Explaining our sins: Factors influencing offender accounts and anticipated victim responses.

Abstract

Two studies examined the effects of offender blameworthiness, consequence severity, and offender gender on written accounts provided after a hypothetical predicament. Participants imagined themselves as the offending party in a predicament and provided written accounts after their victims' reproach. Accounts were coded using Schonbach's (1980) account taxonomy. Study 1 results showed that although concessionary strategies were the most prevalent overall, they were more prevalent for more blameworthy offenses than less blameworthy offenses. Women's accounts were more complex than men's, especially for more blameworthy offenses. In Study 2, in which 3 levels of blameworthiness were used, offenders proffered significantly more concessions after negligent acts than after either accidental or intentional acts, producing a curvilinear pattern. Again, accounts of men and women differed, with men proffering fewer and less complex concessions and more lies than did women. Deviations from politeness theory predictions are explained by reference to face-saving tensions inherent in social predicaments, tensions absent in less problematic social encounters."For the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) Portions of the research reported here were presented at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago. This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid of Research from the Graduate School at the University of Minnesota to Marti Hope Gonzales.We are grateful to Connie Lawrence, Jay Sieler, and Jordan Moe for their assistance in data collection and to Connie Lawrence for her voluminous typewritten transcriptions of participants' written accounts. We are also indebted to three anonymous reviewers whose valuable comments and suggestions are reflected in this article.

An empathy‐humility‐commitment model of forgiveness applied within family dyads

“…Experimental studies on the effects of giving different accounts of interpersonal offences have shown the power of apology (Gonzales et al, 1992;Schonberg, 1990;Weiner et al, 1991). When one person apologizes for wronging another, the person hearing the apology can immediately develop a sense of empathy with the difficulty of admitting fault.…”

The apology mismatch: Asymmetries between victim's need for apologies and perpetrator's willingness to apologize

“…We combined scenario methodology, which gives control over the transgression and thus increasing internal validity (Aronson, Wilson, & Brewer, 1998), with autobiographical narrative methodology, which is more emotionally involving and has a higher ecological validity (Baumeister et al, 1990;Gonzales, Manning, & Haugen, 1992;Zechmeister & Romero, 2002). In addition to this pluralistic methodological strategy, we sampled both students and employees to test the generalizability of our results.…”

Dealing with betrayal in close relationships: Does commitment promote forgiveness?

“…When negative partner acts are interpreted as rule violations, they arouse righteous indignation and are construed as betrayals; the positive, relationshiprestoring act that resolves such dilemmas is forgiveness. actions in such a manner as to justify their behavior (e.g., Gonzales, Manning, & Haugen, 1992;Stillwell & Baumeister, 1997). Moreover, victims' desire for revenge and demands for atonement may be met with reciprocal behavioral negativity on the part of perpetrators, in that few perpetrators suffer endless payback and offer bottomless amends (e.g., Hodgins, Liebeskind, & Schwartz, 1996;Ohbuchi et al, 1989).…”