Forgiveness, forbearance, and time: The temporal unfolding of transgression-related interpersonal motivations.

Abstract

The investigators proposed that transgression-related interpersonal motivations result from 3 psychological parameters: forbearance (abstinence from avoidance and revenge motivations, and maintenance of benevolence), trend forgiveness (reductions in avoidance and revenge, and increases in benevolence), and temporary forgiveness (transient reductions in avoidance and revenge, and transient increases in benevolence). In 2 studies, the investigators examined this 3-parameter model. Initial ratings of transgression severity and empathy were directly related to forbearance but not trend forgiveness. Initial responsibility attributions were inversely related to forbearance but directly related to trend forgiveness. When people experienced high empathy and low responsibility attributions, they also tended to experience temporary forgiveness. The distinctiveness of each of these 3 parameters underscores the importance of studying forgiveness temporally.

Rumination, emotion, and forgiveness: Three longitudinal studies.

“…Students who completed all five repeated assessments received $10. Analyses of different aspects of this data set were reported in McCullough et al (2003).…”

“…Modeling Forgiveness as Change McCullough et al (2003) proposed that forgiveness can be operationalized as change in two ways using repeated measures of people's transgression-related interpersonal motivations, or TRIMs. Specifically, they proposed decomposing repeated measures of people's TRIMs regarding a transgression according to the following statistical model:…”

“…But note in Figure 1 that neither Alan's nor Bill's revenge scores fall perfectly on their linear regression lines: On some days, Alan and Bill had more or less revenge motivation regarding their transgressors than would be expected given their initial levels of those motivations and the rates of change in their motivations over the 35 days (i.e., trend forgiveness). McCullough et al (2003) named such temporary deviations in people's TRIMs "temporary forgiveness," with people being temporarily more forgiving when their avoidance and revenge motivations were lower than would be expected on the basis of their initial status and trend forgiveness estimates. Of course, these residuals also contain measurement error, but insofar as the residuals are correlated with intraindividual differences in other psychological processes, the residuals themselves may reveal important insights about why people are more forgiving toward a transgressor on some occasions than they might be on others (McCullough et al, 2003).…”

“…In other words, by interpreting the coefficients for rumination derived from these within-person models, one can evaluate whether people tend to be more avoidant or vengeful, respectively, toward their transgressors on occasions when they are more ruminative toward their transgressors than would be expected on the basis of (a) how avoidant or vengeful, respectively, they were immediately after the transgression occurred and (b) how much their avoidance (or revenge) motivation changed as a linear function of time during the measured interval. Controlling for initial levels and rates of linear change in this fashion enabled us to control for similarities in initial status and rates of linear change in the predictor and outcome variables when we evaluated the within-persons hypotheses (McCullough et al, 2003). 3 Between-persons models.…”

Prosocial response to client-instigated victimization: The roles of forgiveness and workgroup conflict.

“…Forgiveness can therefore be understood as a process of motivational change (McCullough, Fincham, & Tsang, 2003), in which avoidance and revenge motivations are decreased and benevolent motivation increased (Wilkowski, Robinson, & Troop-Gordon, 2010). …”