ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we provide a narrative review of the literature on forgiveness and religion/spirituality. We focus on research that has been published since the most recent meta-analysis that was conducted in 2013. Several limitations and concerns about the literature were noted in previous reviews, including social desirability account, measurement specificity (measures tend to correlate more strongly when they measure data with a similar level of specificity), proximity in causal chain (i.e., a variety of other factors are located more proximally to forgiveness of a specific offense than are trait-like spiritual constructs), and recall bias (i.e., the method used to study forgiveness of specific offenses may tend to cause people to think of unresolved offenses, which may attenuate the relationship with forgiveness). In this current review, we outline how well the field has answered lingering questions in the past several years. Studies were identified and reviewed based on how both forgiveness and R/S variables were being measured. Studies with sophisticated designs (i.e., longitudinal, experimental, interventional) were highlighted to emphasize the contributions made from these works. Weaknesses within the field, such as the overreliance on cross-sectional study designs and the lack of programmatic work, are noted. The current state of the literature and possible new theories and directions for the field are also discussed.
