The Predictive Roles of Positivity, Forgiveness and Religious Attitudes on Subjective Happiness

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the relationships among positivity, forgiveness, religious attitudes and subjective happiness on university students. The current study has been conducted in correlational design. The participants of the study consisted of 798 university students who were studying at different universities in Turkey. Participants completed the questionnaire packet including four different scales: subjective happiness scale (SHS), positivity scale (PS), forgiveness scale (FS) and Ok-religious attitude scale (ORAS). Pearson correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were used to analyse the obtained data. The results indicated that positivity and forgiveness predicted subjective happiness significantly, and collectively accounted 22% of the variance of subjective happiness. However, according to the results, religious attitude did not significantly predict subjective happiness. The results obtained from the research were discussed in a light of related literature and several suggestions were made.