State Forgiveness and Its Influence on Burnout in Dutch Workers Social, Health, and Organisational Psychology (Work & Organisation track)

Abstract

As interpersonal relationships take on a greater importance in the contemporary workplace, it is important to acknowledge the inevitable conflict which will occur. Forgiveness is one of numerous potential constructive responses to conflict in the workplace but has thus far been largely neglected as a research topic. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how the level of forgiveness an individual experiences relating to a specific transgression (i.e. state forgiveness) relates to the level of burnout they may experience. As well as this, the mediating effect of state rumination and the moderating effect of perceived interactional justice were investigated. After completing a recall measure, 105 participants located in organisations around the Netherlands were asked to complete measures relating to the various variables of interest. Descriptive statistics and correlations were calculated and the PROCESS plug-in for SPSS were used for hypothesis testing. The results suggest that a negative relationship exists between level of state forgiveness and level of burnout, and that state rumination plays a negative mediating role on this relationship. No evidence was found for the moderating role of level of perceived interactional justice on the relationship between level of state forgiveness and level of state rumination. The results of the present study suggest that forgiveness may be a promising strategy to deal with workplace offenses. Future research ought to continue to pursue this line of research and further expand our understanding of the consequences of forgiving in the workplace.