Annotated Bibliography.

Journal of Psychology and Christianity

2008, Vol. 27, No. 4, 347-357

Copyright 2008 Christian Association for Psychological Studies

ISSN 0733-4273

347

pay attention, as never before, to the spiritual lives of students and faculty.

The enhanced awareness of needed spiritual development among colleges and universities is complicated, however, by new research on the role of religion in student life and process. Clydesdale (2007) reported that, although college students are clearly interested in spirituality and faith commitments, they tend to compartmental- ize their religious and spiritual identities upon entering post-secondary education. The study found the majority of entering college students wanted to give little focused attention to this area during college. Thus, at the same time as academic institutions are challenged to attend to a broader range of developmental issues, stu- dents appear to want to limit access to all these areas. Astin (2004) affirmed this discovery by noting that this generation of students, although interested in the spiritual, is more focused on the material exterior aspects of their college experi- ence. Clydesdale (2007) affirmed that attention to the interior life for students may actually

Forgiveness Interventions as Spiritual Development Strategies:

Comparing Forgiveness Workshop Training, Expressive Writing about Forgiveness,

and Retested Controls Stephen P. Stratton

Asbury Theological Seminary

Janet B. Dean Arthur J. Nonneman Rachel A. Bode Asbury College

Everett L. Worthington, Jr. Virginia Commonwealth University

North American college students find that their experience in higher education is more than simply “book learning.” These students experience an educational environment that is pressured to include their emotional and physi- cal well-being along with more traditional aca- demic and career pursuits (Kadison & DiGeronimo, 2004). Higher education is con- fronted with research suggesting that emotional, social, and physical well-being are essential to goals of academic success and student learning (Astin, 1993; Kadison, 2004; Pritchard & Wilson, 2003). Increasingly, these institutions hear calls for spiritual development alongside these other developmental areas (Higher Education Research Institute, 2004). Indeed, Astin (2004) suggested that higher education is primed to

The forgiveness activities at Asbury College and the participation of Everett L. Worthington, Jr. were sup- ported by the Thomas F. Staley Foundation. Direct correspondence to Stephen P. Stratton (steve_strat- [email protected]), Asbury Theological Semi- nary, 204 N. Lexington Ave., Wilmore, KY 40390.

Within a Christian university, it is important to ask what activities might engender forgiveness – a promi- nent spiritual activity related to Christian maturity. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of three forgiveness intervention strategies-relative to a retested control, a 5-6 hour psychoeducational workshop training (W), essay writing (E), or combination of the two (WE). Workshop training is psycho-educational training conducted in groups of more than 50 undergraduates to prepare them to facilitate small work- shops to promote forgiveness. Christian liberal arts college students (N=114) completed forgiveness mea- sures on three occasions (weeks one, four, and ten) with 5-6 hour psychoeducational groups (week 2) and essays (week 3) following the initial assessment. WE showed more change in positive, but not nega- tive, responses to the offender than did W at the first post-test and more than did C and E at the follow- up. REACH workshop training and benefit-finding essays each produced some forgiveness responses toward the offender.

cause fear that they will be out of step with the valued (exterior) mainstream.

Crisis appears to be one way to encourage stu- dents to engage interior areas that might remain unconsidered (Baylis, 1997; Marcia, 1966, 1976, 1980). In the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities’ Taking Values Seriously project (Baylis, 1997), identity development was found to occur in experiences where personal values and beliefs were critically examined and com- pared with competing views. By definition, such experiences represent crises even though some may look emotionally intense, while others may seem less emotional and more thoughtful. Hol- comb (2004) found spiritual development was no exception to this crisis model. Adequate chal- lenge in the context of appropriate support pro- moted movement toward a more advanced spiritual identity status.

Seeking to encourage spiritual development, a small Christian liberal arts college planned a week of challenging psycho-educational activi- ties in the midst of an intentionally supportive process. The focus was on forgiveness for past unresolved negative interpersonal experiences. The process was planned with the aim of asking students to confront unforgiveness (crisis promo- tion) and then work toward forgiveness (crisis intervention). This topic was selected for the promising evidence concerning the positive impact of forgiveness interventions on emotion- al, relational, and spiritual outcomes (Baskin & Enright, 2004; Wade, Bailey, & Shaffer, 2005; Wade, Worthington, & Meyer, 2005). The aim of the events was to promote greater understanding of forgiveness and its potential application, when appropriate, among campus community mem- bers. The hope was that students would apply religious and spiritual values in the midst of campus life.

