Discussion of the Results and Conclusion
The purpose of this article was to show the relationship of forgiveness and terminal values with meaning in life in Polish students’ life who declare themselves believers and practitioners. The research hypotheses were verified and several conclusions resulting from the analysis of the issue were pointed out.
The first hypothesis, which postulates that the most valued terminal values have a statistically significant relationship with meaning in life in students’ lives, has been confirmed only partially. Young people indicated the three most-valued values out of 18 terminal values. These are: a comfortable life, family security, and equality. Only one of them—a comfortable life—positively correlates with meaning in life (r = 0.18; p < 0.05). The same terminal value—a comfortable life—is also found in the regression model and has a significant positive relationship with meaning in life, where it explains 11% of the variance of the meaning of life. It suggests that the more comfortable and prosperous life of young people is, the greater the sense of their own life. The same terminal value—a comfortable life—also has an important relationship in the regression model with meaning in life in the lives of youth about the humanistic-religious type of forgiveness and the demented type of forgiveness.
The second hypothesis, which assumed that forgiveness to self, forgiveness to others and a sense of forgiveness by God have a significant relationship with meaning in life in the life of students, has been confirmed entirety. All three components of forgiveness: forgiveness to self (r = 0.34; p < 0.01), forgiveness to others (r = 0.24; p < 0.01) and a sense of forgiveness by God (r = 0.17; p < 0.05) correlate with meaning in life. It suggests that the greater the ability to forgive oneself and others, and the greater the sense of God’s forgiveness, the greater the sense of meaning in life. In addition, all three components of forgiveness, as predictors, are in the regression model and have a statistically significant relationship with the sense of youth, where they explain 16% of the variance of meaning in life. The relationship of forgiveness to self and to others, as well as a sense of forgiveness by God with meaning in life is positive. It is the more powerful, the greater the ability to forgive oneself and the others and the greater sense of God’s forgiveness, the greater the striving for meaning in life
The third hypothesis, which suggests that there is a significant relationship of the terminal values—as predictors of meaning in life—with meaning in life in the lives of young people with different types of forgiveness, has been confirmed only partially. In the group of people with a humanistic type of forgiveness and a non-religious type of forgiveness, no terminal value has a statistically significant relationship with the sense of youth’s life. In the youth group with the humanistic-religious type of forgiveness, such terminal values as a world of beauty, inner harmony, freedom, and a comfortable life have a statistically significant relationship with meaning in life and explain 18% of the variance. The first three of them have a negative relationship with sense the sense of life, and the last one—a comfortable life—positive. This means that in the lives of young people with a humanistic-religious type of forgiveness, the more comfortable and prosperous life, the greater sense of life, and the greater interest in the beauty of the world, more freedom from inner conflict, more independence, the less sense of life. In addition, in the lives of adolescents with a demented type of forgiveness, the value of a comfortable life—has a positive relationship with meaning in life, and the value an exciting life has a negative relationship with meaning in life, together they explain 32% of the variance. It suggests that in the lives of adolescents with a demented type of forgiveness, the more life excitement and activity, the less sense of life, and the more comfortable and prosperous life, the greater sense of life.
The fourth hypothesis, which postulates that forgiveness plays an important mediating role between the three most valued terminal values and meaning in life in the lives of students, has been confirmed only partially. The obtained indicators show that the model does not fully reflect the theory of Rokeach (
1973) and Popielski (
2000), which suggests that the most valued terminal values should have a statistically significant relationship with such elements of human life as forgiveness, meaning in life. In this case, the three most valued terminal values: a comfortable life, family security, and equality do not support meaning in life, while meaning in life is aided by forgiveness. That suggests that forgiveness helps by increasing meaning in life when offense is high, and forgiveness may serve an existential function of providing meaning in life.
It is expected that young people who consider themselves to be believers and practitioners were expected to value values such as salvation (saved, eternal live), wisdom (a mature understanding life), and true friendship (close companionship), and a higher level of forgiveness and meaning in life. These components are associated with the Christian religion, which calls for forgiveness of faults and negligence even for enemies, encourages people to love others and God, and also calls to care for their own salvation. Young people now appreciate the most comfortable life, family security and equality, and display an average level of forgiveness and sense of life. This suggests, as other researchers have noted (Jaworski
2016), that the youth in this case probably treat their own religiosity too instrumentally and attach greater importance to acquiring knowledge and graduating from studies than to seek comprehensive development.
What is more, it was expected according to the research of other scientists (Popielski
2000; Krok
2015b) that a greater number of terminal values that have an important regulatory and motivational function in the personal and social life of young people has a significant and strong relationship with the meaning in life and forgiveness in the lives of these students. This assumption has not been confirmed in this case. This may suggest that young people are more interested in gaining knowledge than in discovering the importance of values, may indicate lack of motivation to realize values, and also signal the crisis of values caused by socio-economic changes in the country (Marianski
2001).
Out of the three most-valued terminal values (a comfortable life, family security, equality) only one—a comfortable life—correlates significantly and positively with three components of forgiveness and meaning in life, and this value was included in the regression model explaining its relationship with sense of youth life. This would mean that the stability of life and decent life are conducive to young people studying to realize themselves as a person, their own talents and abilities, and mobilizing them to forgive and realize the meaning in life.
