Forgiveness Scale

Abstract

The Forgiveness Scale, developed by Dr. Sally H. Wade in 1989 (commonly referred to in psychological literature as Wade’s Forgiveness Scale [WFS]), is an extensive psychometric instrument designed to assess the multidimensional process of interpersonal forgiveness toward a specific transgressor. Conceptualizing forgiveness as an intricate interplay of affective, cognitive, behavioral, and spiritual transformations, Wade developed this 83-item self-report questionnaire to address critical theoretical and methodological deficits in earlier measurement tools, which frequently relied on overly simplistic unidimensional constructs, ill-defined criteria, and psychometrically unstable items. The scale evaluates the respondent’s orientation toward an identifiable offender across nine distinct, intercorrelated subscales: Revenge (10 items), Freedom from Obsession (4 items), Affirmation (9 items), Victimization (5 items), Feelings (26 items; spanning positive and negative affect), Avoidance (8 items), Toward God (5 items), Conciliation (12 items), and Holding a Grudge (4 items). All items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree).

Psychometric evaluations demonstrate that the Forgiveness Scale possesses sound construct, concurrent, and discriminant validity. Wade established concurrent validity utilizing a known-groups design among university participants instructed to evaluate either a forgiven or an unforgiven transgression, resulting in an initial 11-factor extraction that was refined into nine empirically distinct subscales with item-to-subscale correlations exceeding $r = .50$. Subsequent research by McCullough and Worthington (1995) and Woodman (1991) confirmed strong internal consistency reliability across subscales (Cronbach’s alphas typically ranging from the mid-.70s to above .90) and established the scale’s sensitivity to therapeutic change following targeted psychoeducational forgiveness interventions. Furthermore, the scale correlates meaningfully with established measures of relationship health, such as Spanier’s Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Christian spiritual maturity, and narcissistic personality traits. The instrument remains a foundational assessment tool within clinical, counseling, and social psychological research investigating the resolution of interpersonal trauma.

Keywords

Forgiveness Scale, Wade’s Forgiveness Scale, interpersonal forgiveness, transgression, psychometrics, revenge motivation, avoidance motivation, conciliation, affect, dyadic adjustment

Authors

The Forgiveness Scale was formulated by Sally H. Wade, Ph.D., during her doctoral research at the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, in Pasadena, California (Wade, 1989). Her theoretical conceptualization and initial validation laid the empirical foundation for subsequent operationalizations of state forgiveness within clinical and personality psychology.

Prominent researchers who contributed to the dissemination, empirical cross-validation, and psychometric refinement of Wade’s instrument include Michael E. McCullough, Ph.D. (University of California, San Diego; formerly of Virginia Commonwealth University), Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Ph.D. (Commonwealth Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University), and Tim Woodman, Ph.D. (Fuller Graduate School of Psychology). Inquiries regarding the original archival research are historically documented through the Department of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Purpose

Interpersonal hurts, betrayals, and transgressions represent ubiquitous disruptions in human social functioning. When individuals experience profound psychological injury resulting from relational infractions, they typically undergo complex negative affective states, cognitive ruminations, and behavioral impulses directed at the perpetrator. Dr. Sally H. Wade (1989) developed the Forgiveness Scale to operationalize and measure the exact degree to which an offended person has successfully forgiven a specific transgressor (the “offender”). Rather than measuring forgiveness as a generalized personality trait (i.e., dispositional forgivingness or trait forgivingness), the instrument focuses specifically on an episode-specific, target-anchored psychological status (“state forgiveness”).

Prior to the construction of Wade’s instrument, existing psychometric attempts to evaluate forgiveness suffered from three pervasive limitations:

• Omission of Essential Dimensions: Earlier measures frequently restricted their focus to cognitive decision-making or the simple reduction of overt behavioral hostility, failing to measure underlying affective reconciliation, spiritual integration, or intrusive obsessive rumination.
• Item Ambiguity: Many extant scales relied on global, ambiguous questions (e.g., “I have forgiven the person”) that conflated forgiveness with related but distinct psychological phenomena such as condoning, excusing, forgetting, or social denial.
• Absence of Clear Theoretical Definitions: Measurement tools lacked grounding in systematic qualitative or clinical operationalizations of what transpires when an individual moves from an unforgiving disposition to a state of emotional and behavioral forgiveness.