To operationalize this aim and hope, a research project evaluated the effectiveness of two forgiveness intervention strategies—work- shop training and essay writing. The workshop intervention used the REACH model of forgive- ness developed by Worthington (2003, 2004). Evidence for the efficacy of this group interven- tion has been supported in a number of studies (see Wade, Worthington, & Meyer, 2005, for a meta-analysis; Lampton, Oliver, Worthington, & Berry, 2005; McCullough & Worthington, 1995; McCullough, Worthington, & Rachal, 1997; Wor- thington, Kurusu, Collins, Berry, Ripley, & Baier, 2000). This REACH model was formally

described by Worthington (1998, 2001) for a broader audience and later adapted by Worthing- ton (2003, 2004; see also Lampton et al., 2005) into the more explicit Christian form used in this study. Whereas several psycho-educational workshop treatments have been developed by different researchers, only the present one and Rye’s groups for divorced women and romanti- cally involved students (Rye, Loiacono, Folck, Olszewski, Heim, & Madia, 2001; Rye, Parga- ment, Pan, Shogren, & Ito, 2005) have been explicitly tailored for use with Christians. Previ- ous research on the REACH model shows effect sizes for pre- to post-change that range from .35 to .95 (Wade et al., 2005). There appears to be a linear dose-response relationship between amount of time spent working on forgiveness and the amount of forgiveness experienced (Wade et al., 2005; Worthington et al., 2000).

Lampton, Oliver, Worthington, and Berry (2005) conducted a study similar to a portion of the current experiment. During a month of intense attention to forgiveness at John Brown University (JBU), student facilitators were trained to facilitate small psycho-educational groups using a full day of training with 42 students, of which eight participated in an inner circle and the remainder in an outer circle. This so-called fishbowl technique is commonly used in training large groups. Student volunteers at JBU were assigned to participate in small group workshops or merely took repeated assessments. Lampton et al. (2005) reported that, within the context of a month of emphasis on forgiveness at the uni- versity, workshops plus assessment produced more forgiveness than mere assessment.

Anecdotal reports among the student facilita- tors at JBU suggested that many of them report- ed forgiving the person they identified as transgressor in their training as a group facilita- tor, even though those trainers were not assessed for personal forgiveness in the Lampton et al. study. Psychoeducational methods to pro- mote forgiveness have always been done in small groups in previous research. However, the anecdotal evidence suggested that perhaps for- giveness could be engendered if it was a target within a large-group training experience. The present experiment was designed to test this hypothesis. Best practices in group-related research suggest that multiple facilitators and multiple groups be employed. In keeping with these practices, we conducted one large group in each of two semesters, facilitated by different

348 FORGIVENESS INTERVENTIONS AS SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

teacher/facilitators to minimize the impact of facilitators and unique dynamics within groups.

The second intervention in the current study was essay-writing. It has been a less studied strategy in applied forgiveness research, but it appears to be gaining increased attention in the literature (Gregory, 2005; McCullough, Root, & Cohen, 2006; Romero, 2005; Vas, 2002; Zech- meister & Romero, 2002). Therapeutic writing has been suggested as a nontraditional treatment delivery task for intercultural populations (Keel- ing & Nielson, 2005), and its efficacy in the treat- ment of trauma has been generally supported (Esterling, L’Abate, Murray, & Pennebaker, 1999; King & Miner, 2000). Moreover, exercises, such as journaling and letter writing, have often been incorporated into practical programs for forgive- ness (see Fincham & Beach, 2002). Research, however, is still necessary to determine the con- ditions in which writing tasks serve as a useful and beneficial forgiveness strategy.

To date, writing tasks have been shown to facilitate forgiveness in some studies (Romero, 2005; Zechmeister & Romero, 2002), but not oth- ers (Gregory, 2005; Vas, 2002). Vas (2002) repli- cated writing tasks from previous trauma research in which participants focused on their negative experience. She found no increased for- giveness from simply writing about the offense. Gregory (2005) compared the REACH model using eight 60-90 minute workshops for 24 stu- dents and an expressive writing task for 19 stu- dents. Although no significant differences were found in comparison with controls, positive changes were noted for both interventions. Moreover, no differential effects were found for outcomes for either intervention. Romero (2005) and McCullough et al. (2006) found that having undergraduates write about the benefits of an interpersonal transgression did encourage forgiv- ing. It is difficult to compare the writing tasks across studies because the instructions and writ- ing assignments have not been uniform.

