The Empowering Function of the Belief in a Just World for the Self: Trait-Level and Experimental Tests of Its Association With Positive and Negative Affect.

Belief in a just world for the self (BJW-self) is a resource that promotes adaptive functioning. We theorize that BJW-self has such an effect because it is empowering. This article reports on four studies (N = 967) testing whether BJW-self encourages more positive and less negative affect indirectly through empowerment. There was support for this hypothesis at a trait level across all studies, and specifically in Study 1. Experimental evidence, however, was more complex. Study 2 demonstrated the causal effect of the mediator, empowerment, on affect. Study 3 demonstrated that affirming BJW-self enhanced empowerment with an associated increase in positive affect and reduced negative affect. Study 4 showed that enhancing empowerment did not significantly influence the effect of affirmed BJW-self on affect, but blocking empowerment did, although this finding is qualified by no significant effect on empowerment. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings, and the challenges of experimentally manipulating BJW-self.

Victims need more than power: Empowerment and moral change independently predict victims' satisfaction and willingness to reconcile.

Punishing offenders for their misdeeds can restore a sense of justice achieved (i.e., justice-related satisfaction) among victims and increase their willingness to reconcile, especially if offenders signal that they understand why punishment has been inflicted on them. In this article, we theoretically disentangle and empirically test two explanations for this effect. One possible interpretation for this effect is that offender feedback empowers the victim and that empowerment is the crucial prerequisite for reconciliation. An alternative interpretation is that offender feedback benefits the victim because it suggests that the punishment had an educational effect and initiated a positive "moral change" in the offender. Six studies-four scenario and two autobiographic recall studies (combined N = 2,134)-suggest that the positive effects of offender feedback on victims' justice-related satisfaction and willingness to reconcile cannot be reduced to empowerment. Empowerment and moral change rather constitute two independent mechanisms explaining when and why punishment facilitates the posttransgression process. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings (e.g., for restorative justice procedures). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Justice beliefs and cultural values predict support for COVID-19 vaccination and quarantine behavioral mandates: a multilevel cross-national study.

Understanding how individual beliefs and societal values influence support for measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission is vital to developing and implementing effective prevention policies. Using both Just World Theory and Cultural Dimensions Theory, the present study considered how individual-level justice beliefs and country-level social values predict support for vaccination and quarantine policy mandates to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Data from an international survey of adults from 46 countries (N = 6424) were used to evaluate how individual-level beliefs about justice for self and others, as well as national values-that is, power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence-influence support for vaccination and quarantine behavioral mandates. Multilevel modeling revealed that support for vaccination and quarantine mandates were positively associated with individual-level beliefs about justice for self, and negatively associated with country-level uncertainty avoidance. Significant cross-level interactions revealed that beliefs about justice for self were associated more strongly with support for mandatory vaccination in countries high in individualism, whereas beliefs about justice for others were more strongly associated with support for vaccination and quarantine mandates in countries high in long-term orientation. Beliefs about justice and cultural values can independently and also interactively influence support for evidence-based practices to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, such as vaccination and quarantine. Understanding these multilevel influences may inform efforts to develop and implement effective prevention policies in varied national contexts.

The role of theory of mind, group membership, and apology in intergroup forgiveness among children and adolescents.

Research on forgiveness with children and adolescents is growing, yet little is known about the developmental mechanisms that underlie intergroup forgiveness in children and adolescents. In this study, youth (M = 9.39 years, SD = 1.67, N = 185, 107 female and 78 male; 54.6% European American, 20.5% African American, 8.1% Latinx, 5.9% Asian American, 3.8% multiracial, and 7.1% other) provided judgments and reasoning about forgiveness in hypothetical scenarios involving intergroup and intragroup transgressions. Participants with more sophisticated theoryof mind were more forgiving of transgressors and were more likely to differentiate their thinking about how sorry ingroup and outgroup transgressors will feel. Participants were more likely to forgive ingroup members and those that apologize than outgroup members and those who do not apologize. Results reveal that youth, especially those with more advanced theory of mind skills, have a sophisticated understanding of intergroup forgiveness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The Children's Forgiveness Card Set: Development of a Brief Pictorial Card-Sorting Measure of Children's Emotional Forgiveness.

