A perception and motivation study among married adults
Sociology: Research Paper---Orathinkal Article Critique/Forgiveness:
A perception and motivation study among married adults
Introduction Summary
This article being reviewed outlines a study related to personality and social science investigating, Forgiveness: A Perception and Motivation study among married adults in Belgium. It was undertaken by Jose Orathinkal; Alfons Vanteenwegen and Roger Burggraeve.
There are clearly stated objectives which encompass understanding the nature of forgiveness in relation to how subjects of the research perceived it. The researchers wanted to analyze the motivational elements embodied in the willingness to forgive among heterosexual married couples. More so they were eager to discover whether respondents could distinguish between forgiveness and reconciliation another variable eminent to the study (Orathinkal, 2008).
A second objective lay in the authors’ desire to examine whether they could establish an empirical connection between perception of forgivingness and forgiveness in itself. In their attempt to achieve this goal they investigated if there were marked differences between first time married couples and those who were remarried. The other exploration lay in whether there were significant changes between men and women’s perceptions of forgiveness (Orathinkal et. al, 2008).
A social science methodology was employed in retrieving data for this study. It embraced selecting a population, sampling, distinct procedures pertaining to data collecting, analysis of data, display of data and arriving at conclusions.
Conclusions drawn advanced a conceptual model of forgiveness through ‘understanding and clarifying respondents’ ability to distinguish between forgiveness and reconciliation’ (Orathinkal, et. al, 2008, p 9). Orathinkal (2008) and his team garnered the assumptions that ‘where a negative perception of forgiveness is dominant clients would tend to be more resistant to it.. and clients with a positive perceptive perception would obviously be more tolerant to forgive (Orathinkal, et. al, 2008).
Literature Review Evaluation
A notable absence from this research document was a section stating literature review. However, reading through the introduction it could be deducted that the authors incorporated literature review within the introductory remarks in giving a synopsis of forgiveness and reconciliation based on the perspectives of other writers.
Precisely, in the opening paragraph a perceived conceptual framework is offered whereby the researchers clarified that forgiveness was formerly conceived as being exclusively connected to religious issues, but in realizing its effects on the psychology of being mental health specialists, psychologist and even psychiatrists have utilized it as a very effective therapeutic device during their practice.
The works of McCullough; Bono, Boot, Worthington, Murphy, Hargrave; Fennel and several others were referenced to project the notion of most spouses agreeing that forgiveness is an integral part of marital relationships and is responsible either for the demise or sustenance of the marriage.
In assessing the usefulness of the literature review and its position within the research paper , it must be noted that even though it has an unusual adaptation with regards to social science structured documents it has adequately fulfilled the requires of a comprehensive literature review. Importantly, there were enough supporting studies concerning forgiveness among couples to make the study relevant.
Particularly, there was a unique definition process of terms ranging from justification, exoneration and excuse. This is a commendable technique of literature review which is expected to be systemic, embodying a complex range of skills involving knowledge of defining relevant topics to be explored; literature search and retrieval; analyzing and synthesizing data as well as writing and reporting information accurately (Cronin et.al,2008).
Methodology
Sampling
787 respondents for a study of this nature is highly representative of the population and it can be speculated that the Belgium heterosexual married adult population is a large one. It was selected using the snow ball method, which has its limitations when evaluating specifics of sample consistency. 434 were first marriages and 363 remarried couples.
The advantage is that everyone has an equal opportunity of being selected, but the criteria for selection remains obscure apart form the general rule of heterosexual married couples. In this particular case the researchers recruited part of the sample to find other participants for this study.
Instrumentation
Administered questionnaires were the instruments used, but there was no evidence that these instruments were pretested for validity prior to being tendered as research material. However, it must be noted as well that there could have been a language difficulty in understanding what was required since questionnaires had to be translated into another language to facilitate the process.
Data collection procedures
A total of 988 questionnaires were either mailed or self administered with aid of students. There were of two types one for first marriage and the other for remarried couples. As in many administered questionnaire studies the researcher must make allowance for a percentage of them not returning. In this study this incidence was minimized since 785 were retuned representing 80% of the amount administered.
Display of Data
A total of four tables were used to display data. Table 1 displayed mean, standard deviation and Cronbach alpha of the EFI. Table 11 showed mean; standard deviation and frequency percentage of responses for motivation and perception of forgiveness. Table 111 offered a comparative analysis based on positive and negative perceptions of forgiveness. Table1V displayed Pearson’s correlation of scales among subscales.
While this display gave a very impressive scientific over view it was rather confusing from the perspective of a beginner in the field of social science research. Perhaps, for simplicity t data could have been displayed utilizing pie charts or graphic illustrations, especially, when presenting individual responses as depicted in Table 11.
Conclusions/Interpretation of Data
Conclusions were derived based on the interpretation of data displayed. To examine the validity of conclusions is to assess how each concept measured was defined prior to the study. From this research presentation the study was investigating two concepts among married couples perception of forgiveness and actual forgiveness.
The basis of measuring these two variables was the Forgiveness Perception and Motivation checklist and Enright Forgiveness Invention. There appears, however, to be an inconsistency within this study in that establishment of dependant and independent variables were not clarified. What are the dependant variables and the independent variables? This is still obscure and so are the conclusions.
Reference
Cronin Patricia, Francis Ryan, Coughlan Michael (2008). Undertaking a Literature Review. A
Step-by- Step approach. British Journal of Nursing.17 (1), 38-43
Orathinkal Jose, Vanteenwegen Alfons, Burggraeve Roger (2008). Forgiveness:
A perception and motivation study among married adults. Scandinavian Journal of
Psychology. 39(2) 155-160.
