Humility, Forgiveness, and Emerging Adult Female Romantic Relationships

Among a sample of emerging adult females (N = 152) we empirically examined the role of humility and forgiveness in romantic relationships. We specifically tested a model linking perceived humility to relationship satisfaction with self-forgiveness and partner-forgiveness. Participants in a romantic relationship completed measures of self-reported humility, self-forgiveness, partner-forgiveness, and relationship satisfaction. Serial mediation analyses were conducted using path analysis to test the following sequence, humility self-forgiveness partner-forgiveness relationship satisfaction. Findings indicate that humility was related to relationship satisfaction via a serially mediated path of self-forgiveness and partner-forgiveness, which was not reducible to impression management. We consider implications for research and clinical practice.