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Article

God’s Perceived Engagement/Disengagement in Response to Prayer and Interpersonal Forgiveness: The Mediating Role of Positive Orientation

by
Małgorzata Szcześniak
* and
Klaudia Strochalska
Institute of Psychology, University of Szczecin, 69 Krakowska Street, 70-451 Szczecin, Poland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Religions 2021, 12(10), 846; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100846
Submission received: 6 September 2021 / Revised: 24 September 2021 / Accepted: 27 September 2021 / Published: 9 October 2021
(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences)
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
It is well documented that religion and its different aspects positively affect people’s ability to forgive. However, studies have rarely moved beyond direct associations to explore potential mediators of this relationship. In this context, our main aim was to examine the direct relationship between God’s engagement/disengagement in response to prayer and forgiveness with the possible influence of a positive orientation. Data were gathered from 464 participants aged 18 to 75 (M = 31.10; SD = 11.32). This study included 255 women (55%) and 209 men. We used the Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer, the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory, and the Positivity Scale. In line with our hypotheses, interpersonal forgiveness correlated positively with God’s perceived engagement (H1); it was negatively associated with God’s disengagement (H2); and it was positively linked to positive orientation (H3). Moreover, positive orientation mediated the relationship between religiosity and interpersonal forgiveness. This may suggest that positivity is not indifferent in the process of forgiving, especially when people are aware of God’s involvement in their lives.

1. Introduction

The study of forgiveness has a long history (Worthington et al. 2005). It is an important subject in philosophical literature (Enright 1991; McCullough and Worthington 1999; Davis et al. 2013; Riek et al. 2014; Donovan and Priester 2020) and the theological texts of the major monotheistic world religions (Rye et al. 2000; Krause and Christopher 2003; Tsang et al. 2005; Donovan and Priester 2020). However, psychologists only began substantial research on forgiveness at the beginning of the 21st century (McCullough and Worthington 1999; McCullough et al. 2005; Tsang et al. 2005; Escher 2013). Several studies show that forgiving a wrongdoer can be challenging (Tsang et al. 2005; Szcześniak et al. 2012) and does not come automatically (Tsang and Martin 2021). After being offended by another person, those disappointed and harmed usually deal with an important decision concerning how to address the trespasser (Schumann and Walton 2021).
Although there is no commonly recognized definition of forgiveness (Fernández-Capo et al. 2017), in psychology, it is considered to be a complex construct (Enright and Fitzgibbons 2000; Krause and Ingersoll-Dayton 2001), an interpersonal and social phenomenon (McCullough and Worthington 1999; Tsang and Martin 2021), a method of religious coping (Rye et al. 2000), a specific application of mercy (Enright 1991), an inner process of reducing negative cognitions, orienting motivations, resolving emotions, and responses toward the transgressor (Enright and Fitzgibbons 2000; Lawler et al. 2005; Szcześniak et al. 2012), a cancellation of a debt (Exline and Baumeister 2000), a willingness to let go of resentment (Wallace et al. 2008), restore the trust lost (Hargrave and Sells 1997) and the relationship with a transgressor (Cehajic et al. 2008). According to Davis et al. (2013, 2015), forgiveness as a trait means a dispositional tendency to grant a pardon across time, circumstances, or social interactions, and as a state emerges in the specific context of offense.

