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Forgive and Forget: Differences between Decisional and Emotional Forgiveness

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  • Stephanie Lichtenfeld
  • Vanessa L Buechner
  • Markus A Maier
  • Maria Fernández-Capo

Abstract

To forgive and forget is a well-known idiom, which has rarely been looked at empirically. In the current experiment, we investigated differences between emotional and decisional forgiveness on forgetting. The present study provides the first empirical support that emotional forgiveness has a strong influence on subsequent incidental forgetting. Specifically, our results demonstrate that emotional forgiveness leads to substantially higher levels of forgetting in respect to offense relevant traits compared to both decisional forgiveness and no forgiveness. This provides evidence for our hypothesized effect that only individuals who have emotionally forgiven a transgression, and not those who just decided to forgive, subsequently forget offense relevant traits attributed to the transgressor.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephanie Lichtenfeld & Vanessa L Buechner & Markus A Maier & Maria Fernández-Capo, 2015. "Forgive and Forget: Differences between Decisional and Emotional Forgiveness," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-11, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0125561
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0125561
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i::p:73-86 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Bechara, Antoine & Damasio, Antonio R., 2005. "The somatic marker hypothesis: A neural theory of economic decision," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 336-372, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Thiago Medeiros Cavalcanti & Gabriel Lins Holanda Coelho & Alessandro Teixeira Rezende & Katia Correa Vione & Valdiney Veloso Gouveia, 2019. "Decisional and Emotional Forgiveness Scales: Psychometric Validity and Correlates with Personality and Vengeance," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 14(5), pages 1247-1264, November.

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