Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships.

Abstract

Interpersonal forgiving was conceptualized in the context of a 2-factor motivational system that governs people's responses to interpersonal offenses. Four studies were conducted to examine the extent to which forgiving could be predicted with relationship-level variables such as satisfaction, commitment, and closeness; offense-level variables such as apology and impact of the offense; and social-cognitive variables such as offunder-focused empathy and rumination about the offense. Also described is the development of the transgression-related interpersonal motivations inventory--a self-report measure designed to assess the 2-component motivational system (Avoidance and Revenge) posited to underlie forgiving. The measure demonstrated a variety of desirable psychometric properties, commending its use for future research. As predicted, empathy, apology, rumination, and several indexes of relationship closeness were associated with self-reported forgiving.The concept of forgiving, although not a traditional focus of personality and social psychology, has been of passing theoretical and empirical interest to the discipline for 40 years. In a chapter on benefit and harm in The Psychology oflnterpersonal Relations, Heider (1958) outlined a variety of attributional principles that underlie the quest for revenge after one has incurred an interpersonal transgression. In this context, Heider described forgiving as the forgoing of vengeful behavior, which he posited to be an implicit expression of the victim's self-worth. However,

The Friendly Taking Effect: How Interpersonal Closeness Leads to Seemingly Selfish Yet Jointly Maximizing Choice

“…People might feel more licensed to take from close others because they anticipate more forgiveness for their selfishness when taking from close others rather than distant others (McCullough et al 1998;McCullough, Worthington, and Rachal 1997), or they might feel more comfortable taking things (e.g., help) from close friends as compared to casual friends because they are less concerned with making a good impression (Beck and Clark 2009). In our next study, we tested these alternative explanations by examining whether people give to, rather than just take from, close others more than from distant others.…”

Rumination, emotion, and forgiveness: Three longitudinal studies.

“…Forgiveness is a suite of prosocial changes in one's motivations toward an interpersonal transgressor such that one becomes less avoidant of and less vengeful toward the transgressor (and, perhaps, more benevolent as well; McCullough et al, 1997). Forgiveness is an unusual construct in psychology because it is not a state, but a process of change per se.…”

“…In previous work, we assumed that a vengeful stance is associated with an angry, approach-related desire to harm one's transgressor in kind, whereas an avoidant stance is associated with a fearful desire to maintain a safe distance from the transgressor (McCullough et al, 1998(McCullough et al, , 1997. This latter motivation would seem less strongly linked to anger toward a transgressor and more strongly linked to fear of the transgressor.…”

“…Yet a third possibility is that the emotions that elicit avoidance motivation and revenge motivation are in fact more similar than different (cf. McCullough et al, 2003;McCullough & Hoyt, 2002;McCullough et al, 1998McCullough et al, , 1997.…”

Casamentos de Longa Duração: Recursos Pessoais como Estratégias de Manutenção do Laço Conjugal

“…Casais envolvidos em casamentos mais satisfatórios e que desfrutam de maior intimidade comumente vivenciam um senso de conforto e bem--estar no relacionamento que reforça suas habilidades de reinterpretar positivamente comportamentos de transgressão, o que facilita o processo de identificação com o parceiro ofensor e, em última instância, o perdão e a reparação em relação aos agravos (McCullough, Worthington Junior, & Rachal, 1997).…”