With the increasing use of forgiveness interventions as therapy and educational programmes, a lot of studies have been conducted to investigate the effectiveness of the interventions. However, most of the existing intervention studies do not consider the cultural elements in forgiveness. The current study aimed to fill this gap by conducting research on forgiveness interventions in Chinese cultural context. The researcher devised a forgiveness programme by integrating the programme based on Enright-Process-Model with another programme based on Chinese cultural values. To examine the effects of the forgiveness programme on the participants’ forgiveness attitudes and other psychological variables, a 3-phase study design combining quantitative and qualitative approaches was adopted. In Phase I, the reliabilities and validities of the instruments (i.e., Decisional Forgiveness Scale, Emotional Forgiveness Scale, and Batson’s Empathy Adjectives) were examined with the sample of 194 college students (114 males and 80 females) in Nanjing. The instruments were used in the intervention studies (Phase II and Phase III). In Phase II study, two 4-session forgiveness programmes which were based on the Enright psycho-social process model and the Chinese cultural values respectively were conducted for 24 college students in Zhuhai. Based on both the quantitative and qualitative findings of the two brief programmes, a 10-session forgiveness programme integrating Chinese cultural values and the Enright Process Model was devised and implemented among 28 college students in Zhuhai (16 in experimental group and 12 in control group; 2 males and 26 females) in Phase III, the main study. The findings disclosed that gains in forgiveness attitudes in the experimental group were significantly higher than those in the control group. The improvement in the experimental group was maintained at the follow-up test after 3-month. Gains of state-anxiety in the experimental group, meanwhile, were marginally higher than those of the control group, while gains of empathy and self-esteem had no significant differences between groups. The qualitative findings further revealed the participants’ understandings of forgiveness and the strategies that influence forgiveness. The strategies facilitating forgiveness included engaging in perspective taking, taking self-responsibility, cultivating empathy, having positive thinking, and stopping rumination. In contrast, repeated offences, severe hurt experience from the offence, no apology from the offenders, and no continued relationship are perceived as factors that hinder the participants’ forgiveness. In addition, Chinese values of harmony and face were found to be pertinent factors influencing participants’ decision to forgive. The implications of the findings are discussed. Theoretically, the integration of the Enright Forgiveness Process Model and Chinese cultural values was effective in promoting forgiveness attitudes and psychological well-being with Chinese participants in the collectivist cultural setting. Practically, elements such as reconciliation need to be included in the forgiveness interventions with Chinese participants. Chinese educators are suggested to use the experiential psycho-social approach rather than the indoctrinatory approach to cultivate the value and strategies of forgiveness. The limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also presented. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study was designed to explore the different perceptions of college students' counseling service needs as well as the perceptions of counseling services by the student, faculty, and student affairs staff groups and subgroups of each group. The research approach of this investigation was a case study of one national university in the Republic of China. This study tested seven hypotheses and the major findings are as follows: there were significant differences among students, faculty, and student affairs staff members' perceptions of counseling services in terms of importance and success. Although all three groups agreed that the achievement of the counseling goals were important, the students showed a significantly stronger expectation than did faculty members. Findings related to the success of counseling services in the institution indicated that student affairs staff members showed higher mean scores than did the faculty and students. All three groups perceived a significant discrepancy between the importance of counseling services and the success of counseling services. Moreover, all subgroups of students, as divided by demographic variables, perceived a significant discrepancy between the importance and success of counseling services. All subgroups of faculty and student affairs staff members, except the members of military instructors and members with a mainland China educational background, perceived significant differences between the importance and success of counseling services. The sex, age, class level, academic major, and grade point average of students indicated significant differences either in the importance or the success of counseling services. Likewise, the status, educational background, and degrees earned of faculty and student affairs staff members also showed significant differences in the perceptions of either the importance or the success of counseling services. The study suggested that program planners should be aware of demographic variables when planning counseling programs. Further definitive research is recommended in order to investigate the college student counseling service needs.