Abstract
Both self-forgiveness and other-forgiveness are associated with greater relationship satisfaction in romantic relationships. The present research examines whether self-forgiveness for a transgression against the partner leads to greater forgiveness of a subsequent partner transgression, and whether this, in turn, predicts greater relationship satisfaction. Study 1 showed that self-forgiveness positively affected other-forgiveness in a scenario-based design employing university students. Study 2 investigated real transgressions between cohabiting partners and showed that self-forgiveness was positively related to relationship satisfaction both directly and indirectly, through other-forgiveness. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research.
Notes
1. Even though the ratio of subjects to estimated parameters was 3.5 in the model tested, that is lower than the 5 one recommended by some others (e.g. Bentler & Chou, Citation1987), some subsequent works (McCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, Citation1996) on the question of sample size in SEM has shown that it is impossible to derive a minimum ratio that is appropriate in all situations, rather the minimum sample size is highly dependent on several characteristics, including the average communality of measured variables. When communalities are high (>.6), as they are in the present study, sample sizes of about 100 subjects are often adequate.