The structure of the motives invoked by people for forgiveness and for unforgiveness was assessed, and the relationships between these motives and demographic characteristics, conceptualizations of forgiveness, forgivingness, personality and culture were examined. Forgiveness appeared to be fueled mainly by three largely independent kinds of motives: having recovered sympathy for a repentant offender, applying a moral principle and preserving a meaningful relationship. Forgiveness may sometimes, however, amount to exploiting the offense for dominating or for challenging the offender as well as others. Unforgiveness appeared to be fueled mainly by persistent anger and indignation, sometimes associated with the desire for self-affirmation and self-protection, and, for a few participants, it was the only response to outgroup members. For each kind of invoked motive a meaningful pattern of relationships with the other measurements, including culture, was found. Theory and methods/Théorie et méthodes RésuméLa structure des motifs invoqués par les personnes lorsque celles-ci pardonnent ou ne pardonnent pas a été étudiée, et les relations entre motifs, caractéristiques démographiques, conceptions du pardon, capacité générale de pardon, personnalité et culture ont été examinées. Le pardon semble être associé principalement à trois types de motifs en grande partie indépendants: le fait d'avoir retrouvé un certain niveau de sympathie pour un offenseur repentant, l'application d'un principe moral et le besoin de préserver une relation interpersonnelle à laquelle on tient. Le pardon peut cependant aussi être associé à l'exploitation de l'infraction commise en vue de dominer l'offenseur ou en vue de défier celui-ci ou les autres personnes. Le non-pardon semble être associé principalement à la persistance de la colère et de l'indignation; il est parfois associé à la volonté d'affirmation de soi et d'autoprotection, et pour quelques participants, il s'agit de la seule réponse possible aux personnes ne faisant pas partie du groupe. Pour chaque type de motif, un patron cohérent et interprétable de relations avec les autres mesures, y compris la culture, a été trouvé.

Experiment 1 compared the cognitive processes involved in blame and forgiveness judgments under identical experimental conditions. Experiment 2 was a replication of Experiment 1 with 4 judgment scales: willingness to prosecute, willingness to avenge, resentment level, and willingness to make up. Participants were presented with 32 scenarios in which a doctor made a medical error. These situations contained 5 items: the degree of proximity with the doctor (e.g., a family doctor known since childhood), the degree of negligence, the severity of consequences, apologies or contrition, and cancellation of consequences. Functional cognitive analysis grouped judgments into 2 categories: blame-like judgments (blame, prosecution, and revenge) and forgiveness-like judgments (resentment, forgiveness, and reconciliation). Blame-like judgments were characterized by additive integration rules, with negligence followed by apologies as the 2 main cues. Forgiveness-like judgments were characterized by an interactive integration rule, with apologies followed by negligence as the 2 main cues.

The study analyzed new information regarding the way in which present day Russians (living in Moscow or Tula) perceive societal risks. The main concerns of Russians in year 2003 were essentially the same ones that were identified in previous studies conducted on Western samples: violence, sex, and addiction-type hazards received the highest risk ratings. Women's mean risk judgments were systematically higher than men's mean judgments, and older participants' mean judgments were higher than younger participants' mean judgments regarding domestic hazards. Technically trained people perceived higher societal risk than people with training in the humanities, but the difference between people with technical training and people trained in the humanities was more accentuated among younger people than among the elderly. Also, men living in Tula perceived themselves as less exposed to risks of violence than women living in Tula and both men and women living in Moscow.

Satisfaction with life, Domains of life, Portugal, France,