The reduction of psychological aggression across varied interpersonal contexts through repentance and forgiveness

Research on the resolution of interpersonal conflict has shown that forgiveness is important in reducing aggression and promoting prosocial interactions following a transgression. Although the benefits of forgiveness have been demonstrated in a variety of relationship contexts, a single theoretical model has not been tested across these different contexts. In this study, we employed an attributional framework to examine the relationship between attributions of responsibility for a transgression, repentance, emotions, forgiveness, and psychological aggression toward three different categories of transgressor: a coworker, a friend, and a romantic partner. One hundred and seven participants were asked to describe a recent transgression with a coworker, a friend, and a romantic partner. In each case, responsibility for the event, the degree to which the transgressor apologized, anger, sympathy, forgiveness, and subsequent psychological aggression toward the transgressor were measured. A basic model of aggression reduction, whereby repentance facilitates forgiveness and reduces psychological aggression, was reliable in each category of transgressor. A comparison of the models showed minor differences in how individuals respond to transgressors. Although coworkers apologized less, they were just as likely to be forgiven as romantic partners and friends. In addition, participants were least likely to respond with psychological aggression when a friend transgressed against them. This research provides a theoretical framework within which to study forgiveness and aggression across a variety of contexts. Aggr. Behav. 32:1–12, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Interrelationship Among Injured Parties' Attributions of Responsibility,Appraisal of Appropriateness to Forgive the Transgressor,Forgiveness, and Repentance

The purpose of this research was to examine the interrelationship among attributions of responsibility, repentance, victims' appraisal of the appropriateness of forgiving the transgressor, and forgiveness. It is argued that an injured party's appraisal of how appropriate it is to forgive the transgressor is important in understanding discrepant theoretical and empirical observations regarding the relationship between responsibility judgments and forgiveness. In one nonexperimental/naturalistic study and 2 experiments, we confirmed predictions that responsibility attributions would positively relate with a victim's appraisal of how appropriate it is to forgive the transgressor, and negatively with forgiveness. In addition, all 3 studies confirmed that a victim's appraisal of the appropriateness to forgive the transgressor explains the relationship between responsibility judgments and forgiveness.     

Conciliatory gestures facilitate forgiveness and feelings of friendship by making transgressors appear more agreeable

The authors examined how conciliatory gestures exhibited in response to interpersonal transgressions influence forgiveness and feelings of friendship with the transgressor. In Study 1, 163 undergraduates who had recently been harmed were examined longitudinally. Conciliatory gestures exhibited by transgressors predicted higher rates of forgiveness over 21 days, and this relationship was mediated by victims' perceptions of their transgressors' Agreeableness. Study 2 was an experiment including 145 undergraduates who experienced a breach in trust from an anonymous partner during an iterated prisoner's dilemma. When transgressors apologized and offered financial compensation, participants reported higher levels of forgiveness and feelings of friendship when compared to a control condition and an aggravating condition. The effects of apology/compensation on forgiveness and perceived friendship were mediated by victims' perceptions of their transgressors' Agreeableness. Results suggest that conciliatory gestures promote forgiveness in part by depicting transgressors as more sympathetic, considerate, fair, and just (i.e., agreeable).     

Why Narcissists are Unwilling to Apologize: The Role of Empathy and Guilt

We hypothesized that narcissists would be unwilling to apologize for their interpersonal transgressions, and that reduced levels of self‐reported empathy and guilt would serially mediate this effect. Narcissism is characterized by little empathy for the victim, which reduces guilt about one's transgressions. Low guilt, in turn, is associated with unwillingness to apologize. In Study 1, we assessed dispositional narcissism, empathy, guilt, and willingness to apologize. In Study 2, we assessed dispositional narcissism and obtained state measures of empathy, guilt, and willingness to apologize. In Study 3, we manipulated narcissism and collected state measures of empathy, guilt, and willingness to apologize. Narcissism was negatively associated with (Studies 1–2) and decreased (Study 3) willingness to apologize, with this link being explained (i.e., serially mediated) by low empathy and guilt. Finally, in Study 4, we showed that antagonistic narcissism (i.e., narcissistic rivalry), but not agentic narcissism (i.e., narcissistic admiration), was negatively associated with willingness to apologize and apologizing behaviour. In all, narcissists are unwilling to apologize for their transgressions, as they experience little empathy for their victims and lower guilt. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Justice sensitivity and forgiveness in close interpersonal relationships: the mediating role of mistrustful, legitimizing, and pro-relationship cognitions