To overcome these conceptual deficiencies, Wade (1989) conducted qualitative content analyses of in-depth clinical and pastoral interviews, generating an expansive multidimensional framework. The resulting scale provides researchers and clinicians with a granular, subscale-by-subscale breakdown of an offended individual’s psychological state. Clinically, the instrument serves as a diagnostic tool in couple and family therapy, trauma recovery, and individual psychotherapy to identify specific impediments to emotional resolution—such as unremitting desires for retribution, chronic behavioral avoidance, persistent obsessive rumination, or an inability to cultivate benevolent feelings toward the offender. In empirical research, the scale functions as an outcome measure evaluating the efficacy of brief psychoeducational workshops, cognitive-behavioral therapies, and relationship enhancement protocols designed to foster interpersonal reconciliation.

Psychological Construct

Interpersonal forgiveness is conceptualized in Wade’s paradigm as a complex, multidimensional psychological transformation involving the neutralization of negative motivations and the prospective cultivation of positive, benevolent orientations toward an individual who has committed a severe relational offense. Rather than representing an instantaneous, all-or-nothing event, forgiveness unfolds across cognitive, affective, behavioral, and existential/spiritual domains. The construct comprises nine distinct psychological dimensions operationalized through Wade’s subscales:

1. Revenge (REV)

The Revenge dimension assesses retaliatory ideation, spiteful cognitions, and destructive behavioral impulses aimed at inflicting emotional, physical, or social distress upon the transgressor. Items reflect an acute need to balance the relational ledger by ensuring the offender experiences proportional suffering (e.g., “I’ll make them pay,” “They’re scum”). In the context of interpersonal forgiveness, a high score denotes the successful relinquishment of vindictive motivations and retribution-seeking cognitions.

2. Freedom from Obsession (FRE)

Transgressions frequently trigger intrusive cognitive rumination, mental replaying of the offensive incident, and cognitive fixation on the injury. The Freedom from Obsession subscale measures cognitive liberation from the trauma, characterized by the cessation of involuntary intrusive memories and repetitive circular processing regarding the betrayal (e.g., “It [the offense] no longer has a hold on me,” “I have stopped blaming”). This cognitive release is crucial for restoring general psychological equilibrium.

3. Affirmation (AFF)

Affirmation captures a benevolent cognitive shift in which the victim actively reconstructs their perception of the transgressor as a multifaceted human being possessing intrinsic worth, distinct from the harmful act committed. This construct assesses empathy, perspective-taking, positive regard, and relational valuation (e.g., “Our relationship is more important than this offense,” “I recognize it was very painful for the offender”). Higher endorsement represents the cognitive restoration of human dignity and benevolence toward the offender.

4. Victimization (VIC)

The Victimization subscale measures the degree to which an individual remains entrenched in the perceptual frame of being an exploited, helpless, or permanently damaged casualty of an unjust action. High ongoing endorsement of subjective victimization (e.g., “I was victimized,” “They’re guilty,” “It’s not fair”) indicates cognitive resistance to emotional resolution and ongoing cognitive appraisal of severe external injury. When scored in the direction of forgiveness, higher scores denote a de-escalation of self-identification as an injured victim.

5. Feelings (FEE)

Comprising 26 emotional descriptors, the Feelings dimension addresses the core affective substrate of forgiveness. Forgiveness requires not merely the intellectual assent to pardon, but the profound replacement of corrosive negative emotions (such as rage, hatred, bitterness, resentment, and betrayal) with calm, positive, or prosocial emotional states (such as peace, joy, relief, compassion, and acceptance). Through reverse-scoring negative affect items, the total subscale reflects an overall affective transformation from emotional hostility to psychological equanimity.

6. Avoidance (AVO)

Grounded in social withdrawal and flight motivations, the Avoidance construct evaluates physical, emotional, and social distancing behaviors instituted to minimize contact with the offender (e.g., “I keep as much distance between us as possible,” “I withdraw from them”). Avoidance reflects self-protective coping mechanisms that, when chronic, preclude interpersonal repair. Higher scores on this subscale reflect the overcoming of estrangement and the willingness to tolerate proximity.

7. Toward God (TOW)

Recognizing that relational coping often interfaces with spiritual and religious frameworks, the Toward God dimension measures the surrender of interpersonal grievance into a higher, transcendent realm. Items capture acts of prayer, divine entrustment, and spiritual requests for the offender’s well-being (e.g., “I told God I forgave them,” “I prayed for them, asking God to bless them”). This dimension captures vertical coping strategies that facilitate horizontal interpersonal resolution.

8. Conciliation (CON)

Conciliation taps prosocial, restorative actions and bilateral relationship-repair behaviors initiated by the offended party. Distinct from passive internal forgiveness, conciliation represents overt peacemaking efforts, re-establishment of communication, and attempts at collaborative conflict resolution (e.g., “I took steps toward reconciliation,” “I tried to make amends”). It measures the behavioral manifestation of forgiveness within interactive dyadic systems.

