Gender and Forgiveness: a Meta–analytic Review and Research Agenda

A meta–analysis was conducted with 53 articles reporting 70 studies that addressed gender and forgiveness. The mean d was .28 indicating that females are more forgiving than males. Potential methodological moderators were examined: (a) type of sample, (b) target of forgiveness, (c) trait, state, or familial/marital forgiveness, (d) actual versus hypothetical transgressions, (e) measurement modalities (i.e., questionnaire, experiment, or survey), (f) type of forgiveness measure, (g) published or not published, (h) validated measures versus non–validated measures, and (i) culture. No methodological variables moderated the relationship between gender and forgiveness. However, there were larger gender differences on vengeance than any other forgiveness–related measure. Other potential moderators were suggested as possibly influencing the gender difference including functional differences processing forgiveness, differences in dispositional qualities, and situational cues.