Differential Effects of Decisional and Emotional Forgiveness on Psychological, Spiritual, Social, Volitional, and Physical Well-Being: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Within a stress-and-coping theory of forgiveness, two dimensions of forgiveness have been hypothesized—decisional forgiveness (DF) and emotional forgiveness (EF). Each is theorized to have different impacts on different dimensions of well-being—psychological, spiritual (or religious), social, volitional, and physical. A scoping review was performed to explore the associations of each dimension of forgiveness with each dimension of well-being. A total of k = 30 articles met the criteria for inclusion, and estimates of the association between DF and/or EF with one or more indicators of well-being were extracted. Both dimensions of forgiveness were positively linked to all dimensions of well-being, except that there were too few studies on physical well-being (e.g., self-rated physical health) to analyze. DF was generally more strongly related to indicators of spiritual well-being (e.g., faith maturity), psychological well-being (e.g., happiness), and volitional well-being (e.g., conciliatory behavior) than EF, whereas the inverse was observed for social well-being (e.g., marital satisfaction). However, because most studies were cross-sectional, firm conclusions about the associations of both DF and EF with well-being were limited by a paucity of robust studies. Suggestions to guide future research are provided, including the need for more rigorous longitudinal research and better evidence-based theorizing.