Move 1: Establish A Territory

The concept of forgiveness has received increased attention by researchers in personality and social psychology during the last decade (cf. Exline, Worthington, Hill, & McCullough, 2003). One reason why forgiveness attracts attention might be its prosocial character, making it a focus of the positive psychology movement (cf. [Gable and Haidt, 2005] and [Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000]). A related reason might be that, aside from its positive interpersonal effects, forgiveness is often assumed to have positive intrapersonal effects on the psychological adjustment of the forgiving individual ([Baumeister et al., 1998], [Enright et al., 1998] and [Exline et al., 2003]). If forgiveness influences psychological adjustment, then it has important implications for counseling and psychotherapy following hurtful experiences.

However, the empirical evidence, which we review below, does not allow for firm conclusions regarding the temporal sequence of forgiveness and psychological adjustment. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the relation between forgiveness and psychological adjustment through the use of longitudinal data. In the psychological literature, several definitions of forgiveness have been proposed, but there is growing consensus that forgiveness may be defined by prosocial motivational changes towards a transgressor, consisting in a decrease in interpersonal avoidance, a decrease in revenge motivation, and an increase in benevolence (cf. [McCullough and Hoyt, 2002], [McCullough et al., 1997] and [McCullough et al., 1998]). McCullough, Fincham, and Tsang (2003) investigated this conception of forgiveness by modeling forgiveness as intraindividual changes in forgiveness indicators (avoidance, revenge, benevolence).

By use of longitudinal data and latent growth curve analyses, the authors analyzed three psychologically meaningful parameters, i.e., the intercept of the curve, the slope of the curve, and situational deviations from the curve. This model then allowed investigation of distinct effects of predictors (e.g., transgression severity, empathy) on the three statistical parameters. The results showed, for example, that empathy was related to forbearance and temporary forgiveness, but (was) unrelated to trend forgiveness (adjustment indicators were not examined by McCullough et al., 2003).