Abstract
According to national surveys in recent years, school bullying problems still need to be lessened in Taiwan. Besides, children often use aggressive but not forgiving ways to response to interpersonal transgressions. However, previous studies of interpersonal transgression seldom focused on children’s forgiveness motivation. Therefore, the present study proposes an integrated model to investigate the cognitive and affective factors and mediation effects on the relationships between intimacy and forgiveness motivation of children. Participants included 264 sixth grade students (128 males, 136 females) from four elementary schools. Modified questionnaires were adopted to investigate participants’ experience of interpersonal conflict. The results of structural equation modeling analysis indicate that: (1) children’s “intimacy” is positively correlated with “benevolence versus avoidance motivation” and negatively correlated with “revenge motivation”; (2) “hostile attribution” partially mediates the effects between “intimacy” and “benevolence versus avoidance motivation” and fully mediates the effects between “intimacy” and “revenge motivation”; (3) “angry emotion” partially mediates the effects between “intimacy” and “benevolence versus avoidance motivation” and fully mediates the effects between “intimacy” and “revenge motivation”; (4) “rumination” also partially mediates the effects between “intimacy” and “benevolence versus avoidance motivation” and fully mediates the effects between “intimacy” and “revenge motivation”; (5) “empathy ability” is positively correlated with their “benevolence versus avoidance motivation” and negatively correlated with their “revenge motivation”. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.