The authors examined the effects of writing about the benefits of an interpersonal transgression on forgiveness. Participants (N = 304) were randomly assigned to one of three 20-min writing tasks in which they wrote about either (a) traumatic features of the most recent interpersonal transgression they had suffered, (b) personal benefits resulting from the transgression, or (c) a control topic that was unrelated to the transgression. Participants in the benefit-finding condition became more forgiving toward their transgressors than did those in the other 2 conditions, who did not differ from each other. In part, the benefit-finding condition appeared to facilitate forgiveness by encouraging participants to engage in cognitive processing as they wrote their essays. Results suggest that benefit finding may be a unique and useful addition to efforts to help people forgive interpersonal transgressions through structured interventions. The Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory--18-Item Version (TRIM-18) is appended.

ABSTRACT-People feel grateful when they have benefited from someone's costly, intentional, voluntary effort on their behalf. Experiencing gratitude motivates beneficiaries to repay their benefactors and to extend generosity to third parties. Expressions of gratitude also reinforce benefactors for their generosity. These social features distinguish gratitude from related emotions such as happiness and feelings of indebtedness. Evolutionary theories propose that gratitude is an adaptation for reciprocal altruism (the sequential exchange of costly benefits between nonrelatives) and, perhaps, upstream reciprocity (a payit-forward style distribution of an unearned benefit to a third party after one has received a benefit from another benefactor). Gratitude therefore may have played a unique role in human social evolution.

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Most studies on the use of sport with marginalized populations have centered upon the impact on participants, with few studies examining the impact of these interventions on other stakeholder groups, such as volunteers. While it has been contended that volunteering provides a form of social participation and civic engagement that can foster development of citizenship and social capital, these ideas are disputed and lack empirical evidence. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of Street Soccer USA on its volunteers. Street Soccer USA uses soccer to provide a support system to homeless individuals for making positive life changes. The findings of this qualitative study with five teams in the United States revealed that volunteering fostered the preconditions for and actual social capital development by enhancing awareness and understanding about homelessness, building community and relationships with the homeless, enhancing passion to work in the social justice field, and developing self-satisfaction through a 'feel good' mentality. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on the use of sport to aid in social capital development. By creating increased understanding and a sense of community between different social groups, greater community cohesion and more inclusive social capital can be developed.

Much sport-for-development (SFD) research has focused on the impact initiatives have on participants, and not on other stakeholders such as volunteers. Some research suggests volunteerism enables social capital gains, while other scholars have been skeptical, with even less known about how volunteers are impacted by working for SFD events rather than for ongoing programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate how, if at all, a large, multinational SFD event contributed to social capital development of volunteers. Findings revealed volunteers experienced social capital development through building relationships, learning, and enhanced motivation to work for social change and reciprocity. As very little research has examined the efficacy of SFD events in contributing to social capital development, the findings extend the literature on SFD events. It would be prudent for SFD events to target programming to impact the experience of volunteers to retain them and contribute to social capital development.