Correlation analysis between the components of forgiveness is as follows: forgiveness to self correlates with forgiveness to others. Their relationship is positive. On the other hand, both components of forgiveness do not really correlate with a sense of God’s forgiveness, which would suggest that forgiving the wrongdoer also brings many benefits to the injured person. In order to forgive oneself and others, it is not necessary to be convinced of God’s forgiveness of wrongs. The lack of a positive relationship between forgiveness to self and forgiveness to others with a sense of God’s forgiveness may suggest that young people do not perceive God as merciful. The result of this research, in this case, was confirmed by previous studies carried out on the Polish population by Charzyńska and Heszen (
2013), as well as among other groups of people examined by Mauger et al. (
1992).
In addition, all three components of forgiveness significantly correlate with meaning in life. The relationship between forgiveness to self and forgiveness to others, as well as a sense of God’s forgiveness and meaning in life is positive. What would mean, in this case, that the student realizes himself, his own talents and habits, the greater the ability to forgive his own neglect and forgive others their mistakes, and at the same time a greater sense of God’s forgiveness for his faults. All three components of forgiveness, as predictors of meaning in life, are also found in the regression model and explain 16% of the variance of meaning in life. This result was not confirmed by Karseboom’s previous studies (
2016), which indicated that forgiveness to others does not correlate significantly with meaning in life. It suggests, in both cases, that the understanding of forgiveness proposed by researchers, which includes the human and religious factors, favours young people to realize themselves as a person, and also enables the realization of the meaning of life (van Tongeren et al.
2014). According to Popielski (
2000), this may suggest that forgiveness also plays an important role of self-regulation in the lives of young people.
Analysis of the results shows that young people have obtained an average result of forgiveness to self, forgiveness to others and a sense of forgiveness by God in the scale of forgiveness. Similar results were obtained by Karseboom (
2016) among Canadian college students. This suggests that young people can understand the harm suffered and people from whom they have suffered, and is also able to emotionally overwork the harm experienced. In addition, they believe that the mistakes they made were forgiven by God.
The proposed multidimensional model of forgiveness by Toussaint et al. (
2001), which covers the cognitive, emotional, behavioural and religious sphere of man indicates that the lack of forgiveness leads to revenge against the wrongdoer, the lack of forgiveness favours self-blaming, a sense of shame, and lack of sense of God’s forgiveness leads to a lack of trust in God’s mercy. On the other hand, the ability to forgive oneself and others leads to better relationships with oneself and others, and also with God, and the sense of God’s forgiveness helps the person understand that immoral acts have been forgiven by God (Grün
1997). The multidimensional approach to forgiveness can be widely used in psychotherapy, and pastoral work. Such an understanding of forgiveness can serve believers as well as non-believers. In the lives of believers and non-believers, the cognitive element helps the injured person to understand the wrong, himself and the wrongdoer, the emotional element serves the person to overcome emotions resulting from the harm suffered and the person who caused harm, and the behavioural element helps to change behaviour; moreover, the religious element of forgiveness favours a religious person to understand God’s forgiveness of his own transgressions and wrongs done to others, and even negligence towards God, which is not experienced by a non-believer. God’s forgiveness given to the person’s own offenses and to others and Christ’s words “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23, 35) reactivates the believing person to forgive to himself and others, which is often useful in the process of development of own religiosity and personality.
According to the predictions of some researchers (Minow
1998; Zarzycka
2016), forgiveness should be seen as a psychological-spiritual process, which has a complex structure and is conditioned by many factors of personal and social nature, as well as religious nature; hence, we can talk about different types of forgiveness, which confirmed previous (Zarzycka
2016) as well as current research. It should be added that forgiveness, and its special component regarding the sense of forgiveness by God, is an important component of man’s religiousness. It is not always taken explicitly as a component of religiosity by researchers of the psychology of religion. The sense of God’s forgiveness is related to everyday decisions based on religion, of planning of the future and directing ones freedom towards God. And also the parameter of religious morality is a domain in which religious attitudes of morality, such as criteria of good or evil, religious arguments for fairness or unfairness of behaviours, and motives for taking action, are most important (Rydz et al.
2017).
This analysis has certain the limitations. Students participating in this study were recruited from one city, and from one university, and belong to one Roman Catholic Church. Only one measure of terminal values, of forgiveness, and of meaning in life was used, which limits the findings. There is a lack of a broader analysis of these received results—which stems from a shortage of previous research in this field among students who declare themselves believers and practitioners.
Despite that limitations described, that study results have several important implications. It is one of the first empirical studies that examined the relationship between terminal values, forgiveness taking into account the religious dimension, meaning in life in the lives of practicing and believing students in Poland. Research in the area of positive psychology has pointed the beneficial impact of forgiveness: forgiveness to self, forgiveness to others, and a sense of God’s forgiveness, as well as terminal values on meaning in life in the lives of practicing believer youth.
The analysis of the relationship between terminal values and forgiveness with meaning in life does not fully cover the issue raised. It may be a contribution to further more detailed research. In order to acquire knowledge in this area, research among other social groups as well as among other populations should be carried out.