In two studies, the authors sought to identify the mathematical function underlying the temporal course of forgiveness. A logarithmic model outperformed linear, exponential, power, hyperbolic, and exponential-power models. The logarithmic function implies a psychological process yielding diminishing returns, corresponds to the Weber-Fechner law, and is functionally similar to the power law underlying the psychophysical function (Stevens, 1971) and the forgetting function (Wixted & Ebbesen, 1997). By 3 months after their transgressions, the typical participant's forgiveness had increased by two log-odds units. Individual differences in rates of change were correlated with robust predictors of forgiveness. Consistent with evolutionary theorizing (McCullough, 2008), Study 2 revealed that forgiveness was uniquely associated with participants' perceptions that their relationships with their offenders retained value.

The authors examined how conciliatory gestures exhibited in response to interpersonal transgressions influence forgiveness and feelings of friendship with the transgressor. In Study 1, 163 undergraduates who had recently been harmed were examined longitudinally. Conciliatory gestures exhibited by transgressors predicted higher rates of forgiveness over 21 days, and this relationship was mediated by victims' perceptions of their transgressors' Agreeableness. Study 2 was an experiment including 145 undergraduates who experienced a breach in trust from an anonymous partner during an iterated prisoner's dilemma. When transgressors apologized and offered financial compensation, participants reported higher levels of forgiveness and feelings of friendship when compared to a control condition and an aggravating condition. The effects of apology/compensation on forgiveness and perceived friendship were mediated by victims' perceptions of their transgressors' Agreeableness. Results suggest that conciliatory gestures promote forgiveness in part by depicting transgressors as more sympathetic, considerate, fair, and just (i.e., agreeable).

Gratitude is the appreciation of a gift received; happiness is the enjoyment of a present good; and hope is the desire for a valued future. Two studies investigated gratitude as a predictor of hope and happiness. In Study 1, hierarchical regressions (N = 181) revealed that trait gratitude exceeded other constructs (forgivingness, patience, self-control) in predicting trait hope and happiness. In Study 2, we experimentally tested the impact of a gratitude-related writing intervention on state hope and happiness. Participants (N = 153) first wrote about a current, meaningful, hoped-for outcome and completed state hope and happiness measures. Participants were randomly assigned to either (a) gratefully remember a past hope that had been fulfilled or (b) a control condition. The grateful remembering condition (vs. control) prompted significant increases in state hope and happiness, commending grateful remembering as a practice that can bolster present happiness and hope for the future.

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Two experiments ( N = 487) tested the effects of receiving an apology (absent, present) and restitution (absent, present) in imagery of a one-sided transgression and common property crime, a burglary scenario. Within a framework of accountability, apology and restitution represent relationally responsive responsibility-taking and repair efforts by a perpetrator. Experiments 1 and 2 found that a thorough apology and restitution each decreased unforgiveness while eliciting increased empathy and forgiveness from student and community samples, respectively. Experiment 2 found that a custody condition consistent with a perpetrator’s willing accountability for wrongdoing (i.e., spontaneous confession with surrender) decreased unforgiveness while increasing empathy and forgiveness in comparison to a custody condition in which the offender was being held accountable externally (involuntary apprehension) or a no-custody control condition. This experimental evidence points to offender accountability efforts through apology, restitution, and surrender as important for decreasing victims’ unforgiving motivations and promoting their empathy and forgiveness.

Apology and restitution each represents wrongdoers' accountable repair responses that have promoted victims' self-reported empathy and forgiveness in crime scenario research. The current study measured emotional and stress-related dependent variables including physiological measures, to illuminate the links between predictors of forgiveness and health-relevant side effects. Specifically, we tested the independent and interactive effects of apology and restitution on forgiveness, emotion self-reports, and facial responses, as well as cardiac measures associated with stress in 32 males and 29 females. Apology and restitution each independently increased empathy, forgiveness, gratitude, and positive emotions, while reducing unforgiveness, negative emotion, and muscle activity above the brow (corrugator supercilii, CS). The presence of a thorough apology-regardless of whether restitution was present-also calmed heart rate, reduced rate pressure products indicative of cardiac stress, and decreased muscle activity under the eye (orbicularis oculi, OO). Interactions pointed to the more potent effects of restitution compared to apology for reducing unforgiveness and anger, while elevating positivity and gratitude. The findings point to distinctive impacts of apology and restitution as factors that foster forgiveness, along with emotional and embodied changes relevant to health.

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