The current study included a writing compo- nent that asked students to compose the story of the target transgression and then inquired about certain elements often associated with the for- giveness process. The writing task for this pre- sent study emphasized thoughts and emotions involved in experiencing the target transgression. The results of Romero (2005) and McCullough et al. (2006) prompted the inclusion of a writing question about potential benefits of the experi- ence for self or offender and writing was done

on several occasions. However, unlike Gregory (2005) and Romero (2005), in the present study, there were no explicit instructions to empathize with the offender. Thus, the current writing inter- vention investigated whether descriptive, reflec- tive writing of a one-time essay would promote changes in forgiveness.

Wade, Worthington, and Meyer (2005) estab- lished that more time on the task of engendering empathy with a transgressor improved gains in forgiveness. Thus, in the present study of two forgiveness interventions, we hypothesized that more forgiveness would be found at follow-up for those participants who took part in both the workshop and the essay-writing in comparison with those who performed only the workshop or the writing task, which in turn were hypothe- sized to be superior to the control condition. The present design could be considered a 2 x 2 x 3 (S) [Workshop or none x Essay or none x time (S)] with repeated measures. However, there was no theoretical reason to consider our interaction between W x E and such a design would reduce degrees of freedom and complicate the design.

Method

Participants Students in selected undergraduate classes in

psychology and English literature at a private lib- eral arts Christian college volunteered to take part in a study in which they (a) might or might not participate in and learn to lead psycho-education- al groups to promote forgiveness and (b) write or not write a forgiveness essay. Depending on the class, participants earned a small amount of extra credit or completed part of an assigned credit/no credit activity. The sample (N = 114) was com- posed of 88 females and 26 males, whose mean age was 20.9 years (SD = 2.6). Ethnicity of the sample was composed of 92% White/Non-His- panics, 2% Asian/Pacific Islanders, 2% Hispanics, and 3% Non-resident aliens. Classification of the sample included 33.3% freshmen, 52.0% sopho- mores, 13.7% juniors, and 2.9% seniors. Partici- pants were assigned to one of four conditions–control (C), essay only (E), workshop only (W), and workshop-plus-essay (WE)–based on the classes in which they were enrolled. All four conditions completed a pretest and two post-tests over ten weeks. C (n = 29) took only the forgiveness measures on three occasions. E (n = 46) also completed an essay task in which they wrote a brief paper about an experience in

STRATTON, DEAN, NONNEMAN, BODE AND WORTHINGTON 349

need of forgiveness. Group W (n = 22) participat- ed in a training seminar on how to lead persons through a process of forgiving. Group WE (n = 17) did both the workshop and essay tasks. In semester one, n = 79 students participated. In semester two, n = 35 students participated.

Design The design is a 4 x 3 (S) [intervention: C, W., E.,

WE x time (S)] design with repeated measures.

Treatment Conditions Description of workshop. The workshop

intervention was based on the five-step REACH model (Worthington, 2003). The REACH acronym stands for: R (Recall the hurt), E (Empathize with the perpetrator and God), A (give an Altruistic gift of forgiveness), C (Commit to continue forgiving), and H (Hold on to for- giveness amidst doubts). Two licensed psycholo- gists and graduate level professors facilitated this directed group intervention (Groups W and WE)—one in each semester, thus attempting to control for facilitator effects.

Each of the 39 participants in W and WE received a 100-page manual (Worthington, 2004) and came to the workshop to learn how to facili- tate a group process using that forgiveness resource. Selected exercises from each of the REACH steps were presented by a facilitator to eight volunteers in a five-to-six hour training demonstration, and the remaining participants observed this fishbowl group and worked through the exercises at times individually and at other times in groups of two and four (similar to the training in Lampton et al., 2005). As a result, all participants completed all exercises, referenc- ing the recalled transgression from their pretest. Although the facilitators worked primarily with the fishbowl group, all participants were given opportunities for questions and limited discus- sion of the exercises.

Description of the Essay The following instructions were given to E and

WE for the essay component of the study.

