ABSTRACT
Guided by the perspective that some cognitions and emotions experienced in response to a transgression (e.g., anger, resentment) can be functional because they can motivate victims to effectively regulate the transgressor, this chapter highlights the potential costs of forgoing these cognitive experiences in favor of forgiveness. In particular, the chapter reviews a growing body of experimental and longitudinal evidence from relationship science that reveals forgiveness can lead to incurring important costs, including a greater likelihood of experiencing future transgressions and decreased psychological well-being. Nevertheless, the chapter also emphasizes the contextualized nature of these costs by detailing how they emerge only for some people, only in the context of relationships to some partners, and only in some circumstances. The chapter ends with a call for future research to develop a more complete understanding of the implications of forgiveness by considering the numerous factors that likely determine when these costs are most likely to emerge and how they be minimized to allow people to maximize the potential benefits of forgiveness.
