Forgiveness intervention for female South Korean adolescent aggressive victims

•We investigated the effects of forgiveness on psychological and school adjustment.•Forty-eight female adolescent aggressive victims in South Korea were recruited.•Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups.•The forgiveness group showed improved psychological and behavioral adjustment.•The forgiveness group showed improved academic performance.

We investigated an intervention designed to help female aggressive victims improve their levels of psychological and school adjustment. Adolescent aggressive victims are youth who demonstrate heightened levels of aggressive behavior and are frequently victimized by others. A program focused on the psychology of forgiveness was implemented and tested against both an alternative skillstreaming program and a no-treatment control group. Forty-eight female adolescent aggressive victims in South Korea (age 12 to 21 years) were recruited from a middle school and a juvenile correctional facility. Participants were randomly assigned to groups. Both forgiveness and skillstreaming interventions were implemented in a small-group format for 12 weeks. Participants in the forgiveness group reported significant decreases in anger, hostile attribution, aggression, and delinquency at post-test and follow-up; they also reported significant increases in empathy at post-test and follow-up and grades at post-test. We discuss implications for the psychological development of adolescent aggressive victims.