1.1. God’s Engagement/Disengagement and Forgiveness

Exline et al. (2021) define divine engagement as people’s perception of God’s involvement in response to their prayer. Thus, people believe that God listens to them and answers when they implore. Conversely, divine disengagement refers to people’s sense of God’s absence or unresponsiveness to their invocations. God is perceived as silent, distant, impersonal, and uncommunicative. Given that there is no research on the topic of God’s engagement/disengagement in response to prayer and forgiveness, we considered the existing studies on the association between religiosity/prayer and forgiveness.
Research on antecedents of interpersonal forgiving shows many factors that may underlie the process of granting forgiveness. McCullough et al. (1998) present four conceptual categories of determinants affecting forgiveness: (1) social-cognitive (e.g., attributions, rumination); (2) offense related (e.g., the perceived severity and consequences of the offense, offender’s apology); (3) relational (e.g., relational quality, satisfaction, closeness, commitment); and (4) personality processes (e.g., agreeableness, neuroticism, revenge, anger). Religiousness has been classified by the authors as of the fourth category.
It has been confirmed that religion is likely to encourage people’s tendency to forgive (McCullough et al. 2005). More specifically, individual religious beliefs (Enright et al. 1989; Escher 2013), religious affiliation (Hui et al. 2006) and culture (Cohen et al. 2006), the religious meaning system (Tsang et al. 2005), commitment to one’s own faith (Davis et al. 2013; Krause 2018), personal religiosity (Gorsuch and Hao 1993) and involvement (Bono and McCullough 2004), the concept of a loving God (Webb et al. 2005), as well as prayer and service attendance (Lutjen et al. 2012; Wuthnow 2000) can influence interpersonal forgiveness. Saroglou et al. (2009) clarify that religion may motivate the forgiveness of individuals who have gained religious experience through their socialization in religious environments.
Several researchers suggest that having a perceived relationship with God (e.g., attachment to God) and one’s own image of God (e.g., how people view God) have an impact on human forgiveness. For example, people with an anxious and avoidant attachment to God have been found to report decreased forgiveness for wrongdoings committed by others (Davis et al. 2008). Likewise, people expressing a fearful and preoccupied attachment to God scored higher on unforgiveness than those who are securely attached (Hall et al. 2009). Conversely, a perceived secure attachment to God has been associated with a higher tendency to forgive others (Kent et al. 2017). McMinn et al. (2008) reported that awareness of God as caring and present facilitates forgiveness among Christian adults. Sutton et al. (2014) found that a love of God defined as attachment to God was a significant predictor of trait forgiveness. Israeli religious youth who reported observing the Jewish commandments and taking part in social activities were more likely to grant forgiveness than secular youth who did not practice religious commandments or young people who did not strictly adhere to religious commandments (Laufer et al. 2009). On the bases of the abovementioned associations, we hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 1 (H1).
God’s perceived engagement in response to prayer positively correlates with interpersonal forgiveness, and God’s disengagement is negatively linked to interpersonal forgiveness.

1.2. God’s Perceived Engagement/Disengagement and Positive Orientation

Positive orientation (hereinafter: POS) is an umbrella term and a high-order factor for self-esteem, life satisfaction, and dispositional optimism (Caprara et al. 2009; Alessandri et al. 2015). Caprara et al. (2012a, p. 77) define POS as “a pervasive mode of appraising, viewing, and construing that significantly affects how individuals predispose themselves to actions and experiences.” POS consists of a general tendency to view the self, and one’s personal life and future (Caprara et al. 2010) positively, and that helps people through life’s inevitable challenges (Caprara et al. 2012b) and difficult circumstances (Przepiorka et al. 2020).
Since there are no studies specifically regarding God’s engagement/disengagement and positive orientation, we considered research on different dimensions of religiosity and an optimistic approach to life. For example, it has been asserted (Dittes 1971) that believers who are committed to their faith have a more positive orientation toward the self in comparison to those who express extrinsic faith. According to Mattis et al. (2004), a link between religiosity and optimism is anchored in suppositions that believers usually retain positive images of God and find themselves in a satisfying relationship with God, even if they sometimes undergo religious or spiritual strains. The authors’ empirical data confirm that optimism is positively associated with organizational religious involvement (Mattis et al. 2004), relationship with God (Mattis et al. 2003), and subjective spirituality (Mattis et al. 2004) among African Americans. In other studies (Schutte and Hosch 1996), religiosity has been found to predict dispositional and situational optimism among the Mexican Americans sampled. Abdel-Khalek and Lester (2007) reported that Kuwaitis and Americans who thought of themselves as religious were more optimistic than their less religious counterparts. Finally, research conducted among Polish adults (Szcześniak et al. 2019) showed that personal religiousness expressed in the belief in a God who is perceived as a loving Father, a desire to read and follow God’s will, commitment to the life of the Church, and a strong sense of God’s closeness, correlated positively with both life satisfaction and POS. In the framework of the aforesaid studies, we assumed that:
Hypothesis 2 (H2).
God’s perceived engagement in response to prayer positively correlates with POS and God’s disengagement is negatively linked to POS.

