Examining Cultural Orientation as a Moderator: Attachment Style, Forgiveness, and Depression

Author

Linghsi Liu, CUNY City CollegeFollow

Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Ann Marie Yali

Keywords

Attachment Security, Depressive Symptoms, Forgiveness, Cultural Orientation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of cultural orientation on the relation between attachment style and forgiveness and between forgiveness and depression. It was hypothesized that a secure attachment style would be associated with greater dispositional forgiveness of both self and others. Specifically, for those high in collectivism, insecure attachment will be associated with greater other-forgiveness and for those high in individualism, insecure attachment will be associated with greater self-forgiveness. It was also predicted that self and other forgiveness would be associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Specifically, for those high in collectivism, other forgiveness will be associated with fewer depressive symptoms and for those high in individualism, self-forgiveness will be associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Participants were recruited from three sources: undergraduate students from The City College of New York (CCNY) through an online platform called SONA (N = 13), as well as through social media sites (i.e., Facebook and Reddit, N= 1105), and a snowballing technique (N= 49). The final sample size after data cleaning was N=74. The results of the study revealed that attachment security was associated with greater forgiveness of both self and other, but only self-forgiveness was significantly associated with less depressive symptoms. There were no interaction effects for Individualism, but Collectivism was found to moderate the relation between attachment security and other forgiveness, such that for those low in collectivism, attachment insecurity was associated with less forgiveness of others, secure attachment with more. Neither Individualism nor Collectivism moderated the relation between forgiveness and depressive symptoms. Limitations of the study as well as implications of the findings are discussed.

Recommended Citation

Liu, Linghsi, "Examining Cultural Orientation as a Moderator: Attachment Style, Forgiveness, and Depression" (2021). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/983