Caperton Forgiveness Style Inventory (CFSI)- Revised

Abstract

The Caperton Forgiveness Style Inventory (CFSI)- Revised is an empirical psychometric instrument developed by Duane Caperton (2008, 2009) designed to evaluate individual stylistic variations and behavioral tendencies in the process of interpersonal forgiveness. While early psychological instruments predominantly conceptualized forgiveness as a unidimensional trait or a discrete, situational outcome (such as the reduction of negative revenge and avoidance motivations), the CFSI-R operationalizes forgiveness as a multifaceted procedural style comprised of cognitive, communicative, affective, and dispositional strategies. Comprising 21 self-report items scored on a 5-point Likert-type frequency scale ranging from 0 (I never do this) to 4 (I frequently do this), the inventory delineates four primary stylistic dimensions: Interpersonal (encompassing cognitive empathy, perspective-taking, and direct communicative reconciliation), Easy Going (a dispositional tendency to bypass formal forgiveness due to low emotional reactivity or minimization of interpersonal friction), Grudge Holder (a protracted, resentful orientation characterized by rumination, emotional retention of hurt, and prospective weaponization of past offenses), and Humility (cognitive self-appraisal of personal fallibility, shared culpability, and rejection of self-righteous moral superiority).

Psychometric evaluations of the instrument demonstrate adequate to strong structural validity, robust internal consistency across subscales, and clear convergent and discriminant associations with established measures of trait forgiveness, empathy, emotional stability, and the Big Five personality dimensions. Through its distinct scoring system—incorporating standard coding, double coding, and reverse coding—the CFSI-R affords clinical psychologists, marital and family therapists, and social psychology researchers a nuanced diagnostic framework for identifying idiosyncratic pathways and structural impediments to genuine interpersonal reconciliation.

Keywords

Caperton Forgiveness Style Inventory, CFSI-R, interpersonal forgiveness, forgiveness styles, psychometrics, grudge holding, humility, cognitive perspective-taking, conflict resolution, emotional reconciliation, psychometric assessment

Authors

The Caperton Forgiveness Style Inventory – Revised was constructed and psychometrically investigated by Duane Caperton, Ph.D. The instrument formed the empirical core of his doctoral dissertation within the Department of Communication Disorders and Counseling, School, and Educational Psychology at the Bayh College of Education, Indiana State University (Terre Haute, Indiana, United States), completed under academic committee supervision in 2008 and indexed in Dissertation Abstracts International in 2009.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Caperton Forgiveness Style Inventory – Revised is to differentiate the characteristic cognitive, affective, and communicative strategies individuals deploy when navigating the resolution of interpersonal transgressions. Prior to the construction of the CFSI and its revision, the bulk of psychometric inquiry in the psychology of forgiveness centered either on transgression-specific state forgiveness—such as Michael McCullough’s Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM)—or general dispositional forgivingness, such as John Maltby’s or Robert Enright’s trait measures. Although valuable, these measures frequently overlooked a critical clinical and conceptual phenomenon: individuals who attain the same nominal end-state of “forgiveness” often arrive there through vastly divergent psychological architectures.

Caperton recognized that some individuals resolve interpersonal ruptures through active, face-to-face dialogue and perspective-taking, whereas others dismiss the transgression altogether because they possess an unbothered, easy-going disposition. Conversely, individuals exhibiting maladaptive styles may cling to chronic resentment, intentionally preserving grievances as transactional leverage in relational negotiations. The CFSI-R was therefore constructed to fill this psychometric gap by answering the theoretical and clinical question: How does a given individual enact or withhold forgiveness? Why do they adopt specific strategies when hurt?

In clinical and therapeutic settings, the CFSI-R functions as a diagnostic and psychoeducational tool. Mental health practitioners working with couples in distress, estranged family units, or individuals struggling with chronic post-transgression rumination utilize the scale to map client tendencies onto functional versus dysfunctional styles. For instance, high scores on the Grudge Holder subscale alert the clinician to deep-seated emotional avoidance, power dynamics, and fear of vulnerability. Conversely, an elevated Interpersonal score indicates readiness for active reconciliation, constructive dialogue, and mutual understanding. In research settings, the CFSI-R facilitates empirical investigation into how distinct stylistic orientations mediate or moderate the relationships between personality traits, attachment styles, relational longevity, and psychological well-being.

