Forgiveness education in the workplace: A new strategy for the management of anger

  Coco Zhao Dept of education Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Introduction: Anger in the workplace can presen...

 
Coco Zhao
Dept of education Psychology,
University of Wisconsin-Madison,
USA.

Introduction: Anger in the workplace can present considerable challenges to human resource personnel. In the workplace, relationships with co-workers and supervisors can be significant sources of interpersonal conflict. Researchers, practitioners, and educators have noted forgiveness can be an important psychological response to perceived interpersonal injustices. However, there are no known studies investigating the effectiveness of forgiveness intervention or training that aim to help with individuals’ anger requiring forgiving others who have been unjust to them in the workplace.

This study is the first of its kind to apply a forgiveness education program based on Enright’s Forgiveness Process Model into the workplace setting; it examined and compared the effects of a forgiveness education program to a relaxation training program in the workplace for reducing anger and increasing well-being in workers.

Forty-one white collar workers in the United Kingdom who reported experiencing injustice in the workplace were randomly assigned to either the forgiveness education program or the relaxation training program. Participants' level of forgiveness, state and trait anxiety, state and trait anger, and anger-in were assessed at pretest, posttest, and four-week follow-up. MANOVA analyses showed participants across the two groups changed on all outcome measures and that the forgiveness education group had greater changes than the relaxation training group on trait anxiety and state anger. Within-group t tests revealed that the forgiveness education group demonstrated significant change on more outcome variables than the relaxation training group.

The findings of this study not only have the potential to contribute to the knowledge base of workplace injustice, but also have important implications for preventive psychological approaches at work which can be introduced by human resource personnel.

Research article:
Forgiveness education in the workplace: A new strategy for the management of anger