1.3. Positive Orientation and Forgiveness

A recent study by Mróz and Kaleta (2017), conducted among Polish citizens, showed that POS, together with other cognitive factors, is associated with dispositional forgiveness in its positive dimension. Other researchers (Alessandri et al. 2012; Karduz and Sariçam 2018) reported that positivity correlates significantly and positively with forgiveness, and negatively with vengeance, which is considered to be a negative aspect of forgiveness. Similar results were obtained by Szcześniak and Soares (2011), who found a robust negative relationship between life satisfaction and motivation for avoiding the wrongdoer and seeking revenge. Moreover, people with threatened state self-esteem declared higher revenge (Strelan and Zdaniuk 2015). In contrast, feeling good about themselves has been found to increase forgiveness in people (Turnage et al. 2012).
This empirical evidence has its theoretical foundation. According to appraisal theory, the way people think about a given event and assess a particular situation shape specific emotions and influence behavioral responses (Kuppens and Van Mechelen 2007; Ricciardi et al. 2013). Thus, a positive outlook helps in coping with stress, challenges, failures, and frustrations (Caprara et al. 2012a) and, therefore, may facilitate forgiveness. Additionally, according to Diener et al. (2000), positivity denotes a tendency to consider different aspects of life, even those that are aversive, as good, enriching, and growth promoting. Conversely, appraising one’s condition as threatening to one’s self-esteem tends to reduce forgiveness (Strelan and Zdaniuk 2015). In line with both the empirical evidence and the theoretical approach, we expected that:
Hypothesis 3 (H3).
POS positively correlates with interpersonal forgiveness.

1.4. God’s Engagement/Disengagement, Positive Orientation, and Forgiveness

Most studies have repeatedly indicated that religiosity not only positively correlates with interpersonal forgiveness, but acts as its predictor as well (Fox and Thomas 2008; Ayten and Ferhan 2016; Krok and Zarzycka 2021). People who declare being more religious use healthier strategies to handle forgiveness (Sheldon et al. 2014). This direct relationship may indicate that forgiveness increases when religiosity increases (Ayten and Ferhan 2016). However, Halling et al. (2006, p. 270) underlined that “the relationship between religiosity and forgiveness is not likely to be straightforward.” Likewise, McCullough and Worthington (1999) suggested that the association between both variables is more complex, and hypothesized that if religion positively affects people’s abilities to comprehend others through charity, mercy, and kindness, then religious involvement might encourage forgiveness in an “indirect way” (McCullough and Worthington 1999, p. 1157), that is, by facilitating the development of some cognitive qualities that help individuals to forgive. Therefore, since a simple bivariate relation can be influenced by other cognitive factors, we assumed that POS, which is considered the cognitive component of well-being (Caprara et al. 2010), might modify the direct association between God’s perceived engagement/disengagement and interpersonal forgiveness:
Hypothesis 4 (H4).
POS mediates the relationship between religiosity and interpersonal forgiveness.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Ethics Approval

This research was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Szczecin (KB 5/2021) and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

