Comparison of forgiveness in non-clinical depressed, clinical depressed and normal people

The ability to forgive is one of the most important and effective variables in mental health. In addition, this ability is often advised in big religions, which has caused religious people to be more forgiving than non-religious ones. The goal of this study was to compare forgiveness in normal, non-clinically depressed, and clinically depressed people. A total of 151 individuals, including 60 normal, 60 non-clinically depressed and 31 clinically depressed people, were chosen from psychological and consultant centers and were asked to complete questionnaires assessing forgiveness and the Beck Depression Inventory. The one-way of analysis of variance revealed that the normal group was more forgiving than the non-clinically and clinically depressed groups. Contrary to what was expected, there was no significant difference in forgiveness between the non-clinically depressed and the clinically depressed groups. The psychological characteristics of depressed individuals clearly show their inability to forgive. Because this subject is rather new, accurate studies must be conducted in order to understand the differences in the ability to forgive between the clinically depressed and the non-clinically depressed groups.