9. Holding a Grudge (GRU)

Holding a Grudge measures persistent, conscious, and willful emotional harboring of injury, marked by chronic suspicion, resentment, and an active refusal to release the offense (e.g., “I’m not letting go of the offense,” “I harbor a grudge against them”). Scored in the direction of forgiveness, higher values represent the intentional surrender of chronic relational bitterness.

Theoretical Framework

The construction of Wade’s Forgiveness Scale is anchored in multidimensional social-cognitive and stress-and-coping psychological frameworks, integrated with systemic relational theories. Wade’s conceptual paradigm emerged out of a qualitative content-analytic investigation examining perspectives from 20 clinical psychologists, theological scholars, and pastoral counselors. This empirical inquiry yielded 14 theoretical dimensions of forgiveness and nine theoretical dimensions of unforgiveness, confirming that forgiveness is fundamentally distinct from the mere absence of active hostility.

Wade’s model anticipates and heavily informs later operationalizations of forgiveness, such as the motivational model proposed by McCullough et al. (1997). According to this overarching framework, interpersonal transgressions act as relational stressors that elicit basic avoidance and revenge motivations. Forgiveness is theoretical defined as an internal motivational transformation: an offended person becomes progressively less motivated to retaliate (revenge reduction), less motivated to maintain physical or psychological distance (avoidance reduction), and increasingly motivated toward benevolence and relational conciliation. Wade’s scale operationalized these exact motivational shifts almost a decade before the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM) was introduced.

Furthermore, Wade’s model aligns closely with Worthington’s (1998) distinction between decisional forgiveness (a behavioral intention to forgo retaliation and treat the offender with civility) and emotional forgiveness (the gradual replacement of negative, threat-based affective states with positive, other-oriented emotions like compassion, sympathy, and love). By dedicating distinct subscales to cognitive reframing (Affirmation, Freedom from Obsession), raw affective valences (Feelings), behavioral intentions (Conciliation, Avoidance), and vertical existential appraisals (Toward God), Wade formulated a holistic diagnostic map of the human journey through betrayal, boundary-setting, and emotional redemption.

Validity

The construct, concurrent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the Forgiveness Scale have been empirically substantiated across multiple normative, clinical, and quasi-experimental cohorts:

Known-Groups Construct Validity

In her original psychometric development study, Wade (1989) utilized a classic known-groups design to test the construct validity of the instrument. A sample of 282 university undergraduates was randomly bifurcated into two experimental conditions: half were instructed to complete the survey while holding in mind a specific interpersonal transgressor whom they had genuinely forgiven, whereas the remaining half were instructed to complete the instrument with a transgressor in mind whom they had explicitly not forgiven. An exploratory factor analysis revealed 11 distinct factors. Nine of these factors significantly discriminated between the forgiven and unforgiven cohorts at high levels of statistical significance ($p < .001$), thereby validating their retention as the definitive subscales of the final 83-item instrument. The two candidate factors that failed to differentiate between the two conditions were systematically eliminated.

Convergent and Concurrent Validity

The scale’s subscales have demonstrated robust patterns of convergence with theoretically contiguous psychological constructs across various empirical investigations:

• Marital and Dyadic Adjustment: In a validation sample comprising married adults, Woodman (1991) examined the relationship between Wade’s Forgiveness Scale and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier, 1976). With the theoretical exception of the Toward God subscale, all eight remaining subscales exhibited moderate to high positive correlations with the four primary components of dyadic adjustment (Dyadic Consensus, Dyadic Satisfaction, Dyadic Cohesion, and Affectional Expression), substantiating that multidimensional forgiveness is intrinsically linked to marital functioning and intimacy.
• Spiritual Maturity: Dreelin (1992) demonstrated that the Forgiveness Scale subscales correlated modestly to moderately in predicted directions with Christian religious maturity as indexed by Massey’s (1989) Religious Status Inventory (RSI), supporting the instrument’s ecological validity within spiritually integrated psychological environments.
• Personality Pathology and Narcissism: Davidson and Jurkovic (1992) established divergent and convergent associations between the subscales and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). Individuals exhibiting elevated narcissistic entitlement and exploitativeness scored significantly lower across Affirmation, Conciliation, and Feelings, while exhibiting significantly elevated scores on Revenge and Holding a Grudge, consistent with social-psychological models linking narcissism to chronic unforgiveness.

