Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Psychol Bull. 2010 Sep;136(5):894-914. doi: 10.1037/a0019993.
Forgiveness has received widespread attention among psychologists from social, personality, clinical, developmental, and organizational perspectives alike. Despite great progress, the forgiveness literature has witnessed few attempts at empirical integration. Toward this end, we meta-analyze results from 175 studies and 26,006 participants to examine the correlates of interpersonal forgiveness (i.e., forgiveness of a single offender by a single victim). A tripartite forgiveness typology is proposed, encompassing victims' (a) cognitions, (b) affect, and (c) constraints following offense, with each consisting of situational and dispositional components. We tested hypotheses with respect to 22 distinct constructs, as correlates of forgiveness, that have been measured across different fields within psychology. We also evaluated key sample and study characteristics, including gender, age, time, and methodology as main effects and moderators. Results highlight the multifaceted nature of forgiveness. Variables with particularly notable effects include intent (r = -.49), state empathy (r = .51), apology (r = .42), and state anger (r = -.41). Consistent with previous theory, situational constructs are shown to account for greater variance in forgiveness than victim dispositions, although within-category differences are considerable. Sample and study characteristics yielded negligible effects on forgiveness, despite previous theorizing to the contrary: The effect of gender was nonsignificant (r = .01), and the effect of age was negligible (r = .06). Preliminary evidence suggests that methodology may exhibit some moderating effects. Scenario methodologies led to enhanced effects for cognitions; recall methodologies led to enhanced effects for affect.
宽恕在心理学家中从社会、人格、临床、发展和组织等不同视角都受到了广泛关注。尽管已经取得了很大的进展，但宽恕文献很少有尝试进行实证整合。为此，我们对 175 项研究和 26006 名参与者的结果进行了元分析，以检验人际宽恕（即单一受害者对单一加害者的宽恕）的相关因素。提出了一个三分宽恕类型学，包括受害者在犯罪后的（a）认知、（b）情感和（c）约束，每个部分都由情境和性格因素组成。我们用 22 个不同的结构来检验假设，这些结构是心理学不同领域衡量宽恕的相关因素。我们还评估了关键的样本和研究特征，包括性别、年龄、时间和方法，作为主要效应和调节因素。结果突出了宽恕的多方面性质。具有特别显著影响的变量包括意图（r=-.49）、状态同理心（r=-.51）、道歉（r=-.42）和状态愤怒（r=-.41）。与之前的理论一致，情境构念被证明在宽恕中比受害者性格因素解释了更大的方差，尽管类别内的差异相当大。尽管之前有理论认为，样本和研究特征对宽恕的影响很小：性别效应不显著（r=-.01），年龄效应可以忽略不计（r=-.06）。初步证据表明，方法可能具有一些调节作用。情景方法导致认知方面的效果增强；回忆方法导致情感方面的效果增强。
