Six studies regarding forgiveness are presented. The Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS), a self-report measure of dispositional forgiveness (with subscales to assess forgiveness of self, others, and situations) was developed and demonstrated good psychometric properties. Forgiveness correlated positively with cognitive flexibility, positive affect, and distraction; it correlated negatively with rumination, vengeance, and hostility. Forgiveness predicted four components of psychological well-being (anger, anxiety, depression, and satisfaction with life); forgiveness of situations accounted for unique variance in these components of psychological well-being. Forgiveness and hostility demonstrated equivalent, inverse associations with relationship duration, and forgiveness accounted for unique variance in relationship satisfaction, even when controlling for trust. Forgiveness level correlated positively with decreased negativity in statements written about transgressions in the present versus the past tense.

Dispositional forgiveness of self, others, and situations.

This article explores the effects of time and relationship strength on the evolution of customer revenge and avoidance in online public complaining contexts. First, the authors examine whether online complainers hold a grudge—in terms of revenge and avoidance desires—over time. They find that time affects the two desires differently: Although revenge decreases over time, avoidance increases over time, indicating that customers indeed hold a grudge. Second, the authors examine the moderation effect of a strong relationship on how customers hold this grudge. They find that firms' best customers have the longest unfavorable reactions (i.e., a longitudinal love-becomes-hate effect). Specifically, over time, the revenge of strong-relationship customers decreases more slowly and their avoidance increases more rapidly than that of weak-relationship customers. Third, the authors explore a solution to attenuate this damaging effect—namely, the firm offering an apology and compensation after the online com...

When Customer Love Turns into Lasting Hate:The Effects of Relationship Strength and Time on Customer Revenge and Avoidance

Experimental evidence suggests that when people are transgressed against interpersonally, they often react by experiencing unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is conceptualized as a stress reaction. Forgiveness is one (of many) ways people reduce unforgiveness. Forgiveness is conceptualized as an emotional juxtaposition of positive emotions (i.e., empathy, sympathy, compassion, or love) against the negative emotions of unforgiveness. Forgiveness can thus be used as an emotion-focused coping strategy to reduce a stressful reaction to a transgression. Direct empirical research suggests that forgiveness is related to health outcomes and to mediating physiological processes in such a way as to support the conceptualization that forgiveness is an emotion-focused coping strategy. Indirect mechanisms might also affect the forgiveness-health relationship. Namely, forgiveness might affect health by working through social support, relationship quality, and religion.

Forgiveness is an emotion-focused coping strategy that can reduce health risks and promote health resilience: theory, review, and hypotheses

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.

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

This article reviews the literature on the relationship between interpersonal rejection and aggression. Four bodies of research are summarized: laboratory experiments that manipulate rejection, rejection among adults in everyday life, rejection in childhood, and individual differences that may moderate the relationship. The theoretical mechanisms behind the effect are then explored. Possible explanations for why rejection leads to anger and aggression include: rejection as a source of pain, rejection as a source of frustration, rejection as a threat to self-esteem, mood improvement following aggression, aggression as social influence, aggression as a means of reestablishing control, retribution, disinhibition, and loss of self-control.

Interpersonal Rejection as a Determinant of Anger and Aggression

Because forgiveness theory has tended to neglect the role of dispositional factors, the authors present novel theorizing about the nature of vengefulness (the disposition to seek revenge following interpersonal offenses) and its relationship to forgiveness and other variables. In Study 1, vengefulness was correlated cross-sectionally with (a) less forgiving, (b) greater rumination about the offense, (c) higher negative affectivity, and (d) lower life satisfaction. Vengefulness at baseline was negatively related to change in forgiving throughout an 8-week follow-up. In Study 2, vengefulness was negatively associated with Agreeableness and positively associated with Neuroticism. Measures of the Big Five personality factors explained 30% of the variance in vengefulness.

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C. Garth Bellah

Papers

Vengefulness: Relationships with Forgiveness, Rumination, Well-Being, and the Big Five

A Look at Dispositional Vengefulness from the Three and Five-Factor Models of Personality.