Associations of self-forgiveness processes with distress and well-being outcomes: Evidence from a longitudinal study of Indonesian adults

To date, few empirical studies have examined the benefits of the processes involved in self-forgiveness—value reorientation and esteem restoration—for individual well-being using longitudinal data from non-Western samples. In this study, we take a step toward addressing this gap by analysing three waves of data collected among 595 Indonesians (M_age = 21.95, SD = 4.39). Applying the analytic templates for lagged exposure-wide and outcome-wide longitudinal designs, we performed a series of linear regressions to estimate associations of value reorientation and esteem restoration in Wave 2 with three indicators of distress and 10 indicators of well-being in Wave 3, adjusting for Wave 1 covariates. Value reorientation and esteem restoration were each associated with improvements in several well-being outcomes (six for value reorientation and three for esteem restoration), but both showed little evidence of associations with the distress outcomes. In a secondary analysis, those who scored higher on both value reorientation and esteem restoration (i.e., self-forgiveness group) in Wave 2 reported higher well-being on five outcomes in Wave 3 compared to those who scored lower on value reorientation, esteem restoration, or both (i.e., no or partial self-forgiveness group). We discuss some implications of the findings for conceptualising self-forgiveness and promoting well-being.