Personal differences in forgiveness in Spanish university students according to sex

From the point of view of Positive Psychology and the study of memory, forgiveness is considered as a process that is part of the reconstructive capacity of memory and strength at the service of happiness and well-being. The present study supposes an investigation about this construct in order to know its conceptualization, the factors that intervene in the process of forgiveness, their components and the attitudes towards the forgiveness in a group of 983 Spanish university students of degrees from different areas of knowledge and from different universities. The results show that there are no differences between the sexes in relation to the conceptualization of forgiveness. Regarding the choice of facilitating factors, both sexes coincide in the order in which they classify their importance, finding significant differences in two of the four factors. In only one of the five components of forgiveness (Control of negative situations, feelings and thoughts) significant differences have been found, with men who score higher. And in the attitudes towards the aggressor there are significant differences in the subscales Avoidance and Revenge, being women the ones that offer higher score than men.