The role of forgiveness and perceived partner responsiveness in the relationship between justice sensitivity and subjective well-being in romantic relationships

The main purpose of the current research is to understand how the concept of justice sensitivity in romantic relationships is perceived by married adults and to evaluate the individual's forgiveness of his/her partner, perceived partner responsiveness, and the level of victim sensitivity within the framework of the one's subjective well-being. Thus, the research comprised of two parts. In the first part; Victim Sensitivity in Romantic Relationships Scale (VSRRS) was developed to measure victim sensitivity by considering the victim dimension of justice sensitivity in romantic relationships. During the scale development process, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 10 people who have been married for at least one year. Three open-ended questions were asked to determine their perceptions of justice sensitivity as well as victim sensitivity in romantic relationships. Then, 64 candidate scale items were obtained by applying content analysis. The first study group was created to determine the factorial structure of the scale consists of a total of 325 participants who have been married for at least one year between the ages of 23-75. In the second study group, which was created for the validity and reliability studies of the scale, there were 410 participants who have been married for at least one year between the ages of 23-65. The findings of the exploratory factor analysis revealed a unidimensional structure of 17 items, and the results conducted with 410 participants also supported the obtained structure. In the second part of the research, whether the relationship between victim sensitivity and forgiveness (distance, retaliation, and helpfulness) was tested in the level of perceived partner responsiveness. Additionally, the mediating role of forgiveness in the relationship between victim sensitivity and subjective well-being were tested. Moderator variable analysis results showed that perceived partner responsiveness did not have a moderating role in the relationship between victim sensitivity and forgiveness. On the other hand, mediation analysis findings show that detachment and helpfulness have mediating roles in the relationship between victim sensitivity and subjective well-being. However, retaliation was not found to have a mediating role in the relationship between victim sensitivity and subjective well-being. The research findings were evaluated within the framework of the relevant literature and necessary recommendations for future studies were discussed.