Sociodemographic Variation in Dispositional Forgivingness: A Cross-National Analysis With 22 Countries

• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/f4ce2_v1
• Publication Date: 2025-03-14T15:08:38Z
• Authors: Richard Cowden; Everett Worthington; Caleb A. Chung; Hannes De Kock; Dorota Weziak Bia...; George Yancey; Koichiro Shiba; R. Noah Padgett; Matt Bradshaw; Byron R. Johnson; Tyler J. VanderWeele
• Keywords: Variation (astronomy)

We used nationally representative data from the first wave of Global Flourishing Study (N = 202,898) to explore distribution forgivingness in 22 geographically and culturally diverse countries identify potential differences dispositional across nine sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, employment years education, immigration frequency religious service attendance, affiliation, racial/ethnic identity). Our descriptive analysis supported substantial cross-national variation proportion people who endorsed ‘often/always’ forgiving others, ranging .41 (Türkiye) .92 (Nigeria). estimated country-level statistics for each category, then performed a series random effects meta-analyses aggregate results countries. Meta-analytic provided evidence subgroup attendance (to lesser extent) age, with highest observed among attended services more than once week those 80 or older. However, varied considerably countries, including variables that did not show clear when country-specific estimates were pooled. findings lay foundation population-level assessment forgiveness over time public health strategies promote forgiveness.