User Manual: Inquisit Heartland Forgiveness Scale


___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________	

									Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS)
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC
Date: 05-06-2016
last updated:  07-17-2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC

Script Copyright © 07-17-2023 Millisecond Software
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
BACKGROUND INFO 	
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This script implements a computerized version of the Heartland Forgiveness Scale as described in:

Thompson, L. Y., Snyder, C. R., Hoffman, L., Michael, S. T., Rasmussen, H. N., Billings, L. S., 
Heinze, L., Neufeld, J. E., Shorey, H. S., Roberts, J. C, & Roberts, D. E. (2005). Dispositional 
forgiveness of self, others, and situations. Journal of Personality, 73, 313-359.

Online Resource: http://heartlandforgiveness.com/
-> questionnaire
-> scoring guidelines

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
OVERVIEW
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
18 7-point Likert Scale questions designed to assess a person’s dispositional forgiveness.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________	
DURATION 
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________	
the default set-up of the script takes appr. 3 minutes to complete

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________	
DATA OUTPUT DICTIONARY
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________	
The fields in the data files are:

(1) Raw data file: 'heartlandforgivenessscale.iqdat'

date, time:						date and time script was run with the current group/subjectnumber 
subject, group, session:	  	with the current subject/groupnumber/session id
build:							the Inquisit build 

q*_response:					response given (in assigned values)
									Scale: 1 (almost always false) - 7 (almost always true)
									R = automatically reversed scored questions
									
q*_latency:						how much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this particular 
								question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)

(2) Summary data file: 'heartlandforgivenessscale_summary.iqdat' (Inquisit Lab: one data file per participant)

inquisit.version: 					Inquisit version run
computer.platform:				the platform the script was run on (win/mac/ios/android)
startDate:						date script was run
startTime:						time script was started
subjectId:						assigned subject id number
groupId:						assigned group id number
sessionId:						assigned session id number
elapsedTime:					time it took to run script (in ms); measured from onset to offset of script
completed:						0 = script was not completed (prematurely aborted); 
								1 = script was completed (all conditions run)

hfsTotal:						total HFS score (Range: 18-126)
hfsSelf:						total of the self-subscale (questions1-6) (Range: 6-42) Note: reversed items automatically scored reversed
hfsOthers:						total of the others-subscale (questions7-12) (Range: 6-42) Note: reversed items automatically scored reversed
hfsSituations:					total of the situations-subscale (questions13-18) (Range: 6-42) Note: reversed items automatically scored reversed

+ individual responses
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
QUESTIONNAIRE SET-UP & SCORING
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
questions 1-6: subscale 'self'
questions 7-12: subscale 'others'
questions 13-18: subscale 'situations'

Scoring:
Source: HFS-with-Scoring-and-Interpretation.pdf (http://heartlandforgiveness.com/)

"Total HFS
One’s score on the Total HFS indicates how forgiving a person tends to be of oneself, other people,
and uncontrollable situations. Higher scores indicate higher levels of forgiveness, and lower scores
indicate lower levels of forgiveness.
• A score of 18 to 54 on the Total HFS indicates that one is usually unforgiving of oneself,
others, and uncontrollable situations.
• A score of 55 to 89 on the Total HFS indicates that one is about as likely to forgive, as one is
not to forgive oneself, others, and uncontrollable situations.
• A score of 90 to 126 on the Total HFS indicates that one is usually forgiving of oneself,
others, and uncontrollable situations.

HFS Subscales
One’s score on the three HFS subscales indicate how forgiving a person tends to be of oneself (HFS
Forgiveness of Self), other people (HFS Forgiveness of Others), or situations beyond anyone’s control
(HFS Forgiveness of Situations). Higher scores indicate higher levels of forgiveness, and lower scores
indicating lower levels of forgiveness.
• A score of 6 to 18 on HFS Forgiveness of Self, HFS Forgiveness of Others, or HFS
Forgiveness of Situations indicates that one is usually unforgiving of oneself, other people,
or uncontrollable situations, respectively.
• A score of 19 to 29 indicates that one is about as likely to forgive as to not forgive oneself,
other people, or uncontrollable situations, respectively.
• A score of 30 to 42 indicates that one is usually forgiving of oneself, other people, or
uncontrollable situations, respectively."

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________	
INSTRUCTIONS 
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
see section Editable Instructions. General instructions are presented as an htm-page.
To change instructions, change the htm file directly.
Instructions are taken from HFS-with-Scoring-and-Interpretation.pdf 
(http://heartlandforgiveness.com/) and adapted to the response format used in this script

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________	
EDITABLE CODE 
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________	
check below for (relatively) easily editable parameters, stimuli, instructions etc. 
Keep in mind that you can use this script as a template and therefore always "mess" with the entire code 
to further customize your experiment.