Examining Forgiveness in Uganda
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Examining Forgiveness in Fourth Graders
by Emily Green, Amanda Gielau, Emma Deihl, and Abbie Jo Madson
Luther College Faculty Adviser: Loren Toussaint, Ph.D.
Located in East-Central Africa, Uganda contains one of the youngest, most rapidly growing populations in the world. Uganda’s population is 38,319,241 and consists of over nine different ethnic groups. Uganda’s official language is English, but other languages are spoken, including various Niger-Congo and Nilo- Saharan language as well as Swahili and Arabic. The primary religions of Uganda are Protestant (45.1%), Roman Catholic (39.3%), and Muslim (13.7%). Currently Uganda is experiencing government violence and corruption. During Uganda’s 2016 presidential election the government failed to protect citizens’ rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Those in opposition of the government’s actions were beaten and arrested.
Brighter Brains Institute (BBI)
In collaboration with Hank Pellissier, founder and director of Brighter Brains Institute (BBI), data was obtained from western Uganda. BBI is a non- profit organization, located in Piedmont, California, which supports schools, orphanages, and clinics in Uganda. BBI helps over 3,200 children and their communities, providing healthcare and education, funding tuition for poor children, supporting equality, contributing school supplies and nutritious food, and more. The organization currently aids a total of 17 Ugandan schools.
Data
A forgiveness questionnaire was designed by Pellissier consisting of ten questions. Questions assessed the students’ understanding of physical versus psychological hurt, intentional versus accidental hurt, feelings experienced following hurtful situations, and forgiveness. Data was collected from 14 Ugandan fourth graders.
Table 1.
Questionnaire Summary
Note: “Caned” is a form of punishment (i.e., whipping) within homes and schools. The number of strokes is correlated with behavior.
Results
After examining the responses to the questionnaires, several themes and commonalities were found. All fourteen respondents wrote “yes” for questions seven and eight (see Table 1), demonstrating an understanding that forgiveness is possible, as they could all recall a time when someone had forgiven them and they had forgiven someone else. Whether the hurt experiences by the students were intentional or unintentional, all 14 of the respondents reported that they still wanted to forgive the person who hurt them. Many of the students also wrote that they needed to forgive the person who hurt them to find kindness, freedom, peace, love, joy, or happiness within themselves, which implies that the students understand the negative impact holding a grudge against someone can have on his or her own mental health. Figure 1 depicts a model, developed from participant responses, of additional motivators of forgiveness.
Conclusions
Implications
These results provide information into the beliefs and understanding of forgiveness in Ugandan fourth graders. The present results can be used to base future hypotheses about forgiveness on. The expansion of data collection to Uganda may help our understanding of forgiveness in different parts of the world, encountering diverse cultures, economies, traditions, and etc.
Future Research
The future objective is to refine Pellissier’s questionnaire to develop a scale that allows for more valid and culturally relevant measurement of forgiveness. Ideally a new measure would allow students to respond on a Likert-type rating scale and produce more quantifiable results. A quantitative scale could also be given to fourth graders in the United States to compare the responses in determining whether or not fourth graders in Uganda and fourth graders in the United States hold similar beliefs regarding forgiveness.
References
Brighter Brains. (2017). Retrieved April 12, 2017, from http://brighterbrains.org/
A Map of Africa. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2017,
from http://www.lowerpark.cheshire.sch.uk/uganda/uganda_map.htm
The World Factbook: UGANDA. (2017, January 12). Retrieved April 13, 2017,
from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html
Uganda 2016/2017. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2017,
from https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/africa/uganda/report-uganda/
Forgiveness and Adverse Childhood Experiences in Adult Ugandan Women
by Emily Green & Levi Bird (Luther College)
Introduction
The present pilot study targeted a sample of the Ugandan women population and their ability to choose forgiveness following adverse childhood experiences. Granting forgiveness from adverse experiences is likely associated with multiple activations in an integrated brain network involved in theory of mind, empathy, and the regulation of affect through cognition (Ricciardi et al., 2013). From both traumatic and stressful events, a previous study indicated that women tend to show similar levels of PTSD symptoms (Van den Berg et al., 2017). Along with those symptoms, a higher presence of adverse childhood experiences is inversely associated with well-being and suicide resilience (Shweta et al., 2017). From this we hypothesized that those who are older would be more forgiving of the adverse childhood experiences.
Methods
Participants:
-10 Ugandan women, Age: 22-60 years
Measures:
Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE – IQ)
43-items
Scoring by WHO:
Binary – ‘Yes’ (i.e. ’Once’, ‘A few’, ‘Many times’) earned a 1
Frequency – Specific forms of ’Yes’ (i.e. ’A few’, ‘Many times’) earned a 1
Issue of minor adverse experiences grouped with major experiences resolved by creating sub-measures, such as:
Witnessing Violence at Home
Experiencing Emotional Abuse at Home
Experiencing Physical Neglect
-Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ)
16-items
Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS)
18-items
Brighter Brains Institute (BBI)
In collaboration with Hank Pellissier, founder and director of BBI, data was obtained from women in western Uganda. BBI is a non-profit organization, located in Piedmont, California, which supports clinics, schools, and orphanages in Uganda. BBI assists over 3,200 children and their communities, providing healthcare and education, supporting equality, funding tuition for poor children, contributing school supplies and nutritious food, and more.
Results
On average, women who were employed were more likely to have experienced adverse events, such as witnessing violence in community and experiencing sexual assault. A bivariate Pearson Correlation revealed that unemployed women were more likely to have had exposure to war/collective violence and trauma. Women were more likely to be forgiving in general if they had low education or if they had experienced rape. The younger the woman was, the more likely she was willing to be forgiving toward herself and other people.
Discussion
Higher levels of forgiveness from adverse childhood experiences in women towards themselves and others are positively correlated with the younger she is, if she is unemployed, is less educated, and/or had experienced rape. Overarching measures of trauma and adverse childhood experiences appear to be more common among unemployed women while more specific incidents of witnessing violence and experiencing sexual assault could be present in employed women. At the moment, it appears that employment has a role in determining the type and severity of negative experiences a participant has. From the preliminary results, data suggest that forgiveness may act as a barrier and buffer to the most negative experiences of their life within the harsh environments the women are exposed to in Uganda.
Further research is imperative via a larger sample to provide a greater balance of employed participants and unemployed participants since 30% of participants represent unemployed participants. This would assist in distinguishing the difference between coincidental and otherwise significant statistical correlations. The next step is to obtain said larger sample in conjunction with the Brighter Brains Institute. This may then lead to identification of particular methods that the women utilize to overcome and cope with the negative experiences in their lives.
References
Ricciardi, E., Rota, G., Sani, L., Gentili, C., Gaglianese, A.,
Guazzelli, M., & Pietrini, P. (2013). How the brain heals emotional wounds: the functional neuro-anatomy of forgiveness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 839. http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00839.Kapoor, S., Domingue, H. K., Watson-Singleton, N. N., Are, F., Elmore, C. A., Crooks, C. L., Kaslow, N. J. (2017, November 02). Childhood Abuse,
Intrapersonal Strength, and Suicide Resilience in African American Females who Attempted Suicide. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10896-017-9943-2.
Van den Berg, Tollenaar, Spinhoven, Penninx, & Elzinga. (2017, November 13). A new perspective on PTSD symptoms after traumatic versus stressful life events and the role of gender. Retrieved February 12, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29435199.