The Effect of Perspective Taking Skill Training on Enhancing Forgiveness and Gratitude Virtues through Forum Theater Approach

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of perspective taking skill, with the two forms of imagine-self and imagine-other, training on forgiveness and gratitude virtues through the use of Forum Theater Method. Furthermore, the study was to compare the two forms of perspective-taking in this regard. Accordingly, a pretest posttest quasi-experimental design including two experimental groups and one control group was used for conducting this study. The participants consisted of 72 female fifth graders in Shiraz, Iran, who were selected based on cluster sampling. Of the two experimental groups, one received the imagine-self perspective-taking skill training and the other received imagine-other perspective-taking skill training. The data was then collected using the Forgiveness Scale (Chiaramello et al., 2008), and the Gratitude Questionnaire (McCullough et al., 2002), and analyzed by running MANOVA. Based on the results, the imagine-self perspective-taking skill training could affect participants' “lasting resentment”, and imagine-other perspective-taking skill training could affect participants' “lasting resentment” and “sensitivity to the circumstances of the offence”. However, the experimental groups' training had no statistically significant effect on “willingness to forgive” and “willingness to revenge”. Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference between the two experimental groups in forgiveness mean scores after receiving training. Concerning participants' level of gratitude, perspective-taking skill training was revealed as effective in both experimental groups. However, no statistically significant difference was observed between the two experimental groups in their mean scores of gratitude. Based on the overall results of this study, it can be concluded that the use of Forum Theater method for provision of perspective-taking skill training to students can extol their positive moral virtues.