Love Forgiveness and Subjective Well-Being in Chinese College Students: the Mediating Role of Interpersonal Relationships
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fpsyg-12-634910 May 31, 2021 Time: 18:22 # 1 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 04 June 2021 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.634910 Love Forgiveness and Subjective Well-Being in Chinese College Students: The Mediating Role of Interpersonal Relationships Tianyi Cheng1, Qiyi Lin2* and Hong Fu1 1 School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China, 2 School of Educational Science, Huaiyin Normal University, Huai’an, China Love forgiveness is categorized as forgiveness in a specific relationship, which is the tendency of individuals to forgive the objects of their interpersonal relationships. We investigated 831 undergraduate students in China with a love forgiveness questionnaire, a subjective well-being questionnaire and an interpersonal relationship comprehensive diagnostic, including demographic variables. Students of different genders and grades showed significant differences across the three questionnaires. There were significant correlations between love forgiveness, interpersonal relationships, and subjective well-being of Chinese college students. Interpersonal relationships played Edited by: an intermediary role between love forgiveness and subjective well-being of Chinese Jingjing Zhao, Shaanxi Normal University, China college students. Specifically, whereas Chinese college students’ love forgiveness could Reviewed by: directly promote the improvement of subjective well-being, love forgiveness could Haijiang Li, also indirectly improve subjective well-being through interpersonal relationships. The Shanghai Normal University, China Lisa Di Blas, mediating effect of interpersonal relationships between love forgiveness and subjective University of Trieste, Italy well-being accounted for 40.52% of the total effect. This provides a new way of *Correspondence: thinking for psychological counselors to approach the intimate relationship problems Qiyi Lin of college students. [email protected] Keywords: Chinese college students, love forgiveness, interpersonal relationships, subjective well-being, the Specialty section: mediation effect This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal INTRODUCTION Frontiers in Psychology Received: 29 November 2020 Forgiveness has attracted attention from scholars in recent years as a new research subject of Accepted: 10 May 2021 positive psychology. Forgiveness can be defined as a reduction in avoidance and revenge motivation Published: 04 June 2021 accompanied by a change in prosocial motivation from an individual toward an offender following Citation: an interpersonal conflict (McCullough et al., 2006). Forgiveness is divided into trait forgiveness, Cheng T, Lin Q and Fu H (2021) forgiveness in a specific relationship, and forgiveness in a situation (Zhang and Fu, 2014). Love Forgiveness and Subjective Forgiveness in love and in marriage is categorized as forgiveness in a specific relationship, which is Well-Being in Chinese College Students: The Mediating Role the tendency of individuals to forgive the objects of their specific interpersonal relationships (Paleari of Interpersonal Relationships. et al., 2009; Zhang and Fu, 2014). Presently, research on the forgiveness of specific relationships Front. Psychol. 12:634910. in Western countries mainly focuses on marital relationships and rarely involves non-marital doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.634910 romantic relationships. In China, there are only a few studies on forgiveness in marital relationships Frontiers in Psychology| www.frontiersin.org 1 June 2021| Volume 12| Article 634910 fpsyg-12-634910 May 31, 2021 Time: 18:22 # 2 Cheng et al. College Students’ Love Forgiveness and non-marital romantic relationships. We present relationship (Rye and Pargament, 2002). Love forgiveness has love forgiveness as a tool to assess forgiveness in non- the potential to defuse relationship conflicts and improve the marital relationships that may help to close the gap in quality of life of college students, making it an exigent topic research in this area. of investigation. Subjective well-being is one of the most important factors In studies by Liu(2017) and Yu(2019), Chinese male students associated with forgiveness. In China, the research of Liu and scored higher in love forgiveness than female students. Among Wu(2011) and Chan(2013) has shown that forgiveness has Chinese newlyweds, husbands show significantly higher levels a direct impact on subjective well-being, which is consistent of forgiveness than wives (Xie et al., 2012). This is in line with the research results in western countries (Bono et al., 2008; with existing research on marriage in western countries: namely, Tse and Yip, 2009). In addition, both