O estudo do perdão em crianças: contribuições da literatura atual

Abstract

This study aimed to carry out an integrative review in order to verify the contributions brought by the studies of forgiveness in children carried out in the last five years. The study of forgiveness is recent in Psychology and the research that specifically focuses on forgiveness in children is even younger. In this sense, a bibliographic research was carried out in the SCOPUS and PsycINFO databases. The terms “forgiveness” and “child*” were used. A manual search was performed to include studies known to the author. Peer-reviewed articles from the last five years and open access were included. Studies in which the sample consisted of children over 12 years old were excluded, except for cases in which the average age was less than 12 years old, research carried out with adults on events that occurred in childhood, studies on forgiveness with children's guardians and theoretical studies. In total, 11 works were analyzed. The results found showed the importance of reconciliation, the social and cognitive facilitating factors of the process of forgiving, the relationship of forgiveness with theories of Psychology and contributions directed to science and education. The data obtained reiterate the existing literature and bring innovative contributions to the study of forgiveness in children. One of the limitations of this work was due to the limited number of articles analyzed. Further work in this area is indicated, especially regarding to intervention studies. It is concluded that the study of forgiveness is important for the wellbeing of children and an education with a view to teaching forgiveness is defended.