2.2. Participants and Procedure

Data were collected from 464 participants aged 18 to 75 (M = 31.10; SD = 11.32). This study included 255 women (55%) and 209 men. The participants were also asked to what extent they believed that God exists. They gave their answer on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 meant “not at all” and 10 meant “very strongly.” The mean of all responses was M = 4.80; standard deviation SD = 3.79. The responses of almost 59% of the respondents were below the average, which may mean that our sample consisted in most cases of people declaring weaker faith in God. When asked about their religious denomination, 50% did not indicate any, 31% declared Catholic faith, and the remaining 19% stated “other.” When asked how frequently they prayed, almost 57% of participants replied that they never prayed, 26% replied that they prayed every day or often, and 17% that they sometimes did so.
Unlike other studies that have been conducted primarily with Polish Catholics, this study was carried out through an online survey with a wider range of participants between May and July 2021. The link to the battery of questionnaires was placed not only in various religious groups on Facebook, but also in discussion and worldview groups (e.g., “Politics, religion and all that”; “Poland, information, debates, politics, freedom, religion”; “Theism or atheism”; “Jesus—way of life, not religion”; “Unity of hearths”; “Discover Islam”; “Buddhism is kindness”; “Spirituality,” and many others). Our goal was to reach not only believers, but also people experiencing difficulties in their faith or those undermining the existence of God. In this respect, our strategy differed from the solution adopted by the authors of the Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer by Exline et al. (2021) who included in their samples only respondents who denoted a certain engagement in prayer. All of the participants were notified about the aim of the research and were guaranteed their confidentiality. Informed and written consent was obtained from each respondent.

2.3. Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer (PDED)

The Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer, developed by Exline et al. (2021) and adapted into Polish by Szcześniak et al. (under review), is an 8-item tool to assess whether people are convinced of God’s attentiveness to their prayers or requests. The PDED has two subscales: divine engagement (items: 2,3,5, and 6) and disengagement (items: 1,4,7, and 8). Both are measured by four items. The factor of divine engagement captures the feeling that God is listening and answering prayers (e.g., “Belief that you have received guidance from God”). The disengagement items focus on a perception of God as silent and disconnected from people (e.g., “Questioning whether God really hears your prayer”). Participants rate the items from 1 = never to 5 = always. In the original study (Exline et al. 2021), the internal consistency was very good (engagement: α = 0.82; disengagement: α = 0.79). In the current research, the internal consistency was excellent (engagement: α = 0.95; disengagement: α = 0.90). The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in the present study indicated a two-factor solution with eigenvalues higher than 1. Together, they explained 82.57% of the variance (1st factor accounted for 43.57%; 2nd—39.00%). The KMO value was 0.860, while Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was found to be statistically significant, χ2 (28) = 31.83; p < 0.001, demonstrating the validity of the factor analysis. The loadings were as follows: item 1 = 0.87; item 2 = 0.91; item 3 = 0.93; item 4 = 0.88; item 5 = 0.91; item 6 = 0.92; item 7 = 0.83; item 8 = 0.88. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) also presented acceptable fit indexes: CMIN/DF = 2.189; GFI = 0.979; AGFI = 0.959; CFI = 0.993; RMSEA = 0.051 (LO 90 = 0.029; HI 90 = 0.072); PCLOSE = 0.447; HOELTER 0.05 = 340; HOELTER 0.01 = 0.410. The Chi-square presented a statistically significant value p = 0.003 but χ2 is known to have a significant value when the samples are large.

2.4. Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18)

The Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory, developed by McCullough et al. (2006) and adapted for Polish conditions by Kossakowska and Kwiatek (2017), is a measure of forgiveness. TRIM-18 consists of three scales: avoidance, which measures the motivation to avoid a transgressor (e.g., “I live as if he/she doesn’t exist, isn’t around”; 7 items); revenge, which assesses the motivation to seek revenge (e.g., “I’ll make him/her pay”; 5 items); and benevolence (e.g., “Even though his/her actions hurt me, I have goodwill towards him/her”; 6 items). Avoidance and revenge follow a perceived interpersonal offense and represent a negative dimension of forgiveness. Benevolence refers to a positive motivational orientation toward the offender. The items are rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Three factors have high Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (α ≥ 0.85). In the present study, the internal consistency was very good: avoidance α = 0.85; revenge α = 0.90; and benevolence α = 0.87.

