Two studies examined whether forgiveness in married couples is associated with better conflict resolution. Study 1 examined couples in their 3rd year of marriage and identified 2 forgiveness dimensions (retaliation and benevolence). Husbands' retaliatory motivation was a significant predictor of poorer wife-reported conflict resolution, whereas wives' benevolence motivation predicted husbands' ...

Past research has revealed that forgiveness promotes prosocial cognition, feeling, and behavior toward the offender. The present research extends this research by examining whether forgiveness may spill over beyond the relationship with the offender, promoting generalized prosocial orientation. Consistent with hypotheses, three studies revealed that forgiveness compared to unforgiveness is gene...

Title of Dissertation: On the (Un)intendend Consequences of Forgiveness: Creativity After Conflict Ryan Fehr, Ph.D., 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor Michele J. Gelfand Department of Psychology Within the psychological and organizational sciences, research on forgiveness as an offender-directed motivational response to victimization is flourishing. Scholars have drawn from a wide range ...

The current investigation examines insider/subjective and outsider/objective perspectives on forgiveness. Two hundred and thirty-two undergraduates in dating relationships were asked to describe situations in which they had been hurt by their romantic partners. Both subjective and objective ratings of event severity predicted forgiveness. In addition, rejection sensitivity proved consequential ...

This research assesses the effects of a psychology of forgiveness pilot study on anger-recall stress induced changes in myocardial perfusion, forgiveness and related variables. Thirty-two patients were administered baseline rest and anger-recall stress imaging studies, and 17 of these participants who demonstrated anger-recall stress induced myocardial perfusion defects (forgiveness group, n = ...

S FOR LISTED 2009 EMPIRICAL PUBLICATIONS (ONLY FIRST AUTHOR LISTED UNLESS MULTIPLE ARTICLES BY SAME FIRST AUTHOR) Note: In press abstracts not included Balkin The professional literature diverges in defining the role of forgiveness and reconciliation in counseling regarding how forgiveness and reconciliation are conceptualized from a professional and secular perspective. The Jewish conceptualiz...

Exploitation is a fact of life for social organisms, and natural selection gives rise to revenge mechanisms that are designed to deter such exploitations. However, humans may also possess cognitive forgiveness mechanisms designed to promote the restoration of valuable social relationships following exploitation. In the current article, the authors test the hypothesis that decisions about forgiv...

Although justice and forgiveness are generally held to be competitive constructs, increasingly, studies indicate that when justice is operationalized on the basis of its inclusive characteristics, it is compatible with forgiveness. This study (N = 142) applied a human values framework to provide a theoretical explanation for the positive association between justice (operationalized as just worl...

Despite a burgeoning literature that documents numerous positive implications of forgiveness, scholars know very little about the potential negative implications of forgiveness. In particular, the tendency to express forgiveness may lead offenders to feel free to offend again by removing unwanted consequences for their behavior (e.g., anger, criticism, rejection, loneliness) that would otherwis...

The present research addresses the question of whether regulatory-mode orientations affect self-forgiveness. We expected that people with a strong locomotion orientation would be more inclined to self-forgiveness because of their tendencies toward movement and change, which focus them on the future, whereas people with a strong assessment orientation would refrain from self-forgiveness due to t...