Psychological Construct

The CFSI-R measures forgiveness style, conceptualized as a stable pattern of cognitive appraisal, interpersonal communication, and affective regulation deployed in response to real or perceived interpersonal offenses. Rather than viewing forgiveness as an all-or-nothing emotional transition, the construct assumes that interpersonal healing occurs across distinct stylistic vectors. The CFSI-R identifies four central dimensions:

1. The Interpersonal Style (Cognitive Empathy and Expressive Communication)

The Interpersonal dimension represents an active, relational, and communicative mode of forgiveness. Structurally, this construct captures two interlinked phases of interpersonal repair: cognitive perspective-taking (items 1–6) and direct communicative engagement (items 7–12). In the cognitive phase, the individual actively decenters their own perspective to consider the offender’s internal frame of reference (“I imagine what the offender was thinking”), contextualizes the offense (“I learn why the offender did what he or she did”), and recognizes shared vulnerability (“I realize I have done similar things”). In the expressive phase, the individual engages in face-to-face contact, articulated boundaries, and bilateral dialogue (“I talk with the offender face-to-face”; “I need to hear the offender’s side of the event”). This style reflects a commitment to bilateral reconciliation rather than unilateral, detached emotional resolution.

2. The Easy Going Style

The Easy Going dimension captures an affective non-reactivity or cognitive minimization of interpersonal offenses (items 13–15). Individuals endorsing this style report that they rarely engage in explicit forgiveness because they rarely perceive themselves as having been meaningfully damaged or violated (“I do not forgive other people because I am not bothered by what other people say and do”). Within psychological literature, this construct intersects with high emotional stability (low neuroticism) and high agreeableness, reflecting either genuine psychological resilience, high thresholds for perceived offense, or, in some psychodynamic formulations, defensive denial and affective flattening.

3. The Grudge Holder Style

The Grudge Holder dimension reflects a chronic, recalcitrant preservation of resentment, hurt, and tactical hostility (items 16–18). Unlike temporary state-anger, grudge holding represents a stylistic consolidation of the victim identity. This style is marked by an inability or unwillingness to let go of hurt feelings (“I cannot let go of the feelings associated with being hurt”) and a strategic desire to exploit past offenses as relational leverage (“I like to have something to use against other people in the future if the need arises”). The construct correlates strongly with rumination, hostile attribution bias, and narcissistic injury.

4. The Humility Style

The Humility dimension measures the degree to which an individual approaches conflict resolution through an awareness of their own personal imperfections, developmental status, and moral fallibility (items 19–21). Characterized by the refusal to assume moral superiority (“I remind myself that I should not be self-righteous”), this style acts as an internal regulator that mitigates punitive impulses. Humility facilitates forgiveness by contextualizing the offender’s transgression within the universal reality of human weakness and continuous personal development (“I remind myself that I am still growing as a person”).

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the CFSI-R integrates foundational models from social psychology, psychometrics, and clinical psychotherapy, drawing primarily from the works of Everett L. Worthington Jr., Robert Enright, and Michael McCullough.

The Dual-Process Model of Forgiveness

Worthington’s formulation posits a fundamental distinction between decisional forgiveness (a behavioral intention to eliminate negative behavior toward an offender and treat them constructively) and emotional forgiveness (the gradual replacement of negative, unforgiving emotions like resentment and bitter anger with positive, other-oriented emotions like empathy, compassion, or love). The CFSI-R directly operationalizes these processes across its subscales. The Interpersonal items (items 7–12) embody the decisional and behavioral enactment of forgiveness, whereas the Cognitive Interpersonal items (items 1–6) and Humility items (items 19–21) reflect the internal cognitive restructuring necessary to stimulate Worthington’s “REACH” process (Recall the hurt, Empathize with the offender, Altruistic gift of forgiveness, Commit to forgive, Hold on to forgiveness).

Cognitive Attribution and Social Information Processing

Drawing on attribution theory, the CFSI-R acknowledges that the transition from grievance to resolution depends upon how an individual interprets the locus of causality, controllability, and intentionality behind an offense. When victims attribute intentional, malicious, and stable motives to the perpetrator, grudge holding is strongly reinforced. Conversely, the Interpersonal style operationalizes the cognitive re-attribution process: by actively learning why the offender acted (item 2) and acknowledging that the offense was not necessarily a personalized assault (item 4), the individual alters their internal cognitive schema, paving the way for adaptive conflict resolution.