2.5. Positivity Scale (P Scale)

The Positivity Scale (Caprara et al. 2010; Alessandri et al. 2012) in the adaptation of Łaguna et al. (2011) measures a basic tendency to view aspects of life, experiences and oneself positively. The P Scale consists of 8 statements that capture the shared variance between self-esteem (e.g., “I feel I have lots of things to be proud of”), optimism (e.g., “I look to the future with hope and optimism”), and life satisfaction (e.g., “I am satisfied with my life”) (Zuffianò et al. 2019). Item 4 is reverse coded. The answers are given on a 5-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The total score of the P Scale is calculated by summing all 8 items. The range of raw scores is from 8 to 40. The higher the score, the higher the level of POS. The values of the Cronbach’s α coefficient for the P Scale usually range between 0.77 and 0.84 (Łaguna et al. 2011). The results of Łaguna’s research indicate high reliability and stability of the scale. In the present study, the internal consistency was α = 0.87.

2.6. Statistical Analysis

The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS software version 20, IBM, Armonk, NY, USA) with a threshold of p < 0.05 to denote a significant effect. The problem of missing data was avoided since the participants had to complete all of the questionnaires’ statements before proceeding to the next part of the research. The assumption of normality was checked using the indicators of skewness and kurtosis to assess whether the variables yielded normal distributions (Cain et al. 2017). Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlations were calculated to examine the relationships between God’s perceived engagement/disengagement, dimensions of interpersonal forgiveness (avoidance, revenge, benevolence), and positivity.
The prospective power analysis for the current study was conducted using G*Power version 3.1.9.4 (Faul et al. 2007) to assure an adequate number of participants in the sample (Houser 2007). We adapted the higher power criteria of 0.95 that is required by some researchers, and a significance criterion α of 0.05 for the t-test (point biserial model) to identify a small and attainable effect size (r = 0.17). The analysis showed a minimum sample size for the listed criteria at the level of 439 participants. The rationale for using this particular value of Pearson’s coefficient was based on the previous studies that generally show a range of correlations between religiosity and forgiveness around 0.15*. For example, Fincham and May (2021) found values of r = 0.16* and r = 0.12* (p < 0.05). Wilson and Bernas (2011) reported that the typical association ranges between 0.2 and 0.3. However, some other studies (Fincham and May 2019) revealed a lack of a significant association between religiousness and interpersonal forgiveness. Such a discrepancy in the results led us to choose a value close to the average of 0.20.
Furthermore, a linear regression model was applied to control for potential confounders. Since God’s perceived engagement and disengagement could correlate with each other, we checked if there could be some type of redundancy among the predictors and a multicollinearity problem. Therefore, an index of tolerance statistics and variance inflation factors (VIFs) was computed. We followed an index of 2.5 as the cutoff for VIFs (Mehmeoglu and Jakobsen 2017). Next, Mahalanobis’ distance and Cook’s distance were used to identify possible outliers. Finally, the respondents’ sex was considered to control for its possible impact on the association between God’s perceived engagement/disengagement and the dimensions of forgiveness. Many studies have suggested that in Western cultures, women generally tend to be more religious than men (Walter and Davie 1998; Schnabel 2016; Palmisano and Todesco 2019). The variable of the participants’ sex was entered at Step 1. God’s engagement/disengagement and POS were entered at Step 2.
The PROCESS macro (version 3.2) (Hayes 2013) was used to test whether POS mediated the relationship between God’s perceived engagement/disengagement (separately) and the three dimensions of interpersonal forgiveness (avoidance, revenge, and benevolence). God’s engagement/disengagement acted as the independent variables, and avoidance, revenge, and benevolence were the dependent variables. POS was the mediator. Thus, there were 6 single-level mediation models (Model no. 4; Hayes 2013). The bootstrapping procedures were performed with 5,000 bootstrap samples and 95% confidence intervals to investigate whether the indirect effects would not include 0.

3. Results

3.1. Preliminary Analyses

Perceived divine engagement and disengagement, forgiveness (avoidance, revenge, and benevolence), and positivity were screened for skewness and kurtosis to assess the normality of the scales’ distribution. We followed the common rule of thumb of values less than ±2 as acceptable for an approximately normal distribution (Garson 2020). In fact, no variables were beyond the cutoffs of ±2 (Table 1).

