Role of self-compassion and forgiveness in prediction of depression severity among university students

It appears that depressed people have low self-compassion and forgiveness due to having negative attitudes. In order to test this hypothesis, the current study investigated the role of self-compassion and forgiveness in the prediction of depression severity among university students.

Methods and Materials: 

In a correlational study during 2010-11, 136 individuals were randomly selected from all students of Mohaghegh Ardabili University (Ardabil, Iran). The participants filled out depression, self-compassion, and forgiveness questionnaires. The collected data was analyzed using Pearson's correlation test and multiple regression analysis in SPSS 18 .

Self-compassion and forgiveness were negatively correlated with depression. In addition, self-compassion and forgiveness explained 16% and 20% of the variance of depression, respectively.

Self-compassion and forgiveness are two positive personality traits that decrease the probability of depression.