Humility, Forgiveness, and Emerging Adult Female Romantic Relationships

• Published in: Journal of marital and family therapy Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 149 - 160
• Main Authors: Bell, Chance A., Fincham, Frank D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.01.2019
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adults; Clinical psychology; Clinical research; Definitions; Delphi Technique; Family Counseling; Female; Forgiveness; Humans; Impression management; Interpersonal Relations; Path analysis; Personal Satisfaction; Personality; Research methodology; Romantic relationships; Self Concept; Sexual Partners - psychology; Social psychology; Stimuli; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0194-472X; 1752-0606
• DOI: 10.1111/jmft.12292

Among a sample of emerging adult females (N = 152) we empirically examined the role of humility and forgiveness in romantic relationships. We specifically tested a model linking perceived humility to relationship satisfaction with self‐forgiveness and partner‐forgiveness. Participants in a romantic relationship completed measures of self‐reported humility, self‐forgiveness, partner‐forgiveness, and relationship satisfaction. Serial mediation analyses were conducted using path analysis to test the following sequence, humility self‐forgiveness partner‐forgiveness relationship satisfaction. Findings indicate that humility was related to relationship satisfaction via a serially mediated path of self‐forgiveness and partner‐forgiveness, which was not reducible to impression management. We consider implications for research and clinical practice.