ABSTRACT
Given enough time, close relationship partners are bound to experience conflicts in which one person hurts, angers, or upsets the other. How can they resolve such conflicts? Scholars and clinicians have designed and implemented several interventions to bolster victims’ forgiveness of inter-personal transgressions (e.g., Hebl & Enright, 1993; Rye & Pargament, 2002; Worthington, Kurusu, Collins, Berry, Ripley, & Baier, 2000; for a review, see Wade & Worthington, 2005). These interventions share the assumption that bolstering victims’ forgiveness will benefit the victims. In other words, forgiveness interventions assume that victims have control over their own outcomes: if they forgive, they will experience better outcomes than if they do not forgive.