studies of Western and that husbands were more likely to choose to forgive their Eastern cultural contexts showed that subjective well-being has wives (Fincham et al., 2002). However, Sidelinger and Booth- a predictive effect on forgiveness as well (Xu, 2012; Yárnoz- Butterfield(2007) claim an equal possibility for men and women Yaben et al., 2016). Thus, forgiveness in intimate relationships, to forgive each other. Nevertheless, in China, the research of and by extension love forgiveness, may also be related to Zhang and Fu(2013) showed that in romantic relationships, subjective well-being. female students were more likely to forgive than male students. Interpersonal relationships are often discussed as an One possible reason for the inconsistencies was that in their additional factor associated with forgiveness. Interpersonal study, male students were less satisfied with their romantic relationship refers here to a personal relationship in the general relationships than female (Zhang and Fu, 2013). The research of life of an individual. Studies in China have shown that forgiveness Liu(2017) found that love satisfaction was positively correlated helps individuals improve and maintain their relationships, with with love forgiveness in China. Thus, the higher the relationship higher levels of forgiveness associated with better relationships satisfaction, the higher the capacity for love forgiveness. Besides, among college students (Li et al., 2010; Luo et al., 2012). This the research of Wang and Zhao(2017) and Yu(2019) showed that research result is also supported by studies in the context of Chinese male college students are more satisfied with romantic Western culture (Paleari et al., 2005). Karremans et al.(2003) relationships than female students. From this, we speculated claims that forgiveness could improve a person’s subjective that male college students have more ability of love forgiveness well-being by maintaining and repairing intimate relationships; because they have higher satisfaction with love. In addition, in the that is, interpersonal relationships play an intermediary role research of Zhang and Fu(2013), among the four dimensions of between forgiveness and subjective well-being. The research in love forgiveness, Chinese college students score the highest in the China of Jiang and Tan(2016) supports this view. dimension of negative thinking, while they score the lowest in the Subjective well-being is the latent variable. However, the dimension of revenge, though the study of Yu(2019) showed an research of Jiang and Tan(2016) used Causal Steps Approach, inconsistent result. In the love forgiveness questionnaire, Chinese namely regression, to test subjective well-being as explicit college students scored the highest in the avoidance dimension, variables, which may lead to errors. The relationship between while the lowest in the forgiveness dimension (Yu, 2019). forgiveness, interpersonal relationship and subjective well-being There are also inconsistencies within prior conclusions among Chinese college students still needs to be tested. In about the demographic variables of subjective well-being and addition, whether the relationship between love forgiveness and interpersonal relationships among college students. Chen(2011) these two factors (interpersonal relationships and subjective well- found that the factors affecting the subjective well-being of being) has similar correlations has not been studied no matter college students include gender, grade, and place of origin. in eastern countries or western countries. From the perspective However, other studies showed that there is no significant gender of the competitive model, the role of interpersonal relationship difference in subjective well-being among college students (Cui between love forgiveness and subjective well-being may be a et al., 2015). Studies have shown that there are differences in moderating effect or a mediating effect. According to the point interpersonal relationships among college students in terms of of view of Karremans et al.(2003) and Jiang and Tan(2016), grade and place of origin (Feng, 2004; Liu and Wang, 2006; and consider it from a theoretical perspective, we inferred that Gan et al., 2007). Nevertheless, in the research of Gan and Li interpersonal relationships may mediate between love forgiveness (2010), interpersonal relationships do not show differences in and subjective well-being. different places of origin. Interpersonal relationships had no According to the White Paper on Chinese College Students’ statistically significant dependence on grade and place of origin Love in 2016 released by China Love Growth Platform, China (Gan and Li, 2010). Furthermore, Feng(2004) claims that there University Youth Leaders Summit, and Peking University is no gender difference in interpersonal relationships among Yanyuan Bossi Psychological Counseling Center,