Tagged: “Forgiving”
Enright Forgiveness Motivation Inventory Available Soon!
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A new forgiveness measure has been validated and soon will be on this website, free of charge for those who ask for a copy of it. The scale is called the Enright Forgiveness Motivation Inventory (EFMI). It assesses people’s reasons for forgiving. As examples, is the person primarily forgiving to heal from emotional challenges? Is the person forgiving to help the one who was unfair to improve behavior? The reference to the journal article on the validation of this scale is this:
Li, Y., Kim, J., Song, J., & Enright, R.D. (in press). Validating the Enright Forgiveness Motivation Inventory (EFMI). Current Psychology
Insights on Forgiveness & Childhood Trauma
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In a comprehensive literature review, a group of researchers found that forgiving others for adverse childhood experiences can be difficult. Yet, they conclude in their Abstract, “…..forgiveness of specific perpetrators was associated with better outcomes across studies, though survivors with severe abuse histories typically reported greater difficulty with forgiving. Studies revealed harmful effects when survivors felt pressured to forgive, or not to forgive.”
The reference to this work is:
Kanter, R. L., & Wortham, J. S. (2026). Forgiveness and Adverse Childhood Experiences: A Scoping Review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380251410088
Are You Ready to Become Forgivingly Fit?
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Robert Enright wants you to become “forgivingly fit.” In other words, when you have been treated very unfairly by others, your forgiveness likely will require both time and effort. In our “hurry up” world, there is a tendency to seek the quickest and least painful path. Yet, if you want to forgive deeply, you likely will need more than this. His essay on the Psychology Today website discusses this issue of “forgiving fitness” here: Are You Ready to Become Forgivingly Fit?, November 15, 2025.
Special Issue of a Journal on Forgiveness Education
Dr. Suzanne Freedman
The open-access journal Education Sciences has published 11 articles from a wide range of world contexts, all centered on forgiveness education. The introductory article, written by Dr. Suzanne Freedman, is here: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/15/12/1628.
An Unprecedented “Big Data” Study in Australia Shows the Association between Forgiveness and Well-Being in Children and Adolescents
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A recent study with 79,670 children and adolescents (aged 7 to 18) in Australia examined whether those who report favorably on forgiveness also have sound psychological health. They concluded their Abstract this way: “These big data findings provide firm evidence that, like adult samples, forgiveness and self-forgiveness are factors in promoting psychological wellbeing, at least among Westernized youth and adolescents.” Of course, because this was not a cause-and-effect study, it is not clear that forgiveness and self-forgiveness promote psychological well-being. It could be the reverse: Those who are feeling well find it easier to forgive. Yet, this study is important because it is the first to use such an impressively large sample to examine forgiveness. The reference to this work is this:
Flaherty, E.M., Strelan, P. & Kohler, M. Forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and child and adolescent mental health: Big data findings from an Australian youth cohort. Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-025-02285-7