This 1000-word essay should tell your story of forgiveness organized in any way you think is effective in telling the story that you are using for this forgiveness study. Within your narrative of the story, you should cover at least the following:

• Write a description of a transgres- sion you experienced, your rela-

tionship to the person who hurt or offended you, your emotional reac- tions (initially and at delayed times) to the transgression, and the conse- quences for you. How did you cope with the transgression?

• Did you make a conscious decision to forgive? If so, how did you arrive at that decision? Can you trace the reasoning that led you to a decision to forgive?

• Did you experience—at any point before, during, or after the making of the decision to forgive—a changed emotional state that you would define as emotionally forgiv- ing the person who harmed you?

• Did your Christian beliefs, values, community, or friends play any part in your decision and experi- ence of forgiveness? If so, how?

• What benefits (if any) have you experienced from having forgiven, and explain whether (and if so, how) your offender benefited?

Measures Trait Forgivingness Scale (TFS; Berry,

Worthington, O’Connor, Parrott, & Wade, 2005). The ten TFS items assess self-appraisal regarding disposition to forgive interpersonal transgressions. Items are rated from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Examples include, “I have always forgiven those who hurt me” and “I feel bitter about many of my relationships” (reverse scored). Unidimensionality and estimat- ed reliabilities have been supported using both classical test statistics and Rasch analysis proce- dures. Evidence for estimated reliabilities and construct validity has been adduced in concur- rent and prospective studies using a variety of self-report and peer-report measures (Berry et al., 2005). In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.83 at pretest.

Transgression-Related Interpersonal Moti- vations Inventory (TRIM; McCullough, Rachal, Sandage, Worthington, Brown, & Hight, 1998). The TRIM describes the level of unforgiving motivations in one specific situation and assesses state forgiveness. TRIM subscales actually measure unforgiving motivations (two subscales; revenge, R, avoidance, A) and forgiving conciliatory motivations (one subscale, TRIM-C)

350 FORGIVENESS INTERVENTIONS AS SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

toward the indexed transgression. The TRIM thus consists of 18 items relating to a specifically cho- sen transgression with items rated from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. This yields a range of scores 5 to 25 (Revenge; TRIM-R) and 7 to 35 (Avoidance; TRIM-A). Higher scores indi- cate more unforgiveness. On the conciliation (TRIM-C) subscale, the range is 6 to 30 with high- er scores indicating motivations that are more for- giving. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the subscales have ranged from .85 to .93. Estimates of test-retest reliabilities have ranged from .44 to .65. Evidence for construct validity was derived from confirmatory factor analysis (McCullough et al., 1998). In the present study, Cronbach’s alphas were 0.84 for TRIM-R, 0.93 for TRIM-A, and 0.90 for TRIM-C at pre-test.

Forgiveness-Positive Responses to the Offender (PRO; Witvliet, Wade, Worthington, & Berry, 2002). This six-item inventory mea- sures the likelihood of positive feelings, behav- iors, and thoughts toward a specific offender. As such, this scale is distinct from the TRIM-R and TRIM-A, which assess negative motivations (to seek revenge or avoid) toward an offender (Wade & Worthington, 2003), but more similar to TRIM-C, which assesses conciliatory motives. Items are rated on a five-point scale from 1 = Not at all likely to 5 = Extremely likely. Typical items include, “Think positive thoughts about him/her” and “Feel positive emotions about him/her.” In Witvliet et al., (2002) an exploratory principal-axis factor analysis suggested that the six items measure one construct (one Eigenvalue of 3.76, accounting for 63% of the item vari- ance). All items had factor loadings of .58 or above. Construct validity was evidenced by a strong, positive correlation between PRO and a face-valid, single-item self-report measure of for- giveness at two measurement times. This pattern of high estimated reliability and single-factor structure was supported in the second study as well. In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.84 at pretest.

Procedures At Week 1, participants were administered the

pretest and then heard a campus chapel presen- tation on forgiveness or read the transcript of that presentation. As part of the pretest instruc- tions, participants considered a personal situa- tion in which forgiveness was necessary. The following were the instructions:

Please recall someone who has deeply hurt or offended you. Without writing the name, write yourself a brief description of what the person did to hurt or offend you. (Note: if the person has done many things, it is important to recall one specific event on which you will focus.) Write a short description below to remind yourself of the event.

Participants then completed four forgiveness measures in light of that recalled experience. The pretests and subsequent two post-tests were conducted on-line through a web-based survey- ing service. Participants were assigned to attend W or not.