The purpose of the present investigation was to explore and better understand the relationship between justice sensitivity from a victim's perspective (JS‐victim) and interpersonal forgiveness. In particular, we aimed to identify the cognitive mechanisms mediating this relationship and test the moderating influence of post‐transgression perpetrator behavior. We used data from a questionnaire study employing a Swiss community sample (N = 450) and 2 scenario‐based studies employing German online samples, in the context of romantic (N = 242) and friendship relationships (N = 974). We consistently found JS‐victim to be negatively related to dispositional (Study 1) and situational forgiveness (Studies 2 and 3). Study 2 demonstrated the relationship between JS‐victim and reduced forgiveness to be partly mediated by mistrustful interpretations of the partner's post‐transgression behavior. In Study 3, cognitions legitimizing one's own antisocial reactions and a lack of pro‐relationship cognitions were identified as further mediators. These variables mediated the negative effect of JS‐victim on forgiveness largely independent of whether the friend perpetrator displayed reconciliatory behavior or not. Findings suggest that the cognitive mechanisms mediating victim‐sensitive individuals' unforgiveness could barely be neutralized. Future research should investigate their malleability in light of qualitatively different perpetrator behaviors as well as their broader relational implications.     

Identification with a wrongful subgroup and the feeling of collective guilt

The present study examined the relationship between group identification and the feeling of collective guilt. This study argued that identification with a subgroup of one's ingroup (subgroup identification) would predict the feeling of collective guilt better than identification with the whole ingroup (whole‐group identification). To manipulate the level of subgroup identification, we instructed participants to imagine the presence of a close friend (vs a friend of one's close friend) in a fictitious subgroup. In Experiment 1, we predicted and found that high subgroup identifiers experienced less collective guilt compared to low subgroup identifiers, regardless of their degree of whole‐group identification. In contrast, the results from Experiment 2 indicated that when the presence of the third party was made salient, high subgroup identifiers experienced more collective guilt in comparison to low subgroup identifiers. The importance of interpersonal connections for collective responsibility and the facilitating role of the third party for reconciliation of the intergroup conflicts are discussed.     

The Receiver's Dilemma: Impressions Formed in Response to Impression Management

Two studies examined the extent to which individuals' racial attitudes are influenced more by interdependent others' attitudes than people with whom they do not mutually depend. Study 1 demonstrated that participants significantly changed their racial attitudes when they received disagreement feedback from an ingroup friend, whereas there was no change in attitudes when participants received disagreement feedback from an ingroup stranger, agreement feedback, or no feedback. Furthermore, feelings of interdependence mediated the relationship between feedback from a friend versus stranger and changes in racial attitudes. In Study 2, we manipulated interdependence and found that interdependent partners altered their racial attitudes after receiving disagreement information, whereas independent partners did not. The importance of interdependent others' attitudes in reducing prejudice is discussed.     