3.2. Correlations

The results of the linear relationship between paired variables using Pearson’s r coefficient (Table 2) presented statistically significant negative correlations between: (1) God engaged and God disengaged, avoidance, revenge; (2) benevolence and God disengaged, avoidance, revenge; (3) positivity and God disengaged, avoidance, revenge. Positive correlations were noticed between: (1) God engaged and benevolence, positivity; (2) God disengaged and avoidance, revenge; (3) positivity and benevolence.
The correlational statistics confirmed all of the hypotheses, showing that people who declared God’s perceived engagement in response to prayer were more prompt to express lower avoidance or revenge (H1) and higher benevolence (H1) or positivity (H2). A similar pattern of outcomes was seen in the case of POS. Individuals with higher positivity expressed higher benevolence (H3), and lower avoidance or revenge (H3). Conversely, individuals who affirmed that they perceived God as disengaged expressed lower benevolence (H1) or positivity (H2), and higher avoidance or revenge (H1).

3.3. Multicollinearity and Confounding Variables

The multiple linear regression outcomes showed that there was no problem with collinearity for the sample’s data since the range of VIF values was between 1.04 and 1.15, and the tolerance values were between 0.86 and 0.96. The Mahalanobis distance indicated no presence of outliers, with the lowest probability value p = 0.004368. Cook’s values were well below 1, with the range between 0.000 and 0.037. The results displayed that sex was not a relevant confounder since it accounted for only 0.03% of the variance (R2 = 0.003; β = 0.075; t = 1.620; p = 0.106). The predictor variables explained an additional 43% of the variance.

3.4. Mediational Models

Finally, POS was submitted as a potential mediator between the independent variables (God engaged and God disengaged) and the dependent variables (avoidance, revenge, and benevolence). The outcomes obtained (Table 3) in separate mediation analyses showed that positivity played a significant role as a mediator in all of the models considered, since the confidence interval did not include a 0, and the c paths fell to c’ paths after including a mediator.

4. Discussion

God’s perceived engagement/disengagement in response to prayer is a new concept within psychology that has only recently been considered as distinct and unique (Exline et al. 2021). Therefore, there are not too many studies investigating this topic in relation to other variables and, as far as we know, the current analysis is the first one that regards God’s engagement/disengagement in the context of prayer, interpersonal forgiveness, and positivity. The outcomes have confirmed all hypotheses and are consistent with other findings related to religiosity, forgiveness, and broadly understood positivity (e.g., life satisfaction, self-esteem, optimism).
In respect to H1 and H2, interpersonal forgiveness correlated positively with God’s perceived engagement and was negatively associated with God’s disengagement. This pattern of relationships is in line with the spiritual and religious character of forgiveness (McCullough and Worthington 1999). The quality of the perceived personal bond with God seems to not be indifferent to the way people behave after being disappointed, betrayed or harmed by others. In fact, Tsang et al. (2005) found that believers who see God as compassionate declare higher levels of forgiveness and lower levels of avoidance than those who do not perceive God as merciful. Similarly, Webb et al. (2005) noticed that while the loving God concept is positively associated with forgiveness, the controlling God concept shows the opposite correlation. Moreover, people who have a sense of being close to God may more promptly forgive offenders (Sandage and Jankowski 2010) since such proximity gives them more strength to be merciful, like Him, fulfill His commandments of love, and transcend some difficult experiences of everyday life.
Regarding H3, POS positively correlated with interpersonal forgiveness. This outcome finds its justification in the “broaden-and-build” theory that indicates the role of a positive approach in increasing awareness, understanding, and behavioral repertoires (Fredrickson and Cohn 2008). General positivity motivates people to stop, analyze, and integrate life events “into new views of self and of the world” (Fredrickson and Cohn 2008, p. 782). It builds personal resources to deal with difficult circumstances. From an empirical perspective, there is some evidence that university students with a positive standpoint express fewer feelings of vengeance (Karduz and Sariçam 2018). Aquino et al. (2003) noticed that a positive reinterpretation of problematic situations helps to reduce resentment and revenge. This may be because being positive reflects an overall evaluation of one’s own value (self-esteem) and own experience (life satisfaction). In fact, individuals who show lower levels of self-esteem hold negative emotions about their offenders regardless of whether the transgression was more serious or less so (Marshall et al. 2015).
In respect to H4, POS mediated the relationship between religiosity and interpersonal forgiveness. On the bases of results obtained in the current research, it can be assumed that the perception of God’s involvement in response to prayer may lead to granting a pardon in the specific context of an offense when the person targeted tends to view themself, their personal life and their future positively. Indeed, it has been confirmed that individuals who are inclined to have their sense of being connected with God and an internalized sense of the divine, experience a more positive appraisal of their lives despite the negative circumstances that they face (Villani et al. 2019). This is reflected in the frequently occurring positive correlation between religiosity and life satisfaction. For example, Vishkin et al. (2019) observed that religion motivates people to reassess different challenging events. This, in turn, makes it easier to see the constructive aspects of even difficult situations. Given that the association between religiosity and forgiveness is not likely to be direct (McCullough and Worthington 1999), this complexity may be explained just through the presence of positivity. Conversely, a perception of God’s disengagement in response to prayer may increase avoidance and revenge since people who have been hurt in some way may have a hard time detecting the positive facets present in the self and the world around them. Believing that God does not answer prayers or is silent may result in people’s lack of strength to deal with someone’s offense, because the feeling of God’s absence may lower their positive outlook and self-confidence.

