Investigating the human value “forgiveness” across 30 countries: a cross-cultural meta-analytical approach

Abstract

The current study focuses on the human value of forgiveness and explores its correlates using a country-level meta-analytical approach. We investigated the importance of forgiveness using the Rokeach Value Survey with 41,975 participants from 30 countries to address the following research questions: How important is forgiveness across different countries? What contextual variables correlate with the ranked importance of forgiveness? This study provides important insights on country-level correlates of forgiveness in regard to conditions that may favor prioritizing the value forgiveness and its possible implications for societies. The results show that the value forgiveness is related to a highly developed socioeconomic and sociopolitical environment as well as to subjective well-being at the country level.