Examining the relationship between gratitude and rumination: The mediating role of forgiveness
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Examining the relationship between gratitude and rumination: The mediating role of forgiveness Tuğba Seda Çolak 1
&
Abdi Güngör 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Rumination can cause to negative mood by blocking a person occupying entertaining actions. Therefore, rumination can be a potential threat to the quality of life and mental health. However, forgiveness and gratitude are defined as positive personality characteristics and can serve to combat rumination. Thus, this study with 417 undergraduate students aimed to examine the effects of gratitude and forgiveness on rumination. This study also investigated the mediating role of forgiveness on the association between gratitude and rumination. In addition, the purpose of this study included exploring the mediating roles of forgiveness of self and situation on the relationship between forgiveness of others and rumination. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the effects of gratitude and forgiveness on rumination. In addition, bootstrapping methods were employed to test the mediational effects. Results showed that forgiveness fully mediated the relationship between gratitude and rumination. Specifically, participants with higher levels of gratitude reported higher levels of forgiveness, which in turn lower levels of rumination. In addition, it was found that forgiveness of others and forgiveness of self fully mediated the association between forgiveness of others and rumination. The results along with implications were discussed. Keywords Gratitude . Forgiveness . Dimensions of forgiveness . Rumination . Mediating
Introduction Rumination is described as a process that one’s recurrently thinking about own emotions and problems (NolenHoeksema et al. 2008). According to Response Styles Theory, suggested by Nolen-Hoeksema (1991), ruminative responses provoke depressive mood because they cause negative cognitions and block instrumental behaviors and coping strategies. Rumination causes a person to distance from helpful activities such as occupying with entertaining actions and rather to focus on pessimist and fatalist emotions instead of problem-solving (Nolen-Hoeksema 2000). Two dimensions of rumination were defined in the literature: reflection and brooding. Reflection is about one’s frequent engaging contemplation and pondering whereas brooding refers to one’s anxious and gloomy thoughts (Treynor et al. 2003).
* Tuğba Seda Çolak [email protected] 1
Guidance and Psychological Counseling Program, Düzce University, 81620 Yörük/Düzce Merkez/Düzce, Düzce, Turkey
The literature documented the positive relationships between rumination and various undesirable variables such as alcohol abuse (especially for women; Nolen-Hoeksema and Harrell 2002), psychotic symptoms (Hartley et al. 2014), negative emotional variables such as guilt and shame (Oral and Arslan 2017), and trait and introverted anger (Erdur-Baker et al. 2009). The literature also well documented the effects of rumination on depression
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