5. Conclusions

The current research joins the small group of studies that show that the relationship between various aspects of religiosity, in this case the perception of God’s engagement or disengagement in response to prayer, and forgiveness, is more complex than we think. It may suggest that positivity is not indifferent in the process of forgiving, especially when people are aware of God’s presence in their lives. In other words, it is possible that some religious beliefs (e.g., God’s perceived engagement rather than disengagement) may evoke positivity, which, in turn, sustains a tendency toward forgiveness. Our conclusions seem to confirm the previous intuitions by Huber et al. (2011), who proposed a comprehensive model of religiosity based on the construct of religious centrality. According to this approach, when the religious system occupies a key place within thinking, feeling, and behaving, it influences people’s experiences and exerts a powerful impact on their remaining psychological systems. Developing this thought, the feeling that God is listening and answering prayers may elicit a positive view of life, experiences, and oneself, and thus facilitate interpersonal forgiveness. Conversely, a perception of God as silent and disconnected from people (a marginal religious position) may induce less positivity, and therefore, impede forgiveness.
Our results also evoke the concept of religion perceived as a “capital” which derives from people’s relationship to their God or faith community (Clark et al. 2017) and serves as a source of meaning (Oviedo 2019; Seryczyńska et al. 2021) for everyday life and its different, often challenging and difficult, relational experiences (Terelak 2021). Interpersonal forgiveness requires such a deeper meaning which derives from religion (Tsang et al. 2005), even if there can be culturally elaborated mechanisms conducting one to forgiveness outside faith.
Although it is impossible to make a causal inference from this study because of its cross-sectional design, the present research goes beyond the bivariate relationship between God’s engagement or disengagement and interpersonal forgiveness through including positive orientation.
Another important aspect of this research concerns the diversity of the sample. Most respondents declared a lower level of religious commitment and expressed more doubts about the existence of God. Despite this, the Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer developed by Exline et al. (2021) showed a very good fit to the model and proved to be a good psychometric tool.
In summary, the main goal of this study was to verify whether the direct relationship between belief in God’s engagement or disengagement in response to prayer and forgiveness can be deepened by a positive approach to life. For this reason, being aware that the topic of forgiveness, and its causes and consequences, is very broad, we only addressed aspects that seemed to constitute the theoretical and empirical basis for a mediating model linking religiosity with forgiveness through positivity. We suggest including God’s forgiveness or people’s emotions in the context of being forgiven or offering forgiveness to others in future studies to improve our understanding of how belief in God’s engagement/disengagement may affect these variables in the framework of a mediatory role of a general tendency to view one’s self and one’s personal life positively.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.S.; methodology, M.S. and K.S.; formal analysis, M.S. and K.S.; investigation, K.S.; resources, M.S. and K.S.; data curation, M.S. and K.S.; writing—original draft preparation, M.S. and K.S.; writing—review and editing, M.S. and K.S.; supervision, M.S. These authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Bioethics Committee of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Szczecin (5/2021, 29 April 2021).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, M.S., upon reasonable request.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Table
