Forgiveness and Revenge: The Conflicting Needs of Dependents and Self-Critics in Relationships

Abstract

The ability to forgive in the face of conflict is an important part of maintaining relationships, particularly for individuals with dependent and self-critical personality styles who can become depressed in response to interpersonal stress. This research examined the forgiveness process in relation to these personality styles in two separate studies. Study 1 was a nonexperimental retrospective study in a community sample of adults. Study 2 was an experimental study involving the manipulation of a transgression and relationship threat within the laboratory. The results of both studies confirmed a predicted 3-way interaction between self-criticism, dependency, and relationship threat on forgiveness and revenge. Specifically, self-critics who were low in dependency were more vengeful and less forgiving when their relationship was threatened. However, self critics who were also higher in dependency were more forgiving and less vengeful after experiencing a relationship threatening transgression. Results showe...