Expressing forgiveness after interpersonal mistreatment: Power and status of forgivers influence transgressors' relationship restoration efforts

Michelle Xue Zheng,Marius Van Dijke

doi:10.1002/job.2432

Abstract

SummaryOne adverse consequence of interpersonal mistreatment is that it damages the relationship between the victim and the transgressor. Scholars have promoted forgiveness of such mistreatment as a victim response that can motivate transgressors to work towards relationship restoration. Building on social exchange theory and the social perception literature, we provide an account of when transgressors are less (vs. more) willing to restore their relationship with the victim in response to forgiveness. Specifically, we argue that transgressors perceive forgiveness from a victim who has high (vs. low) power, relative to the transgressor, as insincere, making transgressors less willing to restore the relationship. We further argue that this effect of high (vs. low) victim power is pronounced especially when the victim also has low (vs. high) status. Two experiments and two field studies support these predictions. These findings highlight the relevance of studying how contextual conditions color transgressors' perceptions of victims' behavior to understand relationship restoration after interpersonal mistreatment.

Highlights

Interpersonal mistreatment is a common adverse experience for many organization members (Bies & Moag, 1986; Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993; Hershcovis, Cameron, Gervais, & Bozeman, 2018)
We propose that power and status of the forgiving victim should be distinguished but that they should be considered in interaction to understand how they shape transgressor restorative actions following forgiveness
By operationalizing power as position power and status as organizational status, we again found that forgiveness from a victim who is high in power but low in status is perceived as less sincere, facilitating less transgressor restoration effort

Summary

Introduction

Interpersonal mistreatment is a common adverse experience for many organization members (Bies & Moag, 1986; Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993; Hershcovis, Cameron, Gervais, & Bozeman, 2018). It is defined as “a specific antisocial variety of organizational deviance, involving a situation in which at least one organizational member takes counternormative negative actions - or terminates normative positive actions - against another member” One victim response that may facilitate restoring the victim-transgressor relationship following interpersonal mistreatment is forgiveness (Fehr & Gelfand, 2012; Goodstein & Aquino, 2010; Ren & Gray, 2009).

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Conclusion