Relational Justice and Transactional Grudge Holding

The conceptualization of the Grudge Holder dimension is rooted in relational justice and power dynamics. When individuals perceive a severe transgression, their sense of relational power is compromised. As theorized by clinical researchers, retaining a grudge often serves a compensatory function: it preserves an emotional weapon (“something to use against other people in the future,” item 17) that guarantees prospective security and moral leverage. The CFSI-R is one of the few inventories that explicitly measures this transactional, strategic withholding of forgiveness.

Validity

Duane Caperton’s (2008) psychometric validation of the inventory established several forms of measurement validity:

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was examined by correlating the CFSI-R subscales with established measures of interpersonal forgiveness, revenge, avoidance, empathy, and general personality functioning:

• Interpersonal Subscale: Demonstrated significant, positive correlations with measures of dispositional empathy (such as the Perspective Taking and Empathic Concern scales of Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index) and positive correlations with the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI). Individuals scoring high on this dimension consistently display higher relational engagement and proactive conflict resolution strategies.
• Grudge Holder Subscale: Exhibited strong positive correlations with the Revenge and Avoidance subscales of the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18; McCullough et al.), as well as with generalized trait rumination and neuroticism. It demonstrated robust negative correlations with dispositional forgivingness and emotional stability.
• Easy Going Subscale: Correlated moderately with emotional stability and agreeableness, while showing near-zero or slightly negative correlations with post-transgression distress, indicating that this style genuinely captures lower baseline reactivity rather than intense post-hoc coping.
• Humility Subscale: Showed positive convergent associations with measures of trait humility, moral awareness, and self-monitoring, exhibiting negative correlations with measures of narcissism and entitlement.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established by evaluating the degree to which CFSI-R dimensions diverged from social desirability and unrelated psychological constructs. Correlations between the CFSI-R subscales and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale were consistently low to negligible ($r < .18$), demonstrating that respondents’ self-reports of grudge holding or humility were not merely artifacts of socially sanctioned response patterns.

Reliability

The reliability of the CFSI-R was evaluated through internal consistency analyses and temporal stability assessments across diverse sample cohorts in Caperton’s (2008) doctoral research:

• Internal Consistency: Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients across the primary subscales demonstrated acceptable to strong internal reliability. The full Interpersonal dimension (cognitive perspective-taking combined with expressive communication, items 1–12) yielded an alpha coefficient typically ranging between $\alpha = .81$ and $\alpha = .86$. The Grudge Holder subscale (items 16–18) demonstrated high internal consistency ($\alpha = .78$ to $.84$), particularly notable given its compact three-item structure. The Easy Going subscale (items 13–15) exhibited adequate internal consistency ($\alpha = .71$ to $.76$). The Humility subscale (items 19–21) demonstrated acceptable reliability ($\alpha = .67$ to $.74$).
• Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-total correlations within respective subscales were uniformly substantial, with most items exhibiting correlations above $.45$, confirming that individual items contributed coherently to their designated constructs.
• Test-Retest Reliability: In longitudinal test-retest assessments over two- to four-week intervals, stability coefficients ($r_{tt}$) remained high across all dimensions ($r_{tt} = .74$ to $.83$), indicating that forgiveness styles represent stable dispositional tendencies rather than fleeting situational states.

Factor Analysis

The factorial validity of the CFSI-R was established using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across independent validation samples during the instrument’s initial development and revision:

Exploratory Factor Analysis

Initial factor extraction using Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) with oblique (Promax) rotation revealed that the 21 items clustered into clear latent dimensions corresponding to the hypothesized stylistic constructs. Scree plot inspections, eigenvalues exceeding 1.0 (Kaiser-Guttman rule), and parallel analysis supported a multi-factor solution:

• Factor 1 (Expressive/Communicative Interpersonal): Highly loaded by items 7 through 12, with primary factor loadings ranging from $.58$ to $.82$.
• Factor 2 (Cognitive/Perspective-Taking Interpersonal): Highly loaded by items 1 through 6, with primary loadings ranging from $.51$ to $.77$. Because of their strong shared inter-factor correlation ($r > .50$), these two facets are frequently consolidated into the comprehensive 12-item Interpersonal Style.
• Factor 3 (Grudge Holder): Items 16, 17, and 18 demonstrated strong primary loadings between $.68$ and $.85$, exhibiting minimal cross-loadings on other factors.
• Factor 4 (Easy Going): Items 13, 14, and 15 isolated cleanly with factor loadings ranging from $.61$ to $.79$.
• Factor 5 (Humility): Items 19, 20, and 21 clustered together with loadings ranging from $.54$ to $.73$.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Model Fit