At Week 2 only W and WE groups attended a five- to six-hour workshop based around the workbook, Experiencing forgiveness: Six practical sessions for becoming a more forgiving Christian (Worthington, 2004; Lampton et al., 2005). Two facilitators trained participants in how to lead for- giveness groups. During the training, participants worked on personal offenses that they had iden- tified for their pretesting. Groups C and E had no research related activities during this week.

At the end of Week 3, participants were assigned to complete the essay or not. Thus, only Groups E and WE completed an essay on regarding the forgiveness experience they recalled for their pre-tests. These essays were coded to protect anonymity. Groups C and W had no research related activities.

At Week 4, all participants completed the first post-assessment. At Week 10, the second admin- istration of the post-tests was performed with all participants. No intervention occurred between Weeks 4 and 10.

Results

Pre-Test Groups Forgiveness scores did not vary at pre-test by

condition assignment for most forgiveness mea- sures, including TFS, F (3, 108) = 0.49, p = 0.69; PRO, F (3, 108) = 1.63, p = 0.187; TRIM-C, F (3, 108) = 2.06, p = 0.11; TRIM-R, F (3, 108) = 0.80; p = 0.50. However, there was a significant differ- ence between conditions at pre-test on TRIM-A, F (3, 108) = 3.17, p = .027. Using Tukey’s HSD post-hoc test, the pre-test TRIM-A mean for W (M = 23.9, SD = 15.9) was significantly greater than for Group WE (M = 15.9, SD = 7.0), p = 0.02.

In addition, forgiveness scores did not vary at pre-test between the 2006 and 2007 samples for most of the forgiveness measures, including TFS,

STRATTON, DEAN, NONNEMAN, BODE AND WORTHINGTON 351

F (1, 112) = 2.94, p = 0.09. TRIM-C, F (1, 112) = 0.71, p = 0.40, TRIM-A, F (1, 112) = 2.59, p = 0.11, and TRIM-R, F (1, 112) = 1.80, p = 0.18. However, there was a significant difference between samples 2006 and 2007 at pre-test on PRO, t (112) = 5.43, p = 0.02.

Effect on Positive Responses to the Offender The treatment conditions were expected to

have greater increases in positive response to the offender over the course of the study than did C. This increase was expected to be larger for WE than for the other two treatment groups. To test this hypothesis, the effects of joint treatment were compared against the effects of only attending a workshop training, only writing an essay, or being in the control group, while hold- ing any dispositional differences in forgivingness constant, through a repeated measures 4 (Treat- ment) X 3([S] Time) multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). PRO and TRIM-C served as dependent variables of positive response to the offender. TFS, measuring trait forgivingness, was used as the covariate. The sphericity assumption was not met so the Huynh-Feldt correction was applied. As expect- ed, TFS was significantly related to the positive response to offenders, Wilks’ λ = .93, F (4, 108) = 4.14, p = 0.003, ηp2 = 0.038. In addition, there

was a multivariate effect of time, Wilks’ λ = .94, F (4, 108) = 3.11, p = 0.015, ηp2 = 0.029, which is not meaningfully interpretable. A multivariate interaction of condition x time (S) was also found, Wilks’ λ = .89, F (4, 108) = 2.20, p = 0.011, ηp2 = 0.059. This suggests that the four treatment groups showed varied response to treatment over time, which is consistent with hypotheses. Subsequent univariate ANCOVAs revealed that the interaction between condition and time was significant for TRIM-C, F (6, 106) = 3.45, p = 0.003, ηp2 = 0.089 (See Figure 1), but not for PRO, F (5.59, 106.4) = 1.96, p = 0.08. Means and standard deviations of PRO and TRIM-C across conditions and time are reported in Table 1.

