This study explores the use of a new retrospective method of forgiveness to study forgiveness trends in religious individuals. This article tries to establish an initial “proof of concept” for this new method. Also, the growth trends in emotional forgiveness and how decisional forgiveness as well as religious commitment affect these patterns are explored. Participants (N=238) were recruited at a university setting answered questions about a specific offense. They then recalled their level of forgiveness of the same offense at various time points, including immediately after the offense and the present, as well as their level of decisional forgiveness and religious commitment. Decisional forgiveness predicted both initial levels of forgiveness and changes in forgiveness over time. Religious commitment did not predict either initial levels of forgiveness or change in forgiveness. The implications of these findings, as well as the initial “proof of concept,” are discussed. The possible benefits of using this new retrospective method in place of traditional longitudinal methods are also discussed. Limitations with the validity of the retrospective method and the need for further studies to validate the method are noted.

中文翻译：

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听从麦卡洛的号召：宗教是否与宽恕的回顾性趋势有关？

本研究探讨了使用一种新的回顾性宽恕方法来研究宗教个人的宽恕趋势。本文试图为这种新方法建立一个初步的“概念证明”。此外，还探讨了情感宽恕的增长趋势以及决定性宽恕和宗教承诺如何影响这些模式。参与者 (N=238) 是在一所大学环境中招募的，回答了有关特定罪行的问题。然后，他们回忆了他们在不同时间点对同一罪行的宽恕程度，包括犯罪之后和现在，以及他们的决定宽恕和宗教承诺的程度。决定性宽恕预测了宽恕的初始水平和宽恕随时间的变化。宗教承诺并不能预测宽恕的初始水平或宽恕的变化。讨论了这些发现的含义以及最初的“概念证明”。还讨论了使用这种新的回顾性方法代替传统的纵向方法可能带来的好处。指出了回顾性方法有效性的局限性以及需要进一步研究以验证该方法。