Back to caring after being hurt: the role of forgiveness

While the topic of forgiveness has only recently started to receive empirical attention, little research has been conducted to examine the notion that forgiveness predicts pro-relationship responses, motivated by a willingness to set aside personal well-being to enhance the well-being of the partner or relationship. The purpose of the present research was to examine whether forgiveness predicts prorelationship responses, and whether it does so above and beyond commitment to the offender. Consistent with hypotheses, three studies revealed that forgiveness is significantly associated with (a) willingness to accommodate (i.e. to respond constructively rather than destructively when the partner has engaged in a potentially destructive act), (b) willingness to sacrifice, and (c) level of intended cooperation. Moreover, these associations were independent of commitment to the offender, providing initial evidence for the unique role of forgiveness in understanding pro-relationship motivation and behaviour. Finally, the results of Study 3 suggested that forgiveness restores, rather than increases, levels of pro-relationship motivation, compared to baseline levels of pro-relationship motivation. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. John has been involved in a romantic relationship with Cathleen for a long time, he feels strongly committed to her, and in general, everything is going very well between them. However, once, when they were in a bar with friends, Cathleen publicly divulged a secret of John’s. All their friends enjoyed the secret and had to laugh, but John thought this was far from amusing and felt that the situation was quite embarrassing for him. He felt deeply hurt by Cathleen and they had a big fight about this incident. Although they talked it over and Cathleen expressed her regrets that same night, nowadays, when he is thinking about the incident, John still experiences some anger and feelings of resentment towards Cathleen: John has not been able to fully forgive Cathleen for this incident. When they are interacting, people sometimes offend and hurt each other, whether they are intimate partners, family, friends, or acquaintances. What is the impact of such offences on the functioning of the relationship? How do people maintain their interpersonal relationships, despite these sometimes deeply hurtful moments within the relationship? Will it be easy for John to engage in pro-relationship behaviour toward Cathleen? How will John react if Cathleen again acts in some destructive way? Received 18 January 2003 Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 6 October 2003 *Correspondence to: Johan C. Karremans, Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Utrecht University, PO Box 80140, NL-3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected] While previous research on pro-relationship behaviour has typically focused on broad relational constructs, such as commitment, little research has been conducted to examine how offences affect people’s pro-relationship motivations and behaviour in subsequent interaction situations. Recently, interest has grown in the construct of forgiveness while addressing the kind of questions mentioned above (for an overview, see for instance McCullough, Pargament, & Thoresen, 2000). The argument is that forgiveness might be one of the ‘keys’ towards understanding how people are able to maintain healthy relationships (e.g. Fincham, 2000). Previous research on forgiveness has mainly focused on its determinants, and there is now general consensus in the literature that forgiveness is determined by offence-specific factors (e.g. severity of the offence; Girard & Mullet, 1997), relationship-specific factors (e.g. commitment; Finkel, Rusbult, Kumashiro, & Hannon, 2002; McCullough et al., 1998), and personality factors (e.g. neuroticism and agreeableness; Berry, Worthington, Jr, Parrot, O’Connor, & Wade, 2001; McCullough, Bellah, Kilpatrick, & Johnson, 2001). Also, affective consequences of forgiveness have received considerable attention. For instance, forgiveness appears to be positively related to both physiological indices of well-being (Witvliet, Ludwig, & VanderLaan, 2001), as well as self-report measures of psychological well-being (i.e. Karremans, Van Lange, Ouwerkerk, & Kluwer, 2003). Although the definitions of forgiveness have been quite diverse, by reviewing the literature, McCullough et al. (2000) observe that all the existing definitions seem to be build on one core feature: ‘When people forgive, their responses toward (or, in other words, what they think of, feel about, want to do to, or actually do to) people who have offended or injured them become more positive and less negative’ (p. 9). However, remarkably little empirical research has been conducted to examine the relationship between forgiveness and prosocial responses more closely, although there is some evidence relevant to the claim that forgiveness energizes prosocial behaviour (Fincham, 2000; Fincham & Beach, 2002; McCullough, Worthington, Jr, & Rachal, 1997). For instance, a recent study by Fincham and Beach (2002) demonstrated that forgiveness is negatively related to psychological aggression and positively related to self-report measures of constructive communication in the relationship. Previous