Vengeance: Effects of gender, age, and religious background

Abstract

Vengeance can be commonly defined as the infliction of harm in return for perceived injury or insult or as simply getting back at another person. Three hundred fifty-three participants responded to eight hypothetical scenarios that may elicit vengeful behavior in which the offending party was either a romantic partner, a friend, a coworker, or a stranger. Participants also completed a vengeance scale and a measure of biblical literalism. Participants were most vengeful toward coworkers and least vengeful toward romantic partners. Age, religious conservatism, and gender were significant predictors of attitudes toward vengeance. Although men were more likely than women to be accepting of vengeful attitudes as measured by the vengeance scale, only age was a significant predictor of behavior in the vengeance scenarios. The current research provides a basis for a systematic investigation of vengeance within the structure of human relationships and interactions. Aggr. Behav. 27:343-350, 2001.

The vengeance puzzle—retributive justice or hostile aggression?

“…The negative correlation of age with feelings of injustice and disappointment and intent of prevention echoes the results of Cota-McKinley [2001], who reported that the total score on the vengeance scenarios decreased with age. Cota-McKinley offered the tentative explanations that college education and/or 'the wisdom of age' might decrease vengefulness.…”

“…It was further expected that the closeness of the relationship would impact disappointment and aggression. Following the argument of Cota-McKinley et al [2001], that people are more personally involved in a work relationship than a relationship with a stranger, it was expected that an injustice committed by a coworker would result in more disappointment.…”

The reduction of psychological aggression across varied interpersonal contexts through repentance and forgiveness

“…Although these studies as a group suggest that this type of analysis of forgiveness is appropriate regardless of the relationship between the transgressor and the offended party, other studies have found forgiveness and its effectiveness in reducing aggression may be, in part, dependent on the relationship between the individuals involved. For example, Cota-McKinley et al [2001] found significant differences in the predicted vengeful responses to transgressions committed by coworkers and romantic partners, in that vengeance scores were significantly higher after participants read a scenario about a transgressing coworker than when they read about a transgressing romantic partner. Although this study did not address forgiveness directly, it suggests that more forgiveness would be required of coworkers than of romantic partners following a transgression.…”

“…Although this study did not address forgiveness directly, it suggests that more forgiveness would be required of coworkers than of romantic partners following a transgression. Cota-McKinley et al [2001] suggest that vengeance, or lack of forgiveness, is driven by the closeness of the relationship, in that individuals are usually less involved with their coworkers than with their romantic partners, and hence are less invested in keeping the relationship with coworkers free from conflict. Similar results have been reported with forgiveness of friends vs strangers, whereby friends are more easily forgiven than strangers [Phillips and Brown, 2002], and between coworkers who are liked and those who are not [Bradfield and Aquino, 1999].…”

Investigating the Mediator role of Social Safeness on the Relationship between Forgiveness and Life Satisfaction

“…Social safeness may well be one of the variables which mediate the relationship between forgiveness and life satisfaction for several reasons: First of all, social safeness is positively correlated with self-esteem and negatively with selfcriticism (Kelly et al, 2012) and therefore decreases vengeful thinking and increases forgiveness because vengeful cognitions are related to restoring self-worth (Cota-Mckinley et al, 2001) and these cognitions might be motivated by the goal of saving face (Mccullough et al, 2001). Second, individuals with feelings of social safeness were less likely to be fearful and insecure in their attachment style which may be related to under-activation of the soothing-affiliation system (Gilbert, 2005;Kelly et al, 2012;Liotti, 2000).…”