Measuring Forgiveness: Psychometric Properties of the Heartland Forgiveness Scale in the Spanish Population

Karla Gallo-Giunzioni, María Prieto-Ursúa, Cristina Fernández-Belinchón and Octavio Luque-Reca
Additional contact information
Karla Gallo-Giunzioni: Faculty of Education and Psychology, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Spain
María Prieto-Ursúa: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Cristina Fernández-Belinchón: Servicio de Urgencias Médicas de Madrid (SUMMA 112), 28045 Madrid, Spain
Octavio Luque-Reca: Department of Psychology, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 28933 Madrid, Spain

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 18, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Given the scarcity of instruments in Spanish to measure forgiveness, two studies were conducted in this population to obtain validity evidence of the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS), an instrument that measures dispositional forgiveness of self, others, and situations. In the first study, 203 students (65% women) participated. After ensuring the linguistic adequacy and clarity of the wording of the items, a lack of congruence was found between the factors obtained in the exploratory factor analysis and the original theoretical structure of the HFS. A sample of 512 participants (63.9% women) attended the second study. This study aimed to analyze the construct validity of the HFS using confirmatory factor analysis through structural equation modelling and to explore convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity. Of the different factorial configurations tested (including the original), only a scale reduction to eight items, grouped into three factors, showed an appropriate fit. The HFS eight-item version also showed acceptable internal consistency, adequate convergent and discriminant validity, and criterion validity with respect to related variables. These findings suggest that the eight-item version of the HFS may be a valid and reliable tool for assessing forgiveness for self, others, and situations in Spanish adults.

Keywords: instrument; factor structure; brief measure; assessment; Spanish; adults; dispositional forgiveness; validation (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/1660-4601/18/1/45/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/1/45/ (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:18:y:2020:i:1:p:45-:d:466976

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 ().