Why group apologies succeed and fail: intergroup forgiveness and the role of primary and secondary emotions

It is widely assumed that official apologies for historical transgressions can lay the groundwork for intergroup forgiveness, but evidence for a causal relationship between intergroup apologies and forgiveness is limited. Drawing on the infrahumanization literature, we argue that a possible reason for the muted effectiveness of apologies is that people diminish the extent to which they see outgroup members as able to experience complex, uniquely human emotions (e.g., remorse). In Study 1, Canadians forgave Afghanis for a friendly-fire incident to the extent that they perceived Afghanis as capable of experiencing uniquely human emotions (i.e., secondary emotions such as anguish) but not nonuniquely human emotions (i.e., primary emotions such as fear). Intergroup forgiveness was reduced when transgressor groups expressed secondary emotions rather than primary emotions in their apology (Studies 2a and 2b), an effect that was mediated by trust in the genuineness of the apology (Study 2b). Indeed, an apology expressing secondary emotions aroused no more forgiveness than a no-apology control (Study 3) and less forgiveness than an apology with no emotion (Study 4). Consistent with an infrahumanization perspective, effects of primary versus secondary emotional expression did not emerge when the apology was offered for an ingroup transgression (Study 3) or when an outgroup apology was delivered through an ingroup proxy (Study 4). Also consistent with predictions, these effects were demonstrated only by those who tended to deny uniquely human qualities to the outgroup (Study 5). Implications for intergroup apologies and movement toward reconciliation are discussed.     

When expressing forgiveness backfires in the workplace: victim power moderates the effect of expressing forgiveness on transgressor compliance

Expressing (vs. withholding) forgiveness is often promoted as a beneficial response for victims. In the present research, we argue that withholding (vs. expressing) forgiveness can also be beneficial to victims by stimulating subsequent transgressor compliance – a response that is valuable in restoring the victim’s needs for control. Based on deterrence theory, we argue that a victim’s withheld (vs. expressed) forgiveness promotes transgressor compliance when the victim has low power, relative to the transgressor. This is because withheld (vs. expressed) forgiveness from a low-power victim elicits transgressor fear. On the other hand, because people are fearful of high-power actors, high-power victims can expect high levels of compliance from a transgressor, regardless of whether they express forgiveness or not. A critical incidents survey (Study 1) and an autobiographic recall study (Study 2) among employees, as well as a laboratory experiment among business students (Study 3), support these predictions. These studies are among the first to reveal that withholding forgiveness can be beneficial for low-power victims in a hierarchical context – ironically, a context in which offering forgiveness is often expected.     

No genuine self‐forgiveness without accepting responsibility: Value reaffirmation as a key to maintaining positive self‐regard

Measures of self‐forgiveness that merely focus on the outcome of positive self‐regard risk neglecting the process through which offenders restore it. They may thus tap pseudo self‐forgiveness where offenders downplay their responsibility for the wrongdoing. For genuine self‐forgiveness, the process should instead involve an attenuation of the negative link between responsibility acceptance and positive self‐regard. In this paper, we examine how acts of value reaffirmation facilitate genuine self‐forgiveness. In Study 1, a role‐play experiment (N = 90), participants either confessed their wrongdoing to the victim or not. Although responsibility acceptance was strongly negatively related to reported self‐forgiveness (i.e., self‐regard), this relationship was tempered when participants confessed their wrongdoing to the victim and, through this, reaffirmed the violated values. In Study 2, a longitudinal study referring to self‐reported transgressions (N = 74), responsibility acceptance was negatively related to self‐forgiveness measures as well as self‐esteem when offenders showed little value reaffirmation, but not when they more strongly reaffirmed the violated values. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of Conflict on Mental Health in Northern Ireland: The Mediating Role of Intergroup Forgiveness and Collective Guilt

The aim of the present research was to investigate the mediating role of group-level forgiveness and guilt in the relationship between victimhood (the extent to which the conflict affected an individual's life), exposure to violence (the level of violence in their area of residence), and group identity on the one hand, and mild psychiatric morbidity on the other. Specifically the study focused on the psychological impact of the ethnopolitical conflict in Northern Ireland, utilizing people's identification with either the Catholic or Protestant community. Our results revealed that intergroup forgiveness mediated the relationship between both victimhood and group identification, as predictors, and mild psychiatric morbidity. Collective guilt, on the other hand, mediated the relationship between both exposure to violence and group identification, as predictors, and intergroup forgiveness. Overall this study shows that forgiveness and collective guilt can act as mediators in the relationship between impact of ethnopolitical conflict and mental health, at the group level, and thus demonstrates their centrality to the reconciliation process. Implications for intergroup reconciliation initiatives in Northern Ireland are discussed.     