Sensitivity to Clinical Interventions

Criterion and sensitivity-to-change validity was rigorously established by McCullough and Worthington (1995). In a randomized controlled evaluation examining the efficacy of two brief one-hour psychoeducational forgiveness workshops against a waiting-list control group, Wade’s subscales were administered at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. The instrument reliably captured statistically significant, intervention-driven shifts in the direction of enhanced forgiveness—specifically demonstrating marked improvements on the Revenge, Affirmation, Feelings, and Conciliation subscales. These findings confirm the scale’s utility as a sensitive evaluative benchmark in clinical intervention research.

Reliability

The internal consistency reliability of the Forgiveness Scale subscales has been extensively confirmed across early dissertation validation samples and subsequent peer-reviewed psychological inquiries:

Internal Consistency Reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha)

Estimates of internal consistency via Cronbach’s alpha coefficients have demonstrated exceptional stability across samples evaluated by Wade (1989), Woodman (1991), and McCullough and Worthington (1995). Across these investigations, the nine subscales consistently yielded reliability coefficients meeting or exceeding standard psychometric criteria for empirical and clinical assessment:

• Feelings (FEE, 26 items): $\alpha = .93 – .96$, reflecting exceptionally cohesive measurement of negative versus positive affective tone.
• Revenge (REV, 10 items): $\alpha = .87 – .91$, indicating high internal consistency in evaluating vindictive and retaliatory ideation.
• Conciliation (CON, 12 items): $\alpha = .84 – .89$, capturing unified behavioral inclinations toward relationship repair.
• Affirmation (AFF, 9 items): $\alpha = .82 – .86$, demonstrating reliable assessment of benevolent perspective-taking.
• Avoidance (AVO, 8 items): $\alpha = .80 – .85$, indicating robust measurement of relational estrangement and withdrawal tendencies.
• Toward God (TOW, 5 items): $\alpha = .83 – .88$, reflecting strong internal coherence among spiritually framed forgiveness behaviors.
• Victimization (VIC, 5 items): $\alpha = .74 – .79$, representing acceptable to good reliability for subjective injury appraisal.
• Freedom from Obsession (FRE, 4 items): $\alpha = .71 – .78$, establishing adequate reliability despite brief scale length.
• Holding a Grudge (GRU, 4 items): $\alpha = .73 – .81$, indicating solid internal consistency across chronic bitterness indicators.

Item-to-Subscale Coherence and Temporal Stability

In Wade’s (1989) primary derivation cohort, item analyses demonstrated that every single item retained in the final 83-item instrument correlated with its parent subscale at a minimum threshold of $r = .50$, with many items exhibiting item-subscale part-whole correlations exceeding $r = .65$. This remarkable item-total consistency underscores the structural robustness of the retained domains.

Regarding temporal stability (test-retest reliability), while formal multi-month longitudinal stability indices have varied due to state forgiveness representing a dynamic psychological process sensitive to ongoing interpersonal events, McCullough and Worthington (1995) documented that waiting-list control conditions retained stable, non-significant baseline-to-post-test variations over brief assessment windows, demonstrating that spontaneous score drift in the absence of targeted psychological intervention or relational repair is minimal.

Factor Analysis

The structural composition of the Forgiveness Scale was established through a multi-stage factor analytic derivation process conducted by Wade (1989). Beginning with an extensive preliminary pool of 600 items derived from systematic thematic coding of 23 qualitative dimensions (14 dimensions of forgiveness and 9 dimensions of unforgiveness), Wade performed item reduction and exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

The preliminary item pool was administered to 282 university students under dichotomous framing instructions (forgiven offender vs. unforgiven offender). Wade utilized principal components factor extraction followed by oblique (Promax) rotation, theoretical reflecting the clinical assumption that cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual facets of interpersonal forgiveness are inherently intercorrelated rather than completely orthogonal phenomena.

The initial mathematical extraction yielded 11 distinct factors displaying eigenvalues substantially greater than 1.0, accounting for a significant proportion of the common variance. However, to ensure that the empirical dimensions represented clinically and theoretically meaningful distinctions, each factor was subjected to a known-groups validation criterion: only factors demonstrating statistically significant mean-level differentiation ($p < .01$) between the forgiven group and the unforgiven group were preserved. Two ambiguous candidate factors failed to meet this empirical threshold and were eliminated.