Post hoc simple main effects analyses for TRIM-C were made using independent samples t-tests with p set at .05. At the first post-test, WE had a significantly higher mean than W, F (1, 37) = 4.89, p = 0.03, but not C, F (1, 44) = 2.89, p = 0.10, or E, F (1, 61) = 3.63, p = 0.06. At the sec- ond post-test (six weeks after the first post-test), WE had a significantly higher mean on TRIM-C than did C, t (1, 43) = 4.48, p = 0.04, and E, F (1, 61) = 4.36, p = 0.04, but not W, F (1, 37) = 3.80, p = 0.06. The mean TRIM-C score of Group C was not significantly different than the first post- test scores of E, F (1, 73) = 0.03, p = 0.87, or W,

352 FORGIVENESS INTERVENTIONS AS SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

Figure 1. Means of TRIM-C Scores across Treatment Conditions and Time

T R

IM -C

S c o

re s

t C

n E

p W

ii WE

27 –

25 –

23 –

21 –

19 –

17 – | | |

1 2 3

Time of Testing

ii

ii

ii

t t t

n

n n

p

p

p

F (1, 49) = 0.20, p = 0.66, nor than the second post-test scores of E, F (1, 72) = 0.005, p = 0.94, or W, F (1, 48) = 0.25, p = 0.62.

Because PRO showed pre-test mean differ- ences between the two samples, these scores were converted to change scores (δ) and ana- lyzed via a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with TFS as the covariate and the change in PRO scores between pre-test and the first post-test as dependent variable. As expect- ed, TFS was significantly related to the positive response to offenders, F (1, 111) = 7.72, p = 0.005. A significant main effect for condition was also found, F (3, 109) = 3.08, p = 0.031. Post-hoc Bonferroni pairwise comparisons revealed that WE had a significantly higher mean change score from pre- to first post-test than did C, p = 0.04, but did not significantly differ from the other two groups. There was no significant main effect for condition on the mean change scores

between the pre-test and final post-tests, F (3, 109) = 0.67, p = 0.573.

Effect on Negative Responses to the Offender

The treatment conditions were expected to have greater decreases in negative responses to the offender over the course of the study than did C. This decrease was expected to be larger for Group WE than for the other two treatment groups. This hypothesis was tested via a repeated measures 4 (Treatment) X 3([S] Time of Assess- ment) MANCOVA. TRIM-A and TRIM-R served as dependent variables of negative response to the offender and TFS served as the covariate. As expected, TFS was significantly related to the negative response to offenders, Wilks’ λ = .95, F (1, 108) = 2.88, p = 0.022, ηp2 = 0.026. In addi- tion, there was a multivariate effect of time, Wilks’ λ = .94, F (4, 108) = 3.26, p = 0.012, ηp2 =

STRATTON, DEAN, NONNEMAN, BODE AND WORTHINGTON 353

Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations of the Forgiveness Measures across Conditions and Time

Pre-Test Post-Test 1 Post-Test 2

Measure M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Control Condition

TRIM-C 23.22 (5.40) 22.63 (5.75) 22.78 (5.62)

PRO 18.11 (5.69) 19.26 (6.30) 19.74 (5.40)

TRIM-A 19.66 (8.95) 18.72 (8.22) 17.90 (8.16) TRIM-R 7.41 (2.98) 6.69 (3.11) 7.03 (3.21)

Essay Condition

TRIM-C 21.04 (5.85) 22.50 (5.75) 23.07 (5.84)

PRO 16.11 (5.78) 17.95 (6.15) 18.91 (5.91)

TRIM-A 20.18 (8.62) 17.36 (9.22) 17.18 (8.48)

TRIM-R 7.76 (3.89) 6.76 (2.86) 6.80 (2.78)

Workshop Condition

TRIM-C 20.18 (6.21) 22.05 (5.08) 23.68 (4.13)

PRO 16.73 (5.36) 20.05 (5.04) 21.82 (5.22)

TRIM-A 23.86 (6.05) 18.00 (7.34) 17.95 (7.54)

TRIM-R 6.86 (2.38) 5.95 (1.99) 6.14 (1.52)

Workshop+ Essay Condition

TRIM-C 23.47 (5.03) 25.41 (4.20) 26.29 (4.18)

PRO 19.06 (5.10) 23.59 (5.30) 23.47 (5.66)

TRIM-A 15.50 (7.01) 13.56 (7.13) 13.56 (7.69)

TRIM-R 6.63 (2.45) 7.25 (3.04) 7.06 (3.99)

Note. TRIM-C range 6-30 and PRO range 6-30, where higher scores indicate greater positive response to the

offender; TRIM-A range 7-35 and TRIM-R range 5-25, where higher scores indicate greater negative response to

the offender.

