The Effects of Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Self-Control on Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Bullying

Fernanda Inéz García-Vázquez, Angel Alberto Valdés-Cuervo and Lizeth Guadalupe Parra-Pérez
Additional contact information
Fernanda Inéz García-Vázquez: Department of Education, Technological Institute of Sonora; Obregon City 85000, Mexico
Angel Alberto Valdés-Cuervo: Department of Education, Technological Institute of Sonora; Obregon City 85000, Mexico
Lizeth Guadalupe Parra-Pérez: School of Education, Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 16, 1-14

Abstract: The social cognitive approach to moral development posits that moral self-schemas encourage character strengths and reduce adolescents’ aggression. However, limited research has examined the influence of positive personal characteristics on proactive behaviors and reactive aggression in bullying. This study examined direct and mediational relationships between forgiveness, gratitude, self-control, and both proactive and reactive aggression in bullying. The extent to which the structural relations of this model were invariant by gender and stage of adolescence were also evaluated. Participants in this study were 1000 Mexican students, 500 early adolescents ( M age = 12.36, SD = 0.77 years) and 500 middle adolescents ( M age = 16.64, SD = 0.89 years), between 12 and 17 years old. Structural equation and multi-group invariance analysis were performed. Results indicate that gratitude and forgiveness are positively related to self-control. Gratitude, forgiveness, and self-control are also negatively related to reactive and proactive aggression. Forgiveness and gratitude had an indirect relationship by decreasing both proactive and reactive aggression through their positive effects on self-control. Additionally, gender moderated the relationships between variables proposed in the model, whereas stage of adolescence did not. Overall findings suggest that moral self-schemas and strengths explained both types of aggression in bullying.

Keywords: gratitude; forgiveness; self-control; human strengths; bullying; adolescence; proactive aggression; reactive aggression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5760/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5760/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:16:p:5760-:d:396699

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().