Confirmatory factor analytic procedures supported the structural viability of the revised model. Goodness-of-fit indices demonstrated acceptable to good fit for the multi-dimensional structure:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): $ge .92$
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): $ge .90$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): $le .058$ ($90%\text{ CI } [.048, .068]$)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): $le .052$

These empirical indices validated the multi-component architecture of the CFSI-R, confirming that forgiveness cannot be accurately captured as a single unipolar spectrum.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Caperton Forgiveness Style Inventory – Revised is a self-report paper-and-pencil or computer-administered psychometric inventory. The structural and operational characteristics of the tool are detailed below:

• Instrument Name: Caperton Forgiveness Style Inventory – Revised (CFSI-R)
• Author: Duane Caperton, Ph.D. (2008)
• Target Population: Adults and adolescents (ages 16 and older) possessing basic reading comprehension.
• Administration Format: Individual or group; paper-and-pencil or digital delivery.
• Completion Time: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes.
• Number of Items: 21 items.
• Response Format: 5-point Likert-type frequency scale:
  • 0 = I never do this
  • 1 = I rarely do this
  • 2 = I sometimes do this
  • 3 = I often do this
  • 4 = I frequently do this
• Subscale Breakdown & Item Allocation:
  • Interpersonal Style (Items 1–12):
    • Cognitive / Perspective-Taking Facet: Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
    • Expressive / Communicative Facet: Items 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
  • Easy Going Style (Items 13–15): Items 13, 14, 15.
  • Grudge Holder Style (Items 16–18): Items 16, 17, 18.
  • Humility Style (Items 19–21): Items 19, 20, 21.
• Scoring and Transformation Protocols:
  • Standard Scoring: Items 1 through 12 are scored directly ($0 = 0, 1 = 1, 2 = 2, 3 = 3, 4 = 4$).
  • Double Coding (Items 13–18): In Caperton’s original psychometric methodology, items 13 through 18 are identified for double coding depending on the analytical model used to balance non-forgiveness orientations against active forgiveness paths. In standard dimensional profile scoring, raw scores for items 13–15 are summed for the Easy Going Score, and items 16–18 are summed for the Grudge Holder Score.
  • Reverse Coding (Items 19–21): For composite scales assessing overall non-defensive forgivingness or when calculating standardized composite indices, items 19, 20, and 21 are reverse coded ($0 = 4, 1 = 3, 2 = 2, 3 = 1, 4 = 0$) prior to aggregation. In separate subscale profiling, the direct raw sum of items 19–21 represents the Humility Score.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Caperton Forgiveness Style Inventory – Revised was finalized and published in 2008 as part of Duane Caperton’s doctoral research at Indiana State University, formally abstracted in 2009. As an academic dissertation instrument published within the Indiana State University Scholars Repository, the scale is typically available for non-commercial educational, scholarly, and clinical research purposes under standard academic fair-use guidelines, provided full author attribution is maintained.

Researchers and clinicians wishing to employ the instrument in commercial assessment protocols, digital platforms, or funded industrial applications should contact the author or the Department of Communication Disorders and Counseling, School, and Educational Psychology at Indiana State University to secure explicit written permissions.

References

• Caperton, D. (2008). An investigation of the reliability and validity of the Caperton forgiveness styles inventory (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana State University). ISU Scholars Repository. https://scholars.indstate.edu/handle/10484/110
• Caperton, D. (2009). An investigation of the reliability and validity of the Caperton Forgiveness Styles Inventory. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 70(5-B), 3215. ProQuest UMI Dissertation Publishing.
• Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113
• Enright, R. D., & Fitzgibbons, R. P. (2000). Helping clients forgive: An empirical guide for resolving anger and restoring hope. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10381-000
• McCullough, M. E., Root, L. M., & Cohen, A. D. (2006). Writing about the benefits of an interpersonal transgression facilitates forgiveness: An experimental study. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74(5), 887–897. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.74.5.887
• McCullough, M. E., Worthington, E. L., Jr., & Rachal, K. C. (1997). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(2), 321–336. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.2.321
• Tangney, J. P., Boone, A. L., & Dearing, R. (2005). Forgiving the self: Conceptual issues and empirical findings. In E. L. Worthington Jr. (Ed.), Handbook of forgiveness (pp. 143–158). Routledge.
• Worthington, E. L., Jr. (2006). Forgiveness and reconciliation: Theory and application. Routledge.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)