Relational Spirituality and the Development of the Similarity of the Offender's Spirituality Scale

摘要

We present a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness that considers how a victim's spirituality affects his or her experience of and response to a transgression. In 2 studies, we investigate the psychometric properties of the Similarity of the Offender's Spirituality Scale (SOS), which assesses the extent to which the victim sees the offender as spiritually similar. Results suggest the SOS has 2 factors that assess the offender's spiritual and human similarity. The SOS showed initial evidence of construct validity, being related to other measures of spirituality and to measures of the victim's response to a transgression. The overall model was found to offer incremental validity beyond known predictors of forgiveness. We suggest directions for future research.