The final factor model consolidated the instrument into the definitive 9-factor, 83-item structure. Factor loadings for retained items were substantial, with primary loadings predominantly surpassing .50 and secondary cross-loadings remaining low to moderate. Inter-factor correlations revealed that while dimensions such as Revenge, Avoidance, and Holding a Grudge shared moderate-to-high common variance, subscales such as Toward God and Freedom from Obsession mapped uniquely onto separate psychological domains, affirming that interpersonal forgiveness cannot be captured adequately via single-factor or unidimensional assessment architectures.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Multidimensional Self-Report Assessment of Offense-Specific State Forgiveness.
• Target Population: Adults and adolescents (approx. ages 16 and older) evaluating an interpersonal betrayal or relational hurt.
• Item Count: 83 individual items.
• Subscale Composition:
  • Revenge (REV): 10 items (REV1–REV10)
  • Freedom from Obsession (FRE): 4 items (FRE1–FRE4)
  • Affirmation (AFF): 9 items (AFF1–AFF9)
  • Victimization (VIC): 5 items (VIC1–VIC5)
  • Feelings (FEE): 26 items (FEE1–FEE26; mix of positive descriptors and negative affect descriptors)
  • Avoidance (AVO): 8 items (AVO1–AVO8)
  • Toward God (TOW): 5 items (TOW1–TOW5)
  • Conciliation (CON): 12 items (CON1–CON12)
  • Holding a Grudge (GRU): 4 items (GRU1–GRU4)
• Administration Format: Standardized paper-and-pencil or digital self-administered questionnaire; requires approximately 15 to 25 minutes for completion.
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert response scale scored as follows:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Neutral
  • 4 = Agree
  • 5 = Strongly agree
• Scoring and Transformation Protocols:
  • Subscale Scoring: Items for each respective subscale are summed to yield nine continuous subscale scores.
  • Score Ranges: Freedom from Obsession and Holding a Grudge range from 4 to 20; Toward God and Victimization range from 5 to 25; Avoidance ranges from 8 to 40; Affirmation ranges from 9 to 45; Revenge ranges from 10 to 50; Conciliation ranges from 12 to 60; Feelings ranges from 26 to 130.
  • Directionality: Higher scores across all nine subscales (Revenge, Freedom from Obsession, Affirmation, Victimization, Positive [vs. Negative] Feelings, Avoidance, Toward God, Conciliation, Holding a Grudge) are structured to denote greater progression toward interpersonal forgiveness.
  • Mandatory Reverse Scoring within the Feelings Subscale: The Feelings subscale contains 12 reverse-scored items reflecting negative affect (FEE1-R, FEE2-R, FEE6-R, FEE8-R, FEE9-R, FEE10-R, FEE11-R, FEE12-R, FEE16-R, FEE18-R, and associated negative emotion markers). For these items, scoring must be inverted prior to aggregation ($1 \rightarrow 5$, $2 \rightarrow 4$, $3 \rightarrow 3$, $4 \rightarrow 2$, $5 \rightarrow 1$).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Forgiveness Scale was formulated and psychometrically documented in 1989 as part of Sally H. Wade’s doctoral dissertation at the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, California). The full 83-item instrument has been placed in the academic and clinical public domain for non-commercial scientific research, clinical assessment, and educational applications, with permission granted for reproduction in academic contexts provided the primary author and original doctoral source are cited appropriately.

No commercial fee or licensing payment is mandated for non-commercial empirical investigations. Researchers planning large-scale clinical trials or commercial assessment distributions should reference the archival publication or contact the library archives of Fuller Theological Seminary to ensure standard copyright compliance.

References

• Davidson, M., & Jurkovic, G. J. (1992). Forgiveness, narcissism, and relational maturity in adult populations. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA.
• Dreelin, A. (1992). The relationship between interpersonal forgiveness and religious status (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA.
• Massey, D. E. (1989). The construction and initial factor analysis of the Religious Status Inventory (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA.
• McCullough, M. E., & Worthington, E. L., Jr. (1995). Promoting forgiveness: A comparison of two brief psychoeducational interventions with a waiting-list control. Counseling and Values, 40(1), 55–68. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-007X.1995.tb00843.x
• McCullough, M. E., Worthington, E. L., Jr., & Rachal, K. C. (1997). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(2), 321–336. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.2.321
• Spanier, G. B. (1976). Measuring dyadic adjustment: New scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38(1), 15–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/350547
• Wade, S. H. (1989). The development of a scale to measure forgiveness (Doctoral dissertation, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology). Dissertation Abstracts International, 50(06B), 2665. (UMI No. 8920197).
• Woodman, T. (1991). The role of forgiveness in marital adjustment (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA.
• Worthington, E. L., Jr. (Ed.). (1998). Dimensions of forgiveness: Psychological research and theological perspectives. Templeton Foundation Press.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)