Predicting forgiveness in romantic relationships according to love styles

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between love styles and forgiveness behaviors of university students. In addition, the love styles and forgiveness behaviors of university students with respect to gender were examined. The participants consisted of 428 (305 female, 123 male) students who continue their education in various faculties of a state university in Ankara. In this study Love Attitudes Scale: Short Form, Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory and Personal Information Form were used in order to collect data. In the study, love styles are independent variables, forgiveness behaviors in romantic relationships are dependent variables. The multiple regression analysis was utilized to determine the predictive power of the level of forgiveness on love styles. The relationships among gender, love styles and forgiveness behaviors of students were examined by independent samples t test. SPSS 22.0 software was used for the statistical analysis of the data. The results indicated that love styles were significant predictors of forgiveness and its components. According to the findings, the love styles of Eros, Agape, Ludus in romantic relationships and Mania were significantly predicted the forgiveness. Eros predicted the revenge, avoidance and benevolence and Mania predicted the revenge and avoidance. Storge predicted the avoidance, Agape predicted the revenge and benevolence and Ludus predicted the revenge and avoidance. Pragma did not predict forgiveness behaviors. The love styles of Ludus, Agape and Pragma were significantly different according to gender. Lastly, forgiveness behaviors in romantic relationships did not differ in terms of gender.