Associations of self‐forgiveness processes with distress and well‐being outcomes: Evidence from a longitudinal study of Indonesian adults

Abstract

To date, few empirical studies have examined the benefits of the processes involved in self‐forgiveness—value reorientation and esteem restoration—for individual well‐being using longitudinal data from non‐Western samples. In this study, we take a step toward addressing this gap by analysing three waves of data collected among 595 Indonesians (Mage = 21.95, SD = 4.39). Applying the analytic templates for lagged exposure‐wide and outcome‐wide longitudinal designs, we performed a series of linear regressions to estimate associations of value reorientation and esteem restoration in Wave 2 with three indicators of distress and 10 indicators of well‐being in Wave 3, adjusting for Wave 1 covariates. Value reorientation and esteem restoration were each associated with improvements in several well‐being outcomes (six for value reorientation and three for esteem restoration), but both showed little evidence of associations with the distress outcomes. In a secondary analysis, those who scored higher on both value reorientation and esteem restoration (i.e., self‐forgiveness group) in Wave 2 reported higher well‐being on five outcomes in Wave 3 compared to those who scored lower on value reorientation, esteem restoration, or both (i.e., no or partial self‐forgiveness group). We discuss some implications of the findings for conceptualising self‐forgiveness and promoting well‐being.