0.03, (not meaningfully interpretable). A multi- variate interaction of condition x time, Wilks’ λ = .92, F (3, 108) = 1.48, p = 0.23, ηp2 = 0.04, was not found, indicating that the four groups showed no differential response to treatment over time in reduction of avoidance or vengeful motives. As a result, no post-hoc analyses were conducted on TRIM-A or TRIM-R. Means and standard deviations of TRIM-A and TRIM-R across conditions and time are reported in Table 1.

Intervention Effect Size Across the four forgiveness measures, effect

sizes (pre-minus post-intervention divided by standard deviation) for C ranged from .1 to .23 at the first post-test and .07 to .3 at the second post-test. Across the four measures, the three treatment groups had greater effect sizes at the first post-test (E, .25 to .34; W, .37 to .80; WE, .20 to .85) than did C (.1 to .23). This was also most- ly true at the second post-test, where the three treatment groups had higher effect sizes on all measures (E, .34 to .47; W, .47 to .98; WE, .11 to .78) than did Group C (.07 to .30), except for one equivalent effect size on one measure for WE and C (.11 on TRIM-R).

Discussion

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of two specific forgiveness intervention strategies —large-group workshop training and essay writ- ing–for a Christian liberal arts college sample. In comparison with previous research, this inter- vention study had a combination of methodolog- ical benefits. Three treatment conditions were compared to a control condition. Two post-tests were used—one six weeks after treatments ended. Two workshop training facilitators con- ducted large groups. These design features mini- mized threats to internal validity and enhanced interpretability.

Participants in treatment groups were asked to identify a situation needing forgiveness and to consider that situation throughout the course of the study. Students who participated in both the workshop and the benefit-finding essay condi- tions were expected to show greater forgiveness, in both positive and negative response to the offender, at both post-tests than would those who performed only the workshop or the writ- ing task and those in the control group. This hypothesis was partially supported in that change was seen in positive responses to the offender but not in negative responses.

On one measure of positive response to the offender (TRIM-C), Workshop/Essay (WE) had higher forgiveness scores at the first post-test than did Workshop Only (W), but not Essay Only (E) or Control (C). At the second post-test, WE had higher forgiveness scores than did C and E, but not W. The addition of the essay to the W alone enhanced the effect of W at this point. A similar pattern, though not quite significant, was found with the other measure of positive response (PRO). In general, it seems that combining the essay with the workshop increases the immediate effect of the workshop on positive response to the offender, but that over time, this immediate effect fades and leaves no difference in forgiveness between W and WE. However, WE was greater at follow-up than C or E. The essay alone was never superior to a workshop condition on any measure, nor did essay alone ever exceed the control.

Worthington et al. (2000) found the effective- ness of forgiveness interventions were directly related to the amount of time applied to the pro- cess of forgiving. Regression analysis suggested that one workshop-hour produced about .1 increase in forgiveness (see also Wade et al., 2005). The workshop training sessions in the pre- sent study lasted for five hours, while the essay was estimated to take an hour. The amount of time in forgiveness-promoting activities for the three treatment groups suggested a relatively close fit to the regression line for forgiveness pro- cedures. However, the effect of adding a benefit- finding essay in the present study to the well-supported REACH workshop seemed more nuanced than simply the accrual of another hour on task. The additional time spent on writing had an initial effect but not a sustained one.

We draw two main conclusions from the pre- sent research. First, the training of group leaders, in which the students went through the exercise they might later teach, produced forgiveness. Effect sizes were comparable to those from small group research (see Wade, Worthington, & Meyer, 2005). Thus, (a) psychoeducational meth- ods can presumably be delivered effectively in even larger groups, but the maximum size should be empirically determined. (b) Psychoeducational methods to promote forgiveness can occur even if participants are focused on learning group- leadership skills and not on their own emotional forgiveness as an outcome of the group. These conclusions suggest that the group facilitator training, itself, can serve as a spiritual develop- ment intervention within a college sample.

354 FORGIVENESS INTERVENTIONS AS SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

Second, the writing intervention did not help people forgive much. It did slightly enhance the group experience. We must conclude that this 1- hour essay intervention was weak. It was not com- parable to McCullough et al. (2006), which used repeated emotionally expressive writing. Further- more, even though people wrote about deciding to forgive, they wrote little about emotional for- giveness (see Exline, Worthington, Hill, & McCul- lough, 2003), which is what was measured with the TRIM and PRO. Despite the poor showing of this writing activity as a forgiveness intervention and spiritual development task in this study, this methodology deserves more intensive evaluation.

