The effect of psycho-education program on increase the tendency to forgive and five factor personal properties of forgiveness tendency

The basic aim of this study is to examine affect of psycho-education program for gaining the tendency to forgive on big five personality traits. The study was carried out via experimental design to determine the cause and effect relationship between the independent variable (big five personality traits) and the dependent variable (tendency to forgive). The study was conducted with Pretest- Posttest Control Group Design. 24 university students who attended to the study were randomly assigned to the experimental and the contol group each of which consisted of 12 university students. The data was collected through Big Five Personality Traits Scale and Heartland Forgiveness Scale. Within the scope of the study, experimental group was given 10-week psycho-education program to gain positive personality traits and to gaining forgiveness tendency while control group was not given any intervention. The effectiveness of the psycho-education program was tested by the same scale in pre-experimantal, post-experimental and follow up processes. According to the findings of the study, it was found that all of the personality traits were effective in order to help to gaining the tendency of forgiveness of individuals with high scores for neuroticism, one of the big five personality traits, and low scores for forgiveness, that is people with less forgiveness competency. The findings were discussed in the light of the literature and recommendations were made accordingly. Keywords: Five Factor Personality Characteristics, Tendency to Forgiveness, Psycho-education program.