Self-Efficacy as a Moderator between Empathy and Forgiveness Relationship

The study exammed association among empathy, forgiveness and self-efficacy. Empathy has been discussed as a factor of ability to forgive (Enright et al., 1998). Unless people believe they can produce desired effects by their actions , they have little intention to act. A number of studies have implicated the role of perceived efficacy in a person's efforts to change (Schwarzer, Lippke, & Mazurkiewtcz, 2011). As forgiveness involves a conscious decision to forego the role of a victim, it is possible that self-efficacy influences the strengths of relationship between empathy and forgiveness. Present study included self reported measures of empathy, forgiveness and general self-efficacy on a sample of 100 young adults in the age group 18-25. Bivariate correlations were calculated to study the relationship between variables. As expected, empathy & forgiveness and self-efficacy & forgiveness were found to be significantly and positively correlated. However self-efficacy did not moderate the relationship between empathy and forgiveness significantly The study also discusses possible reasons for the results.