Limitations and Future Research The naturalistic nature of this research in the

midst of a campus-wide psychoeducational focus week prevented strict random assignment. Partic- ipants either volunteered for this study (usually for extra credit) or participated in a class assign- ment. As is always the case, the potential limita- tions of convenience sampling must be considered in this study. To assess the impact of this limitation, the groups were checked for ini- tial equivalence at pretest to ensure comparabili- ty. No variation was found, except on one measure (TRIM-A), which did not figure into the significant positive forgiveness responses to an offender, but may have obscured significant neg- ative forgiveness responses.

In selective debriefing of participants, two other limitations were noted. First, it was found that some may have selected a forgiveness event that was no longer salient. Although there is no way to discover how many may have used a past experience for which they already felt some reso- lution, it remains a possible weakness. (Note that while this might reduce the power of the inter- vention, it will not affect differences in group conditions.) Second, it was found that essay instructions varied for some essay-only groups. In those particular groups, the instructions empha- sized a more theoretical focus over the personal impact of the intervention. Again, differences were equally distributed across conditions.

Future research would do well to consider the content of forgiveness essays, much the same as has been done with linguistic analyses and content analysis for trauma writing (see King & Miner, 2000; Pennebaker, 1997). Vas (2002) and McCullough et al. (2006) incorporat- ed this in-depth processing to analyze media- tional aspects of the forgiveness process. In

future research, it would be beneficial to com- pare essay content themes with numeric scores on the forgiveness measures.

The impact of empathy in forgiveness writing also needs further exploration. Moreover, com- parison of benefit-finding, used in this study, and empathy conditions will be helpful as forgive- ness writing is further investigated and applied. Although the efficacy of benefit-finding in for- giveness writing was weakly demonstrated in this present study, and more substantially in a small number of previous ones (Romero, 2005, McCullough et al., 2006), empathy writing has received negative results (Gregory, 2005) as well as endorsements (Romero, 2005) regarding its efficacy in promoting forgiveness.

Conclusion The present study was conducted as a part of

week-long emphasis on forgiveness at a small college. The “crisis” of two forgiveness interven- tions was included as a part of this spiritual iden- tity development method. The efficacy of the REACH workshop and benefit-finding essays were supported as facilitators of forgiveness, but only as an enhancement for the more positive conciliatory responses toward the offender. The findings suggest that forgiveness can be promot- ed using the REACH model in large groups and even when personal emotional forgiveness is not the major target of the intervention. The results support the need for continued research on how best to use expressive writing as a forgiveness- promotion intervention. Furthermore, the results encourage consideration of forgiveness educa- tion as a promising spiritual development strate- gy for higher education.

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Authors

Stephen P. Stratton, Ph.D., is associate professor of Counseling and Pastoral Care at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is also a licensed psychologist and affiliat- ed with the Department of Behavioral Sciences and the Center for Counseling at Asbury College. His research interests include theological and psychological models of pastoral care, sexual identity among Christian college students, and interventions that promote forgiveness.

Janet B. Dean, Ph.D., is assistant professor of Psy- chology, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Asbury College. She also is affiliate faculty at Asbury Theologi- cal Seminary and a licensed psychologist. Her research interests include personality issues, such as right-wing authoritarianism and subclinical trait-related difficulties in attention and planning, as well as sexual identity among Christian college students and interventions that promote forgiveness.

Arthur J. Nonneman, Ph.D., is professor of Psycholo- gy and Chair, Department of Behavioral Sciences at Asbury College. His research interests include recovery from brain damage, neural and behavioral develop- ment, spiritual development among Christian college students, and interventions that promote forgiveness.

Rachel A. Bode, B.A., is currently a graduate student in the Industrial Organizational Psychology program at the University of New Haven. Her research interests include conflict resolution, interventions that promote forgiveness, and workplace violence.

Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Ph.D., is professor of Psy- chology at Virginia Commonwealth University’s American Psychological Association-accredited Counseling Psychol- ogy program. He also is affiliated with VCU’s Social and Developmental Psychology programs. He studies forgive- ness and interventions to promote forgiveness, marriage and hope-focused couple enrichment interventions, and religious (especially Christian) beliefs and values.

STRATTON, DEAN, NONNEMAN, BODE AND WORTHINGTON 357

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