on the first step and brooding, reflective, and depressive rumination as the mediators entered on the second step. Each predictor-mediator combination was tested in a separate model where the outcome was depression. The results of these analyses suggested that the associations of forgiveness of self, others, and situations with depression were partially and fully mediated by brooding and depressive rumination. Associations between all types of forgiveness and depression were less influenced by reflective rumination.

Conclusion – The present study was intended to test the generalizability of a meditational model of forgiveness, rumination, and depression. Results are largely in support of existing literature and show that forgiveness is negatively associated with both rumination and depression. Further, the mediating role of rumination appears important but dependent on both type of forgiveness and content of ruminative thoughts. Explanatory models of forgiveness and mental health should continue to be examined with special emphasis on cultural similarities and differences.

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Objective
The aim of study was to investigate the role of attribution style on overt-covert narcissism and forgiveness. Even though covert narcissists exhibit high degrees of hostility, neuroticism, and depression with carrying low self-esteem, the literature on the relationship between forgiveness and narcissism had almost exclusively focused on the overt narcissism. This study attempted to differentiate between overt and covert narcissism in the relation of forgiveness. Many previous studies suggested that attribution style in both causal and responsibility is a robust predictor of forgiveness as well as important variable for narcissism. There has been a theoretical distinction between causal and responsibility attribution. It was assumed that overt-covert narcissism show different patterns in the relation of forgiveness. Specifically, it was predicted that covert narcissists are less forgivable than overt narcissists. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that the association between overt-covert narcissism and forgiveness is mediated by causal and responsibility attribution.

Methods
Participants were 286 undergraduate students who completed self-report measurement assessing overt-covert narcissism (NPI, CNS), causal attribution (ASQ), responsibility attribution (RAM), and state forgiveness (EFI-K). CNS is composed of genuine factor of covert narcissism (hypersensitive/vulnerable, unstable goal-seeking and timid/lack of confidence subscales) and common factor of narcissism (grandiose/exhibitionistic and exploitative subscales). High degrees of ASQ and RAM mean that attribution style is more likely to promote conflict. To examine whether causal and responsibility attributions serve as a mediator between covert narcissism and forgiveness, we used the three-step hierarchical regression analysis recommended by Baron and Kenny(1986).

Results
The regression analysis revealed that covert narcissism affects forgiveness and causal attribution significantly. Interestingly, responsibility attribution was predicted just by genuine factor of covert narcissism (not common factor of narcissism). Overt narcissism, in contrast, didn’t predict forgiveness and attribution. As expected, high degrees of causal and responsibility attribution predicted forgiveness. Next, Hierarchical regression was conducted to investigate mediating effects, after controlling for apology. It revealed that covert narcissism on forgiveness was partially mediated by causal attribution. That is, covert narcissists who perceive a cause of transgression is located in transgressor, is global and stable are more difficult to forgive their transgressor. Responsibility attribution mediated the relationship between genuine factor of covert narcissism and forgiveness.

Conclusions
The findings of this study demonstrated that only covert narcissism is associated with forgiveness, which indicates that covert narcissists are less forgivable than overt narcissists. This findings implicit covert narcissist is more likely to experience psychological dysfunction. Besides, this study provides evidence that causal attribution play a mediating role in association between covert narcissism (not overt narcissism) and forgiveness. The mediating effect of responsibility attribution is a little different from causal attribution. These different effects can be explained by Entailment Model proposed by Bradbury and Fincham(1990). This study has the significance in the sense that it explores a possible mechanism between covert narcissism and forgiveness. In addition, the results of present study also add further validity to the distinction made in previous research between the overt and covert faces of narcissism.

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