A Study on Relationship between Forgiveness, Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being among Adolescents

Abstract

Adolescents is a stage of transition and psychological human development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood. Forgiveness and gratitude are positive psychological variables that are connected to well-being. Forgiveness can be classified as a human beings strength and virtue (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). While forgiveness can be defined as a genuine compassion for those who have wronged us, gratitude can be explained as a person's grateful emotion expressed towards people, situations or circumstances. Experiencing gratitude and forgiveness tend to foster positive feelings, which in turn contribute to one's overall sense of well-being. The central focus of this study is to explore the influence of forgiveness and gratitude among college students in Chennai city. A research was adopted for the study and purposive sampling method was used to draw the sample. Sample in the study comprised of college students (n=112) between the age of 16 to 20 with a combination of adolescent girls (n=71) and boys (n=41). In order to asses forgiveness among the students, The Heartland forgiveness scale (Thompson, Synder and Hoffman, 2005) was used and gratitude was assessed using, The Gratitude questionnaire- six item form (Mccullough, Emmons & Tsang, 2001). The well-being was assessed using the WHO well-being index (5-item). The results of the respondents are discussed.