Forgiveness Scale Test

The IDRlabs Forgiveness Test is based on Hargrave, T. D., & Sells, J. N. (1997). The development of a forgiveness scale. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 23(1), 41–62.

Forgiveness Scale is a theoretical framework that conceptualizes the issues of relational pain from a contextual family therapy perspective. The framework was developed by Terry D. Hargrave and emphasizes the importance of forgiveness in salvaging and restoring family relationships. Research has shown that people with a history of suicide attempts tend to score lower on the Forgiveness Scale than those who have never attempted suicide. Specifically, they are less likely to believe that others can forgive them, less likely to forgive themselves, and somewhat less forgiving toward others. According to Hargrave, forgiveness refers to the effort of a person who has experienced injustice or hurt to release the load of culpability of the person who caused the hurt.

The forgiveness framework includes two broad categories of exonerating and forgiving. Exonerating deals more with the internal processing of the victim and their ability to gain insight into how pain was perpetrated and to establish some form of identification with the victimizer. Forgiving, on the other hand, demands that the victim and victimizer involve themselves in interactions that work toward the establishment of love and trust in the relationship.

The four stations of forgiveness are insight, understanding, giving the opportunity for compensation, and overt act of forgiving. Insight refers to the ability of a person to objectify the mechanisms of family pain that have caused relational damage, while understanding involves identifying with the victimizer’s position, limitations, development, efforts, and intent. Giving the opportunity for compensation involves allowing the victimizer to rebuild the status of trust in the relationship in a progressive manner by acting in ways that are trustworthy. Overt act of forgiving involves discussing the relational violation openly and coming to an agreement that they will seek a new trustworthy relationship in the future.

The manifestations of individual pain in forgiveness include shame, rage, control, and chaos. Shame refers to accusing oneself of being unlovable and not deserving of a trustworthy relationship, while rage refers to experiencing uncontrolled anger toward the victimizer. Control refers to trying to minimize one's risk of hurt or assuming that little can be done to form trusting relationships, while chaos refers to assuming that one will eventually be hurt despite any effort.

As the publishers of this free test, which allows you to screen yourself on the Forgiveness Scale Test, we have strived to make the test as reliable and valid as possible by subjecting this test to statistical controls and validation. However, free online quizzes such as the present test do not provide professional assessments or recommendations of any kind; the test is provided entirely “as-is.” For more information about any of our online tests and quizzes, please consult our Terms of Service.