Gratitude , Forgiveness and Subjective-well-being among college going students

Background: Gratitude is held in high esteem by virtually everyone, at all times, in all places. From ancient religious scriptures through modern social science research, gratitude is advanced as a desirable human characteristic with the capacity for making life better for oneself and for others. Though gratitude is associated with pleasantness and highly desirable life outcomes, it is certainly not an easy or automatic response to life situations. Forgiveness is a process (or the result of a process) that involves a change in emotion and attitude regarding an offender. Most scholars view this an intentional and voluntary process, driven by a deliberate decision to forgive. This process results in decreased motivation to retaliate or maintain estrangement from an offender despite their actions, and requires letting go of negative emotions toward the offender. Subjective well-being can be defined as quality of an individual’s life with regard to both the presence and relative frequency of positive and negative emotions over time and one’s overall satisfaction with life. The emergence of positive psychology in the 1990s has brought a paradigm shift in understanding human behavior from human weaknesses and ailments to human strengths and resources. This paradigm has implications not only in physical but also in behavioral and emotional health in terms of speedy recovery, prevention and promotion of health. Purpose: The aim of the present study was to examine gratitude, forgiveness and subjective well-being among college going students. Methods: The main objectives of the current study were to (i) Examine gratitude among college going students (ii) Examine forgiveness among college going students (iii) Examine subjective well-being among college going students (iv) Examine the gender differences in the mentioned variables and (v) Examine relationships among the mentioned variables. A sample of 219 college going students were taken for the current study after having taken written informed consent from them using convenience sampling from one of the private universities at Jaipur City. The mean age of the sample was 24 years with SD of 2.31. The number of boys was 131 and the number of girls was 88. The measures used were Gratitude Questionnaire-6 Item version (GQ-6, Emmons & McCullough, 2003), Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivation Scale-18 Item Form (TRIM-18, McCullough, Root & Cohen, 2006) and Subjective Well-being scale (Diener, 1985), The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics like mean, SD, inferential statistics like independent “t” test was used to examine gender differences and correlational analysis was used to examine the relationships among the variables. Results: The findings of the current study indicated significant differences in boys and girls on the measures of gratitude and forgiveness. Girls scored higher on these two measures from which it can be inferred that they are more forgiving and having more gratitude than that of boys. However, International Journal Of Public Mental Health And Neurosciences ISSN: 2394-4668 (Published jointly by Azyme Biosciences (P) Ltd., Sarvasumana Association and Subharati Niriksha Foundation) © IJPMN, Volume 2, Issue 2, August -2015 (This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License citing the original author and source) 2 significant gender difference was not found on the measure of subjective well-being. In terms of the association among these variables, no significant association/correlation was found among gratitude, forgiveness and subjective well-being in a group as a whole. Conclusions: The study highlights the importance of exploring possible factors for gender differences that have emerged in the current study. Incorporating positive psychology constructs like gratitude, forgiveness and subjective well-being have implications for health enhancements.