Perceived goal instrumentality is associated with forgiveness: A test of the valuable relationships hypothesis

Smith, Adam; McCauley, Thomas Granville; Yagi, Ayano; Yamaura, Koichi; Shimizu, Hiroshi; McCullough, Michael E.; Ohtsubo, Yohsuke

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.09.003

Cited by 14 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(41 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Evolutionary psychologists have recently suggested that reconciliation occurs because breaking up valuable relationships invites more cost than preserving them ( McCullough, 2008 ; Burnette et al, 2012 ; McCullough et al, 2014 ; Ohtsubo and Yagi, 2015 ; Smith et al, 2020 ). When the relationship is valuable and the exploitation risk is low, people engage in reconciliation for the benefit it affords them.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, relationship value is a reliable predictor of animal reconciliation ( Cords and Thurnheer, 1993 for experimental evidence from long-tailed macaques). McCullough et al (2010) , for example, tested this hypothesis by assessing the temporal course of forgiveness over 3 months and found that the offender’s relationship value facilitated the rate of forgiveness (see also Burnette et al, 2012 ; McCullough et al, 2014 ; Smith et al, 2020 for further evidence for the valuable relationships hypothesis in humans).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Socio-Ecological Hypothesis of Reconciliation: Cultural, Individual, and Situational Variations in Willingness to Accept Apology or Compensation

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The main goal of the present research is to examine socio-ecological hypothesis on apology and compensation. Specifically, we conducted four studies to test the idea that an apology is an effective means to induce reconciliation in a residentially stable community, whereas compensation is an effective means in a residentially mobile community. In Studies 1, 2a, and 2b, American and Japanese participants (national difference in mobility; Study 1) or non-movers and movers (within-nation difference in mobility; Studies 2a and 2b) imagined the situations in which they were hurt by their friends and rated to what extent they would be willing to maintain their friendships upon receipt of apology or compensation. The results showed that compensation was more effective in appeasing residentially mobile people (i.e., Americans and movers) than stable people (i.e., Japanese and non-movers), while apology was slightly more effective appeasing residentially stable people than residentially mobile people (significant in Study 1; not significant in Studies 2a and 2b). In Study 3, by conducting an economics game experiment, we directly tested the hypothesis that mobility would impair the effectiveness of apology and enhance the effectiveness of compensation. The results again partially supported our hypothesis: In the high mobility condition, compensation increased one’s willingness to continue the relationship with the offender, when compared to willingness in the low mobility condition. The importance of socio-ecological perspective on the forgiveness literature is discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-Ecological Hypothesis of Reconciliation: Cultural, Individual, and Situational Variations in Willingness to Accept Apology or Compensation

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This process may contribute to thoughts that there may be other contributing factors involved (e.g., It may be not totally caused by the offender), and/or there may be reciprocity (e.g., I may be forgiven in case I unintentionally offend others) (Lv et al, 2015). In this sense, those adolescents may try to reduce negative affection and grant emotional forgiveness (Donovan and Priester, 2017;Smith et al, 2019). In support of this, empirical research has found that adolescents who score high in compromising thinking are more likely to forgive the offender after being offended compared with those who score low in compromising thinking (Lv et al, 2015).…”

Section: Compromising Thinking and Forgivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Esteem Moderates the Effect of Compromising Thinking on Forgiveness Among Chinese Early Adolescents

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Forgiveness contributes to positive social relationships, which is critical for individual development, particularly for early adolescents. Most previous studies focused on the unique roles of cognitive factors (e.g., compromising thinking) and personality traits (e.g., self-esteem) in the process of developing forgiveness. However, sporadic research has examined their interactive effect on forgiveness from an integrated perspective. Given that forgiveness has been categorized into decisional and emotional forgiveness, this study aimed to examine the effects of compromising thinking on two types of forgiveness, and the moderating effects of self-esteem on the association between compromising thinking and forgiveness among early adolescents. A total of 1,009 Chinese primary and secondary school students (50.4% males; M age = 11.75, SD = 1.27) were recruited to complete three self-reported questionnaires. The results showed that compromising thinking predicted decisional forgiveness but not emotional forgiveness. Furthermore, self-esteem was identified to moderate the conditional effects of compromising thinking on decisional and emotional forgiveness. These findings advance a better understanding of the construct and mechanism of forgiveness, which can provide insights for targeted forgiveness interventions among early adolescents, such as compromising thinking instructions and self-esteem enhancement programs.

show abstract

“…Many of the costs of direct punishment can be mitigated by instead engaging in indirect forms of punishment, such as avoiding the transgressor and excluding them from one's social network. Indirect punishment (and avoidance-related emotions such as disgust) have therefore been found to be more common when punishers have less power and value offenders less (Molho et al, 2020;Tybur et al, 2019), such as when responding to transgressions against third parties rather than oneself or kin (Lopez et al, 2019;Molho et al, 2017;Pedersen et al, 2018), when the punisher places less value on their relationship with the transgressor, and when there is a high threat of future exploitation from the transgressor (Burnette et al, 2012;McCullough et al, 2013McCullough et al, , 2013Smith et al, 2019). Avoidance and expressions of disgust towards the transgressor therefore provide protection from the transgressor, by limiting future social interactions, while additionally serving as a low-cost signal of disapproval of the transgressor's behavior (Kupfer & Giner-Sorolla, 2017;Yoder et al, 2016).…”

Section: Person-centered Influences On Direct and Indirect Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating between punishment, avoidance, and instruction: The form and function of responses to moral violations varies across adult and child transgressors

White¹,

Schaller²,

Abraham³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Three studies (N = 867) investigated how adults’ and children’s punitive responses to moral transgressions differ depending on whether transgressors are adults or children. Adults judged the transgressions of fellow adults as substantially more wrong, and as more worthy of avoidance and punishment, than identical actions performed by children. This difference was partially mediated by the perception that adults’ actions are considered to be more wrong, more harmful, and stranger than children’s identical actions, and by greater anxiety about the negative consequences of confronting adults about their bad behavior. Despite viewing children’s actions as less wrong, adults were more likely to reprimand children than adults who engaged in identical behavior, and this difference became more pronounced when statistically controlling for the wrongness and strangeness of actions. Adults’ nurturant tendencies towards children, as well as their perceptions of children’s moral character as more changeable, also predicted relatively greater reprimand and less avoidance of child transgressors. These differences between reprimand and avoidance of child and adult transgressors was robust to the type of transgression (including harm- and purity-related norms), several individual differences, and a global pandemic. In contrast, 4- to 9-year-old children were equally likely to avoid and reprimand adult and child transgressors, suggesting that different processes are engaged when adults judge children compared to when children evaluate their own peers. Together, these findings indicate how diverse responses to moral transgressions are differentially adapted for norm violators of different ages.

show abstract

Perceived goal instrumentality is associated with forgiveness: A test of the valuable relationships hypothesis

Cited by 14 publications

References 34 publications

Socio-Ecological Hypothesis of Reconciliation: Cultural, Individual, and Situational Variations in Willingness to Accept Apology or Compensation

Socio-Ecological Hypothesis of Reconciliation: Cultural, Individual, and Situational Variations in Willingness to Accept Apology or Compensation

Self-Esteem Moderates the Effect of Compromising Thinking on Forgiveness Among Chinese Early Adolescents

Navigating between punishment, avoidance, and instruction: The form and function of responses to moral violations varies across adult and child transgressors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About