Examining the factors predicting forgiveness of the university students

The main aim of the current study was to investigate the role of life positions, unconditional self-acceptance, emotional management skills, Gestalt contact disturbances levels in university student's forgiveness by sub-dimensions. The second aim was to examine whether there is a significant difference with gender for the university students' forgiveness by sub-dimensions. In this research, independent variables are gender, life positions, unconditional self-acceptance, emotional management skills, Gestalt contact disturbances of university students. Dependent variable is forgiveness of university students. The universe of this study is university students who are studying at Akdeniz University. The sample of the study includes university students selected from studying at the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Literature, the Faculty of Agriculture and the Faculty of Law. In composing study sample, the easily accessible faculties were chosen and the data collection instruments were administered to the volunteered students studying at these faculties during the spring semester of 2015-2016 academic year. Research sample consists of 673 university students, of which 471 were female and 202 were male. In the study, data collection was performed with Personal Information Form, Life Positions Scale, Unconditional Self-Acceptance Scale, Emotional Management Skills Scale, and Gestalt Contact Disturbances Scale were used. T-test results showed that male university students had significantly higher scores than female university students on the self-forgiveness scores. On the other hand, when the scores for forgiveness of others are examined, results showed that female university students had significantly higher scores than male university students on the forgiveness of others scores. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that "I am OK, You are OK" life position was significant and positive predictor of self-forgiveness and forgiveness of situations. Results also showed that "I am not OK, You are not OK" life position was significant and negative predictor of forgiveness of others and forgiveness of situations. "I am not OK, You are OK" life position was significant and negative predictor of self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others while it was significant and positive predictor of forgiveness of situations. Also, unconditional acceptance was significant and positive predictor of all sub-dimensions of forgiveness and emotional management skills was significant and positive predictor of self-forgiveness and forgiveness of situations. Finally, when the scores for Gestalt contact disturbances are examined, results showed that contact disturbance was significant and positive predictor of self-forgiveness and dependent contact disturbance was significant and positive predictor of forgiveness of others and final contact disturbance was significant and negative predictors of forgiveness of others.