When we do wrong: Can psychological flexibility transform transgression-specific guilt and shame into genuine self-forgiveness?

Abstract

Self-forgiveness has the potential to ameliorate distressing effects of guilt and shame elicited by transgressing personally held standards. Yet, the practice of self-forgiveness is equally associated with beneficial, harmful and self-limiting outcomes. Recent conceptualisations of selfforgiveness bear striking similarities to psychological flexibility, the central mechanism of change in the widely-used mainstream therapeutic approach that is Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). Given the paucity of literature examining psychological flexibility and selfforgiveness concurrently, this study draws on ACT theory and literature, to test hypotheses on whether psychological flexibility may facilitate authentic self-forgiveness. A correlational design was employed. A cross-sectional sample of N=132 individuals (55.3% female), aged between 18 and 77 years (M = 34.48, SD = 13.03) was recruited from college undergraduates and the wider population. After briefly describing a specific wrongdoing, participants answered demographic and offence-specific questions in addition to completing self-report measures relating to guilt, shame, psychological flexibility and self-forgiveness. Main study variables demonstrated associations as expected. Mediation analyses conducted with two predictors, guilt and shame, and self-forgiveness as the outcome revealed psychological flexibility significantly mediated the relation between shame and shame-infused guilt on self-forgiveness. Outcomes with respect to shame-free guilt, however were non-significant. Post-hoc analyses highlight the potential importance of the values/committed action sub-process of psychological flexibility when targeting the effects of shame and guilt through self-forgiveness. Implications, limitations and future directions are discussed.