Friendships have important influences on children's well-being and future adjustment, and interpersonal forgiveness has been suggested as a crucial means for children to maintain friendships. However, existing measures of preadolescent children's forgiveness are restricted by developmental limitations to reporting emotional responses via questionnaire and inconsistent interpretations of the term "forgive." This paper describes development and testing of concurrent and discriminant validity of a pictorial measure of children's emotional forgiveness, the Children's Forgiveness Card Set (CFCS). In Study 1, 148 Australian children aged 8-13 years (M = 10.54, SD = 1.35) responded to a hypothetical transgression in which apology was manipulated and completed the CFCS and extant measures of forgiveness and socially desirable responding. Following an exploratory factor analysis to clarify the structure of the CFCS, the CFCS correlated moderately with other forgiveness measures and did not correlate with socially desirable responding. Apology predicted CFCS responding among older children. In Study 2 an exploratory factor analysis broadly replicated the structure of the CFCS among a sample of N = 198 North American children aged 5-14 years (M = 9.39 years, SD = 1.67). We also fitted an exploratory bi-factor model to the Study 2 data which clarified which cards best measured general forgiveness, or positive or hostile aspects of responding to transgressions. Apology once again predicted the CFCS, this time regardless of age. The CFCS appears a potentially valid measure of children's emotional forgiveness. Potential applications and differences between explicit and latent forgiveness in children are discussed.

When transgressors intend to cause harm: The empowering effects of revenge and forgiveness on victim well-being.

When people are transgressed against, they are usually motivated to restore personal power that was threatened by the transgression. We argue and test the new idea that while revenge and forgiveness responses are typically seen as opposites, both may be empowering, depending on the offender's intent to harm. Across two studies, one experimental (N = 381) and one employing an autobiographical recall paradigm (N = 251), we tested a moderated mediation model. Notably, we found that revenge is empowering at high levels of intent and forgiveness is empowering regardless of intent. Importantly, we also demonstrate that empowerment provides an explanation for the process by which getting revenge and forgiving are each associated with improved affective outcomes for victims.

For whom we forgive matters: relationship focus magnifies, but self-focus buffers against the negative effects of forgiving an exploitative partner.

Increasingly, studies indicate that victims experience negative outcomes after forgiving offenders who present an exploitation risk. However, we demonstrate that the link between exploitation risk and forgiveness-related outcomes is dependent upon a victim's focus of forgiving. Two studies, the first employing a prospective design (N = 110) and the second an experimental scenario method (N = 261), replicate previous research on the negative effects of exploitation risk and also test two new hypotheses. First, we found that forgiving explicitly for the sake of a relationship is associated with greater distress, relative to deciding to forgive for the sake of the self. Second, we found that relationship-focussed forgiveness magnified the distress caused by exploitation risk, whereas self-focussed forgiveness, relative to relationship-focussed forgiveness, provides a buffer against it. In short, these findings demonstrate that for whom we forgive matters. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for understanding when forgiving is costly.

What determines forgiveness in close relationships? The role of post-transgression trust.

Relationship closeness is one of the best predictors of forgiveness. But what is the process by which closeness encourages forgiveness? Across three studies, we employed a mix of experimental and correlational designs with prospective (N = 108), scenario (N = 71), and recall (N = 184) paradigms to test a multiple mediation model. We found consistent evidence that the positive association between relationship closeness and forgiveness may be explained by levels of post-transgression trust in the offender. Moreover, trust always played the main mediating role in the forgiveness process, even when taking into account several transgression-specific variables associated with both trust and forgiveness (e.g., apology). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of trust as a key indicator of forgiveness in close relationships.

How forgiveness promotes offender pro-relational intentions: The mediating role of offender gratitude.

Although relationship restoration is an important outcome of forgiveness, little is known about how forgiveness facilitates such an outcome. In addition, in forgiveness research, little attention is paid to the perspective of the offender. We address these two shortcomings simultaneously, testing the idea that forgiveness promotes offender gratitude, which in turn encourages offender pro-relational intentions. Across three experimental studies, participants were induced to believe they had transgressed; recalled a time when they had transgressed; and imagined transgressing. In studies 1 and 2, forgiveness was manipulated; in Study 3, victim motivation for forgiving was manipulated. State gratitude--in comparison with guilt, indebtedness, and positive affect--was consistently found to play the primary mediating role between forgiveness and pro-relational intentions.

Power and revenge.

We took an individual differences approach to explain revenge tendencies in powerholders. Across four experimental studies, chronically powerless individuals sought more revenge than chronically powerful individuals following a high power episode (Studies 1 and 2), when striking a powerful pose (Study 3), and when making a powerful hand gesture (Study 4). This relationship vanished when participants were not exposed to incidental power. A meta-analysis revealed that, relative to a lack of power or a neutral context, exposure to incidental power increased vengeance among the chronically powerless and reduced vengeance among the chronically powerful. These findings add to previous research on relations between power and aggression, and underscore the role of individual differences as a determinant of powerholders' destructive responses.