Topic: Forgiveness and the Big Five Personality Traits

Collin Modahl

Topic: Forgiveness and the Big Five personality traits

A. Introduction

1. Forgiveness plays a significant role in everyone’s lives, whether you are giving it or receiving it. In recent history psychologist have become more interested in the reasons why some forgive and others don’t. This has become especially important when working with clients trying to cope with the past and move forward.

2. A good introduction into this paper is supported by the findings that forgiveness may lead to a happier, healthier life. (Lawler-Row, Kathleen A., Piferi, Rachel A. 2006)

B. Theory of forgiveness

1. Some evidence shows that forgiveness is a way to reduce stress. One way to reduce the stress that you have offended someone or someone has offended you is to seek mutual forgiveness. (Worthington, Everett L. Jr., Scherer, Michael. 2004)

2. Forgiveness has its place in psychoanalytic theories as well. Psychoanalytic theories like to look into an individual’s past and for significant events of strain. Obviously forgiveness, or lack thereof, could leave unresolved issues which psychoanalytic theory would say is effecting one’s life. (Person, Ethel Spector. 2007)

3. Forgiveness is used in many standard forms of psychotherapy. Being able to forgive allows victims to step out of victimization, and understand that the misdeed does not destroy them. The forgiveness of others appears to be closely tied to the way that you perceive the act. (Larsen, Erik Roi. 2004)

C. Theory of the Big Five

1. The theory of the Big Five personality traits (Five Factor Model) is the result of several researchers’ works. They found, through years of work, that these five traits were sufficient to account of a large set of personality data. What separates the five-factor model of personality from all others is that it is not based on the theory of any one particular psychologist, but rather on language, the system that people use to understand one another.

2. The Big Five are often used in self-reports and during therapy to evaluate perceptions of a psychopathic personality. This article uses the Five Factor Model as a landmark to study personality and gain more information about the client. (Jackson, Rebecca L. Richards, Henry J. 2007)

3. Some consider the Big Five such an asset that they use it as a general measure of mental health. Many find the system so useful because it is universal among all psychologists around the world. (Compton, William C. 1998)

D. Research linking forgiveness and the Big Five

1. Agreeableness and neuroticism are two of the Big Five personality traits that are closely linked to forgiveness. These two seem to come up in almost every article, and produce the strongest links in both directions of forgiveness. (Neto, Felix. 2007)

2. Narcissism, guilt, self-esteem, and agreeableness are closely related to the Big Five and help to understand why the link between the Big Five and forgiveness might exist. (Strelan, Peter. 2002)

3. This article provides more research on specifically the Big Five as it relates to forgiveness. It breaks down each component: openness, contentiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism and how it relates, or if it relates, to forgiveness. (Brose, L.A., Rye, M. 2004)

4. Some of the information found on personality and forgiveness uses the underlying primary factors of the Big Five. It is important to have some articles that give one an idea of what the Big Five represent, and this article does a very good job of that. (Walker, D.F., Gorsuch, R.L. 2002).

5. There is something to be said about the difference between forgiving oneself and forgiving others. This article goes into depth about what personality characteristics coincide with self-forgiveness and what personality characteristics are found in forgiveness of others. (Ross, Scott R., Hertenstein, Mathew J., Wrobel, Thomas J. 2007)

E. Summary

1. Although the Five Factor Model is used in many regards there are still some doubts on just how effective it is. This article challenges three specific aspects of the Five Factor Model and makes some interesting points. (Becker, Peter. 1999)

2. This is another article talking about the Big Five and perhaps the idea that there is a “comprehensive 6” and a “gigantic 3” which compete with the Big Five. (Brand, Christopher R. 1994)

3. There seems to be a connection with certain personality characteristics and forgiveness. Most significant of these correlations would be the positive correlation of Agreeableness and forgiveness, and the negative correlation between neuroticism and forgiveness. Research being done now investigates the difference between forgiveness of self, others, and forgiveness from god.

F. Hypotheses

1. Those that score high on Neuroticism will have the most difficulty with forgiveness of others.

2. Those that score high on Agreeableness will show a positive association with forgiveness of others.

3. Those that score high on Extraversion will show a positive association with forgiveness of others.

4. I believe that Openness and Conscientiousness will not provide any significant association in either direction of forgiveness of others.