Forgiving Significant Interpersonal Offenses: The Role of Victim/Offender Racial Similarity

Abstract

The influence of victim/offender racial similarity on victim forgiveness was investigated in a study of interpersonal transgressions. It was hypothesized that racial similarity between victim and offender would influence forgiveness only for transgressions that were less distressing for the victim. Participants were 104 adults (45 Black and 59 White) who provided a narrative description of a significant interpersonal transgression they had experienced and completed measures of transgression-related distress and forgiveness. Forgiveness was measured as positive (benevolence) and negative (revenge, avoidance) motivations toward the offender. For negative motivetions, revenge and avoidance, there was no effect of racial similarity: more severe distress was associated with less forgiveness for all victim/offender pairings. However, the results revealed a significant interaction of victim/offender racial similarity and distress for positive motivations: Black victims reported increased benevolence towards Black offenders after more distressing transgressions. Victims in other racial combinations reported reduced benevolence for more distressing transgressions. In group favoring of Black offenders by Black victims may be an unexplored aspect of forgiveness. Little research has addressed the potential influence of context on interpersonal forgiveness, and this study suggests that these influences may play an important role.

To Whom Do Prior Offenders Pose a Risk? Victim–Offender Similarity in Police-Reported Violent Crime

“…It is always possible that some of the background variables are correlated with the likelihood of police notification, making arrests or subsequent convictions a biased measure of actual violence with respect to the measured covariates. It is also possible that victim-offender homophily affects the probability of reporting a crime (Cornick, Schultz, Tallman, & Altmeier, 2011). It is difficult to tell how such biases should work in the current application: For instance, if the same former inmate attacks an average citizen and a prior offender, which one would be more likely to notify the police in Finland?…”