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for the Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer (PDED), the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18), and the Positivity Scale (P Scale), (N = 464).
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for the Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer (PDED), the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18), and the Positivity Scale (P Scale), (N = 464).
ScalesMSDSkewnessKurtosis
God engaged8.845.800.720−1.058
God disengaged10.606.110.325−1.441
Avoidance22.105.85−0.559−0.340
Revenge10.955.600.883−0.143
Benevolence19.825.560.248−0.462
Positivity29.186.58−0.576−0.218
Table
Table 2. Pearson’s correlation results for all measured variables.
Table 2. Pearson’s correlation results for all measured variables.
ScalesGEGDAVREVBENPOS
God engaged (GE)1−0.314 ***−0.154 **−0.220 ***0.350 ***0.113 *
God disengaged (GD) 10.184 ***0.144 **−0.148 **−0.192 ***
Avoidance (AV) 10.285 ***−0.526 ***−0.148 **
Revenge (REV) 1−0.408 ***−0.178 ***
Benevolence (BEN) 10.253 ***
Positivity (POS) 1
Note. *** p < 0.001; ** p < 0.01; * p < 0.05.
Table
Table 3. Role of POS in God engaged/disengaged and interpersonal forgiveness (N = 464).
Table 3. Role of POS in God engaged/disengaged and interpersonal forgiveness (N = 464).
Scalesa Pathb Pathc Pathc’ PathIndirect Effect
and B (SE)		95% CI LOWER
UPPER
GE—POS—AV0.12 *−0.11 ***−0.15 ***−0.13 **−0.0152 (0.0083)−0.0336; −0.0015
GE—POS—REV0.12 *−0.13 ***−0.21 ***−0.19 ***−0.0030 (0.0016)−0.0065; −0.0004
GE—POS—BEN0.12 *0.18 ***0.33 ***0.31 ***0.0235; 0.01080.0047; 0.0463
GD—POS—AV−0.20 ***−0.10 *0.17 ***0.15 ***0.0216; 0.01120.0031; 0.0460
GD—POS—REV−0.20 ***−0.13 ***0.13 **0.10 *0.0275; 0.01180.0090; 0.0551
GD—POS—BEN−0.20 ***0.19 ***−0.13 **−0.09 *−0.0408; 0.0135−0.0696; −0.0175
*** p < 0.001; ** p < 0.01; * p < 0.05; GE—God engagement; GD—God disengagement; POS—positive orientation; AV—avoidance; REV—revenge; BEN—benevolence; a path—effect of the independent variable on the mediator; b path—effect of the mediator on the dependent variable; c path—effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable; c′ path—direct effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable while controlling for the mediator.
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Szcześniak, M.; Strochalska, K. God’s Perceived Engagement/Disengagement in Response to Prayer and Interpersonal Forgiveness: The Mediating Role of Positive Orientation. Religions 2021, 12, 846. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100846

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Szcześniak M, Strochalska K. God’s Perceived Engagement/Disengagement in Response to Prayer and Interpersonal Forgiveness: The Mediating Role of Positive Orientation. Religions. 2021; 12(10):846. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100846

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Szcześniak, Małgorzata, and Klaudia Strochalska. 2021. "God’s Perceived Engagement/Disengagement in Response to Prayer and Interpersonal Forgiveness: The Mediating Role of Positive Orientation" Religions 12, no. 10: 846. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100846

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