Religious Homogamy Affects the Connections of Personality and Marriage Qualities to Unforgiving Motives: Implications for Couple Therapy

In Ghana, collectivism holds people together in marital relationships, even if partners are religiously different. Married partners still hurt, betray, or offend each other and might develop avoidance or vengeful (i.e., unforgiving) motives. We investigated whether religious homogamy moderated conne...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions
Authors: Osei-Tutu, Annabella (Author) ; Worthington, Everett L. 1946- (Author) ; Chen, Zhuo Job (Author) ; McElroy-Heltzel, Stacey (Author) ; Davis, Don E. (Author) ; Washington-Nortey, Melissa (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI 2021
In: Religions
Further subjects:B Neuroticism
B Forgiveness
B marriage satisfaction
B religious homogamy
B Marriage
B forbearance
B marriage commitment
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Summary:In Ghana, collectivism holds people together in marital relationships, even if partners are religiously different. Married partners still hurt, betray, or offend each other and might develop avoidance or vengeful (i.e., unforgiving) motives. We investigated whether religious homogamy moderated connections of personality and marriage variables to unforgiving motives. Heterosexual married couples (N = 176 heterosexual married couples; N = 352 individuals; mean marriage duration 10.89 years) participated. Most identified as Christian (83.5% males; 82.3% females) or Muslim (11.9% males; 14.3% females). Couple religious homogamy was related directly to lower unforgiving motives. Religious homogamy did not moderate the connection between some personality variables (i.e., agreeableness and trait forgivingness) and unforgiving motives. Religiously unmatched couples tended to have greater unforgiveness at higher levels of neuroticism and lower forbearing, marital satisfaction, and marital commitment relative to religiously matched couples. One implication is that couple therapists need to assess partner neuroticism, marriage climate (i.e., satisfaction and commitment), and the general tendency to forbear when offended. Those can combine to produce unforgiving relationships, which might make progress in couple therapy improbable.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel12110917