Self forgiveness in specific offence: offender's and victim's determinants

Literature highlighted interpersonal forgiveness as a central topic in family and social relations. Nevertheless, studies on the offender’s perspective and emotions as well as on his self forgiveness are at the beginning. Self forgiveness is relevant when a person hurts another one and he/she consequently experiences degrees of guilt and other negative feelings about the wrongdoing. Self forgiveness is considered as a coping strategy to overcome the negative feeling, influenced both by individual and by interpersonal determinants. Admission of responsibility is regarded as the key point of self forgiveness process. Aim of the research is to analyze self forgiveness in relation to specific offences by using both an experimental and a correlational method in which the offender’s and the victim's perspective on the same event are directly collected.