The Sins of Their Fathers: When Current Generations Are Held to Account for the Transgressions of Previous Generations

When are current generations held accountable for transgressions committed by previous generations? In two studies, we test the prediction that current generations will only be assigned guilt for past atrocities when victim group members perceive high levels of cultural continuity between historical perpetrators and the current generation within the perpetrator group. Japanese participants were presented with information describing the current generation of Americans as either similar or dissimilar in personality to the Americans who were implicated in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan during World War II. The results of both studies revealed that victim group members assigned more guilt to current Americans when they perceived high (compared to low) outgroup continuity, and they did so relatively independently of the transgressor group's guilt expressions.     

观点采择是否一定促进内隐宽恕?——受害者对伤害动机认同的调节作用

以往研究多认为观点采择可有效促进宽恕,近期研究则开始关注观点采择诱发宽恕等亲社会行为的边界条件。结合“换位体验”和内隐态度测量范式,本研究考察了受害者对伤害动机的认同在被动和自发观点采择影响内隐宽恕过程中的调节作用。实验1发现当人际伤害中存在人们无法认同的恶意不道德动机时,被动和自发观点采择都抑制了受害者对施害者的内隐宽恕且后者的抑制效应更显著。实验2则进一步操纵了不同类型受害者对施害者伤害动机的认同差异,低认同组与实验1结果相同,即被动和自发观点采择中都抑制了内隐宽恕且后者的抑制效应更显著,但高认同组在两种观点采择中都促进了内隐宽恕且二者的促进效应无显著差异。本研究揭示了伤害动机认同在不同类型观点采择影响内隐宽恕过程中起到的调节作用,进一步丰富了对观点采择和宽恕间复杂关系的认识。     

The Role of Communicating Social Emotions Accompanying Apologies in Forgiveness

Apologies are an effective strategy used by transgressors to restore relationships with an injured party. Apologies are often motivated by emotions the transgressor feels in relation to the situation. We report the results of two studies that examined how an injured person's knowledge that an apology was driven by one or more of the social emotions of guilt, shame, and pity affected forgiveness. Findings suggest that the knowledge that guilt and/or shame motivated the apology increased forgiveness. In contrast, knowledge that pity induced the apology decreased forgiveness. These findings are consistent with the view that the communication of emotions has the social function of monitoring and shaping social relationships. We are grateful to the editor and an anonymous reviewer for their most helpful comments and suggestions to earlier versions of this paper.     

The varying meaning of forgiveness: Relationship closeness moderates how forgiveness affects feelings of justice

Psychological research has repeatedly shown that victims are more likely to forgive socially close than distant others, but little research has addressed the question whether forgiveness in these two cases actually has the same psychological meaning. As one approach to this issue, the present research investigates how acts of forgiveness aid the restoration of victims' justice feelings through different processes, depending on the closeness of their relationship to the offender. In two studies (Study 1 using a scenario method, Study 2 an autobiographical recall), the victim's perceptions of value consensus with the offender mediated justice‐restoring effects of forgiveness expressed towards a close offender, whereas feelings of status/power mediated justice‐restoring effects of forgiveness expressed towards a distant offender. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Causal and moral responsibility: Antecedents and consequences of group‐based guilt

