Unforgiveness, rumination, and depressive symptoms among older adults.
The experience of feeling unforgiven for past transgressions may contribute to depressive symptoms in later life. This article tests a model in which feeling unforgiven by God and by other people have direct effects on depressive symptoms while self-unforgiveness and rumination mediate this relationship. The sample consisted of 965 men and women aged 67 and older who participated in a national probability sample survey, the Religion, Aging, and Health survey. Results from a latent variable model indicate that unforgiveness by others has a significant direct effect on depressive symptoms and an indirect effect via self-unforgiveness and rumination. However, rather than having a direct effect on depressive symptoms, unforgiveness by God operates only indirectly through self-unforgiveness and rumination. Similarly, self-unforgiveness has an indirect effect on depressive symptoms through rumination.
Ingersoll-Dayton
Berit
B
School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. bid@umich.edu
Torges
Cynthia
C
Krause
Neal
N
D000368:Aged; D003625:Data Collection; D003863:Depression / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012649:Self Concept
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