Assessing Forgiveness in Interpersonal Conflict Among Thai Emerging Adults: Development and Psychometric Properties of the Peer Forgiveness Scale (PFS)

Abstract

Forgiveness is one of the positive coping strategies with interpersonal conflict rebuilding the quality of peer relationships. The Peer Forgiveness Scale (PFS), measuring forgiveness after an interpersonal offense, was developed and evaluated its psychometric properties. Participants were 436 emerging adults in Thailand with ages between 18 – 25 years old. Confirmatory factory analysis indicated a four-factor structure with 20 items was the better fit model. Multigroup analysis supported measurement invariance across genders. The reliability of the PFS was found to be satisfactory and the strong evidence of construct validity were demonstrated. The psychometric properties of PFS support its feasibilities as a research scale to measure forgiveness in peer relationships and as a scale using for counseling session.