When God Disappoints

@article{Exline1999WhenGD,
  title={When God Disappoints},
  author={Julie J. Exline and Ann Marie Yali and Marci Lobel},
  journal={Journal of Health Psychology},
  year={1999},
  volume={4},
  pages={365 - 379}
}
In light of growing empirical interest in the links between forgiveness, religious belief, and well-being, a study was designed to examine the emotional impact of a specific problem with forgiveness: difficulty forgiving God. Difficulty forgiving God was found to predict anxious and depressed mood within a college student sample (N 5 200), and its contribution was independent of difficulties forgiving the self and others. Two psychological factors emerged as central in explaining the link… 
View on SAGE
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
197 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
5
Background Citations
42
Methods Citations
1
Results Citations
4

Tables from this paper

197 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Dispositional Forgiveness and Meaning-Making: The Relative Contributions of Forgiveness and Adult Attachment Style to Struggling or Enduring With God
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fifth edition) continues to recognize the role of spirituality in mental health by including a V-Code (V62.89) for Religious or Spiritual…
Forgivingness: Relationships With Conceptualizations of Divine Forgiveness and Childhood Memories
The present study examined the extent to which the three-aspect construct of forgivingness—Lasting Resentment, Sensitivity to Circumstances of the offense, and Unconditional Forgiveness—applies to…
Predictors of spiritual struggles: an exploratory study
The purpose of the current study was to identify factors that predict spiritual struggles. It was hypothesised that factors from religious (e.g., God image, attachment to God, church attitudes,…
Guilt, discord, and alienation: the role of religious strain in depression and suicidality.
TLDR
Religious strain, along with religiosity, was associated with greater interest in addressing religious issues in psychotherapy, and this results highlight the role of religious strain as a potentially important indicator of psychological distress.
Relational Spirituality and Forgiveness: Development of the Spiritual Humility Scale (Shs)
Research on spirituality and forgiveness has begun to examine the types of dynamic, spiritual experiences that can promote forgiveness. Specifically, we explore how victims may see an offender’s…
How Does Religion Promote Forgiveness? Linking Beliefs, Orientations, and Practices
Scholars have long observed that religion and forgiveness are generally positively linked, but it is unclear why this is the case. This article proposes and tests potential mechanisms by which…
I deserve better and god knows it! Psychological entitlement as a robust predictor of anger at God.
Anger at God has begun to receive empirical attention as a psychological construct. Studies have shown that anger at God is common, and is often associated with various indicators of psychological…
Disappointment With God and Well‐Being: The Mediating Influence of Relationship Quality and Dispositional Forgiveness
This study examined the extent to which disappointment with God influenced the psychological and spiritual well-being of 160 churchgoers, and the potential mediating influences of relationship…
Resolving Anger toward God: Lament as an avenue toward Attachment
Psychologists have mostly overlooked the topic of anger toward God. The current study tested an intervention based on the biblical psalms of lament, consisting of 20 devotional readings and weekly…
Research on religion/spirituality and forgiveness: A meta-analytic review.
In the present article, we review the literature on religion/spirituality (R/S) and forgiveness using meta-analysis. R/S was positively related to trait forgivingness (i.e., across relationships and…
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 64 REFERENCES
Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships.
TLDR
Evidence is found consistent with the hypotheses that the relationship between receiving an apology from and forgiving one's offender is a function of increased empathy for the offender and that forgiving is uniquely related to conciliatory behavior and avoidance behavior toward the offending partner.
Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships: II. Theoretical elaboration and measurement.
TLDR
The development of the transgression-related interpersonal motivations inventory is described--a self-report measure designed to assess the 2-component motivational system (Avoidance and Revenge) posited to underlie forgiving, which demonstrated a variety of desirable psychometric properties.
The adolescent as forgiver.
Religiousness, Race, and Psychological Well-Being: Exploring Social Psychological Mediators
Research and theory combine to suggest that the relationship between religious belief and psychological well-being should be more positive among Black than among White individuals. Further, this…
God as a Substitute Attachment Figure: A Longitudinal Study of Adult Attachment Style and Religious Change in College Students
In a two-wave survey study designed to extend and refine previous research on religion as an attachment process, college students completed a four-category attachment-style measure and several…
Interpersonal Forgiveness Within the Helping Professions: An Attempt to Resolve Differences of Opinion
Lakatos's (1978) philosophy of science is used as a guide for resolving published authors' differences of opinion about interpersonal forgiveness. We first review the ancient writings and current…
Encouraging Clients to Forgive People who have Hurt Them: Review, Critique, and Research Prospectus
The literature addressing forgiving and its use as a counseling technique is reviewed. Forgiving is hypothesized to yield cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal benefits to individuals who forgive…
Forgiveness As A Psychotherapeutic Goal With Elderly Females
A psychotherapeutic intervention with forgiveness as the goal was implemented with 24 elderly females. The client's goal was to forgive one person who had inflicted considerable psychological hurt,…
Forgiveness Education with Parentally Love‐deprived Late Adolescents
Abstract Two studies with male and female college students (n = 48 in study 1, n = 45 in study 2), who judged themselves to be parentally love‐deprived, engaged in a randomised, experimental and…
General Attribution Theory for the Psychology of Religion: The Influence of Event-Character on Attributions to God
A formulation, general attribution theory, is presented and applied to the problem of Godattribution. Hypothesizing that religious attributions are a function of situational and stylistic factors,…
...
1
2
3
4
5
...