Value of the Relationship and Motivation to Forgive Based on Future Anxiety

Forgiveness, understood as reestablishing a physical and emotional relationship with the harm-doer, may sometimes be dangerous, especially when the harm-doer is not worthy of the trust. This study investigated the relation between value of the relationship with the harm-doer, future anxiety, and the motivation to forgive. In the first experiment, participants described a situation of harm depicted in one of the Thematic Apperception Test pictures. In the second experiment, participants were asked to write about an experience of harm from their own past. The Dark Future Scale to assess future anxiety and the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations to assess forgiveness were used. Future anxiety was the moderator of the relation between the perception of the value of the relationship with the harm-doer and the motivation to forgive. In the case of a strong future anxiety, there was a greater positive relation between the value of the relationship with the harm-doer and the motivation to forgive than when there was weak future anxiety. The results indicate that a harmed person with strong future anxiety will try to keep close to the harm-doer despite the fact that the harm-doer acted with the intention to harm and showed no remorse. Supplemental materials for this article are available at https://files.press.uillinois.edu/journals/supplemental/ajp/sobol/index.html