In six studies (N = 1045) conducted in three European countries, we demonstrate distinctions between causal responsibility, group‐based guilt, and moral responsibility. We propose that causal responsibility is an antecedent of group‐based guilt linking the ingroup to previous transgressions against the victim group. In contrast, moral responsibility is a consequence of group‐based guilt and is conceptualized as a sociomoral norm to respond to the consequences of the ingroup's transgressions and the current needs of the victim group. As such, moral responsibility can be stimulated by group‐based guilt and directly predicts individual action intentions. Studies 1 and 2 focus on the conceptual distinctions among the three constructs. Study 3 tests the indirect effect of causal responsibility on moral responsibility via group‐based guilt. The remaining studies explore the mediating role of moral responsibility in associations between group‐based guilt and compensatory action tendencies, that is, financial compensation (study 4), approach and avoidance tendencies (study 5) and public apology (study 6). Together these studies show that causal and moral responsibility are psychologically distinct concepts from group‐based guilt and that moral responsibility plays an important role in shaping the effects of group‐based guilt on behavioral intentions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SELF‐FORGIVENESS AND FORGIVENESS

If the notion of a victim's forgiveness encounters scepticism in today's world, more so the notion of self‐forgiveness by the offender. However, a failure to forgive oneself, when self‐forgiveness is appropriate, may be detrimental to one's moral and psychological well‐being. Self‐forgiveness is called for when guilt, self‐hatred and shame reach high levels. Further, a third party's assurance that the offence is forgivable may contribute considerably to the completion of the self‐forgiveness process. This article explores the notion of forgiveness of self and compares it with the notion of forgiveness of others. In addition, guilt and shame, right and wrong, repentance and dealing with the consequences of harmful actions are examined in the context of self‐forgiveness.     

Interpersonal consequences of forgiveness: Does forgiveness deter or encourage repeat offenses?

Benefits of forgiveness have been well documented, but past research has not directly addressed the crucial question of whether forgiveness deters or invites repeat transgressions. Our research indicates that expressing forgiveness typically discourages future offenses. In Study 1, participants playing a form of the prisoner’s dilemma game were more likely to repeat their transgressions against unforgiving victims than forgiving victims, especially when victims had no chance to retaliate. In response to a hypothetical scenario presented in Study 2, participants reported that they would be less likely to risk offending someone for a second time if that person had forgiven their first offense. In Study 3, participants’ autobiographical recollections of their prior transgressions revealed that receiving forgiveness predicted higher repentance motivation.     

The impact of magnitude of harm and perceived difficulty of making reparations on group‐based guilt and reparation towards victims of historical harm

The present research investigates how reading stories about past mistreatment of children who had been in institutional care affects support for reparations, perceived difficulty of reparations and group‐based guilt were investigated in two experiments. In Study 1 we showed that, when the stories increased in perceived harm, so did the perceived difficulty of making reparations whereas group‐based guilt decreased. Furthermore, both perceived difficulty of making reparations and group‐based guilt predicted support for reparation. It was suggested that these findings were due to a natural confound between the severity of harm and the difficulty of reparations. Study 2 included a direct manipulation of perceived difficulty that was intended to weaken or strengthen the ability to make reparations. This study demonstrated stronger group‐based guilt when reparations were potentially possible and not when they are impossible. Moreover, support for reparations varied as a function of perceived difficulty of reparations and group‐based guilt mediated that relationship. The research has two key implications. First, advocates of reparations as a mechanism for reconciliation and community healing need to consider the degree to which reparations are perceived to be possible and consider ways of addressing those perceptions. Second, the research provides an experimental demonstration to the power of stories about experience to bolster support for social change. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐Harm Focus Leads to Greater Collective Guilt: The Case of the U.S.‐Iraq Conflict

Collective guilt from harm one's group has caused an out‐group is often undermined because people minimize or legitimize the harm done (i.e., they generate exonerating cognitions). When a group action has harmed both the in‐group and an out‐group, focusing people on “self‐harm”—ways in which the in‐group has harmed itself—may elicit more collective guilt because self‐harm is less likely to be exonerated. In Study 1, American participants who focused on how the invasion of Iraq had harmed the United States expressed greater collective guilt over harm inflicted on the people of Iraq than those who focused on Iraqi suffering. Study 2 showed that this effect is due to reductions in exonerating cognitions among people focused on self‐harm. We consider the implications of these findings for intergroup reconciliation, particularly in situations where two groups have been involved in open conflict.