research, however, has investigated this link primarily in light of responses that are specifically related to a particular offence: when participants indicated they had forgiven an offender a past offence, they also reported they had exhibited greater levels of pro-relationship responses toward the offender in response to this particular offence, compared to when they had not forgiven the offender (Fincham, 2000; Fincham & Beach, 2002; McCullough et al., 1997). For instance, McCullough et al. (1997) investigated whether forgiveness was related to conciliatory behaviour on part of the victim. However, such offences obviously do not occur in a vacuum; they may not only be the result of a history of conflicts, but such intense experiences within a relationship may very well affect the way in which people behave toward the offender in future interactions, that are not directly related to the offence (cf. Aron & Aron, 1995; Baldwin, 1992; Holmes, 2000). The aim of the present research is to illuminate the influence of a past offence on a person’s prorelationship behavioural intentions toward the offender. Specifically, the major purpose is to investigate the link between level of forgiveness of a past offence and a person’s current accommodation, willingness to sacrifice, and intended cooperation towards the offender. As will be explained shortly, given that commitment has been claimed, and demonstrated, to exert powerful effects on prorelationship motivation and behaviour, a complementary purpose is to examine whether forgiveness makes a unique contribution to predicting pro-relationship responses, above and beyond commitment. Finally, we address the question, to be discussed in the introduction to Study 3 in more detail, whether forgiveness restores levels of pro-relationship responses, or whether forgiveness increases levels of pro-relationship responses, as compared to pre-offence levels of pro-relationship behaviour (Pargament, McCullough, & Thoresen, 2000). 208 Johan C. Karremans and Paul A. M. van Lange Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 34, 207–227 (2004) FORGIVING AS TRANSFORMATION OF MOTIVATION Using principles of interdependence theory (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978; for a review, see Rusbult & Van Lange, 1996), forgiving can be conceptualized in terms of transformation of motivation. That is, when a person forgives an offending relationship partner, he or she is likely to forego his or her immediate self-interest, and is motivated to act on broader considerations, such as the pursuit of relational wellbeing, and concerns to promote both one’s own and the partner’s well-being (e.g. Karremans et al., 2003; McCullough et al., 1997, 1998). Indeed, consistent with the concept of transformation of motivation, McCullough et al. (1997) define forgiveness as ‘a set of motivational changes whereby one becomes decreasingly motivated to retaliate against an offending relationship partner, decreasingly motivated to maintain estrangement from the offender, and increasingly motivated by conciliation and goodwill for the offender, despite the offender’s hurtful actions’ (p. 321). Importantly, it should be clear that forgiveness does not simply entail the lack of negative motivations (i.e. avoidance and revenge), but forgiveness also includes a restored motivation to be benevolent toward the offender, after the offence occurred (Fincham & Beach, 2002; Fincham, Paleari, & Regalia, 2002; McCullough & Hoyt, 2002). Thus, forgiveness is conceptualized as an intrapersonal motivational change, and the aim of the present research then is to investigate whether intrapersonal forgiveness, after a conflict has occurred, increases pro-relationship responses as compared to when there is a lack of forgiveness. COMMITMENT AND FORGIVENESS Previous research has revealed that commitment promotes forgiveness (McCullough et al., 1998; Finkel et al., 2002), such that higher levels of commitment are generally associated with greater tendencies toward forgiveness. However, these findings do not necessarily imply that strong commitment always leads to forgiveness. Indeed, sometimes it may be difficult for people to forgive others to whom they are strongly committed. In fact, sometimes it may be even harder to intrapersonally forgive another person to whom we feel strong commitment than another person to whom we feel weak commitment. For example, under some circumstances, an offence, such as breaking a promise (e.g. Cathleen had promised John not to tell anybody about his secret), might evoke less forgiving in highly committed relationships, because it violates some key features and expectations that are more characteristic of highly committed relationships (e.g. trust and dependability; Holmes & Rempel, 1989; cf. Miller, 2001). As to the example discussed earlier, John is just not able to easily forgive Cathleen, but at the same time feels strongly committed to Cathleen. ACCOMMODATION AND WILLINGNESS TO SACRIFICE When interacting, people often encounter situations in which preferences between self and other seem incompatible. In such a situation, referred to as a mixed-motive situation, on the one hand a person may have compelling reasons to pursue immediate self-interest, but on the other hand the person may have reasons to promote the interest of one’s relationship. Previous research has typically found that broad motivational forces, such as commitment, promotes willingness to forego immediate self-interest and to act in the interest of the relationship (i.e. pro-relationship behaviour). Specific examples of prorelationship behaviours that result from this transformation of motivation are accommodation and Forgiveness and pro-relationship responses 209 Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 34, 207–227 (2004) willingness to sacrifice (e.g. Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991; Van Lange et al., 1997). Rusbult and colleagues (Rusbult et al., 1991; Yovetich & Rusbult, 1994) have demonstrated that commitment promotes accommodation. Accommodation refers to the willingness, when a partner has engaged in a potentially destructive act, to inhibit impulses to react destructively and instead react constructively. When Cathleen acts rudely towards John, John’s immediate impulse will be to act rudely in return (Yovetich & Rusbult, 1994). However, John’s strong commitment to Cathleen, is likely to inhibit John’s self-centred impulses and to react in the interest of his relationship with Cathleen. A related line of research has demonstrated that strong commitment promotes willingness to sacrifice, defined as tendencies to forego desired activities for the good of the partner or the relationship (Van Lange et al., 1997). When a person’s preferences do not fully correspond with the partner’s preferences, high commitment promotes a person’s willingness to set aside one’s own needs for the needs of the partner. For example, Cathleen really wants John to attend his father-in-law’s anniversary party, but John finds such parties terrible. Because of John’s strong commitment to Cathleen, he decides to, although he does not like it at all, attend the party for the interest of Cathleen, and their relationship. But are there constructs that might account for pro-relationship motivation and behaviour in a manner independent of commitment? We suggest that forgiveness is such a construct. Why? Level of commitment to a certain relationship partner results from a history of many interaction experiences (and from a future of expected interactions) with this partner, and is argued to be influenced by investment size, quality of alternatives, and satisfaction level (e.g. Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, 1998). In this sense, commitment can be viewed as a broad macromotive in relationships, which shapes tendencies to engage in pro-relationship behaviour in a relatively distal way (e.g. Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Rusbult, Drigotas, & Verette, 1994). Conversely, the psychological state of forgiveness results directly from a specific experience within the relationship, and, when someone is somehow reminded of this experience, level of forgiveness (i.e. the intrapersonal state of forgiveness) may—at least temporarily—‘overrule’ motivations to act for the interest of the partner or the relationship that are accompanied by commitment to the partner. That is, whereas level of commitment has been proved to be an important relationship-specific source of prosocial motivation (i.e. predicting pro-relationship behaviour across different situations and different contexts within the relationship), we argue that level of forgiveness can be regarded as a situation or context-specific source of prosocial motivation, within the relationship (i.e. predicting pro-relationship behaviour for instance when the context reminds the victim of the offence, when the offender acts in a way that reminds the victim of the past offence, or when the victim is ruminating on the incident, cf. McCullough et al., 1998). Therefore, from a proximal point of view, we suggest that forgiving should play a unique role in predicting prorelationship responses, above and beyond commitment. To summarize, given that forgiveness can be conceptualized as an intrapersonal transformation of motivation, we hypothesize that forgiveness will be positively associated with higher levels of prorelationship behavioural intentions, that is, accommodation and willingness to sacrifice. Additionally, It should be clear that there is an important conceptual difference between forgiveness and accommodation. Accommodation has been conceptualized as a behavioural response following a partner’s destructive behaviour. As such, accommodation takes place at the level of a specific interaction, but does not directly predict a person’s motivation and behaviour toward the partner in subsequent interactions. In contrast, forgiveness (or the absence of forgiveness) is conceptualized as an intrapersonal prosocial motivational change (or the absence of this change, respectively), which may predict behaviour— including accommodative behaviour—towards the offender in subsequent interaction. Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that level of forgiveness may influence behaviour towards an offender even years and years after a specific offence (see for instance Enright & North, 1998). 210 Johan C. Karremans and Paul A. M. van Lange Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 34, 207–227 (2004) following the rationale outlined above, we predict that this effect of forgiving on accommodation and willingness to sacrifice will be independent of one’s commitment to the offender.