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Validation and norms of Rye forgiveness scale among Iranian university students

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Abstract

The general purpose of the present research is normalization and validation of Rye Forgiveness Scale (RFS) that specifically measures victim’s responses toward an offender. For this purpose, we examined the test-retest reliability of RFS on 50 students with an interval of 3 weeks with a pilot study. Through obtained standard deviation at this stage, the final sample size was estimated in the original study (n = 1080) and students were selected by multistage cluster-random sampling method. RFS test-retest reliability, the forgiveness Presence of Positive (PP), and Absence of Negative (AN) subscales were calculated to be 0.78, 0.73, and 0.75, respectively. In the original study,945 (375 males and 570 females) students with a mean age of 20.56 ± 3.41 took part. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for RFS as well as PP and AN subscales were estimated as 0.74, 0.71, and 0.75 respectively. RFS Scores (and its subscales) had a direct relationship with the measures of satisfaction and meaning in life, happiness and hope (r ≥ 0.40, p < .001); and in the expected directions predicted a significant proportion of the variance in scores for that measures. Eventually, the norm table was prepared by converting raw scores to z and T standardized scores, followed by calculating the percentile ranks for the whole group. The present research revealed that RFS is a tool with repeatable and reliable results and satisfactory validity coefficients.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the participating students to complete the tests. The results of this study were not related to the personal interests of the authors.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by a grant from the Deputy of Research and Technology in University of Guilan [No. p15/159854, on 27 Feb, 2017].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

    Sajjad Rezaei

  2. Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

    Maryam Arfa

  3. Department of Psychology, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran

    Khadijeh Rezaei

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  1. Sajjad Rezaei
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Correspondence to Sajjad Rezaei.

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Rezaei, S., Arfa, M. & Rezaei, K. Validation and norms of Rye forgiveness scale among Iranian university students. Curr Psychol 39, 1921–1931 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00196-y

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