Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

2002, Vol. 82, No. 4, 675– 686 0022-3514/02/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.82.4.675

Victim and Offender Accounts of Interpersonal Conflict:

Autobiographical Narratives of Forgiveness and Unforgiveness
Jeanne S. Zechmeister and Catherine Romero
Loyola University of Chicago

Participants wrote 2 narratives that described an incident in which they angered or hurt someone
(offender) or in which someone angered or hurt them (victim) and the offense was forgiven or not
forgiven. Victims portrayed the offense as continuing (open), and offenders portrayed the offense as over
(closed). Forgiveness narratives portrayed offenses as closed and with positive outcomes; however, for
some victims, forgiveness coincided with continued anger, suggesting incomplete forgiveness. Disposi-
tional empathy was associated with more benign interpretations of offenses, and situational empathy
(e.g., for the offender) was associated with victims’ forgiveness. In contrast, offenders’ empathy for
victims was associated with less self-forgiveness. Thus, both victim or offender role and forgiveness must
be considered to understand narratives of interpersonal offenses.

During the past decade we have witnessed a growing interest in
the psychology of forgiveness, both in the public (e.g., Time
Magazine, 1999) and scientific domains (e.g., McCullough et al.,
1998; McCullough, Worthington, & Rachal, 1997; Scobie & Sco-
bie, 1998; Worthington, 1999). Forgiveness is often operationally
defined in terms of behavioral, affective, and cognitive responses
following an interpersonal offense (e.g., Enright & The Human
Development Study Group, 1991, 1996). Individuals are described
as forgiving if they inhibit retaliatory or destructive responses and
instead respond with conciliatory or constructive behaviors, affect,
and cognition (McCullough, 2000; McCullough et al., 1997;
North, 1987; Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991;
Subkoviak et al., 1995; Worthington, 1999). For example, in
forgiving, an individual may recognize situational determinants
that caused an offender’s actions (cognitive), feel sympathetic or
compassionately toward the offender (affective), and discuss pos-
sible solutions to problems or help the offender (behavior). For-
giving responses reflect an underlying motivational change that
counteracts individuals’ more natural tendencies to withdraw
and/or retaliate following an interpersonal offense (McCullough et
al., 1997, 1998; Rusbult et al., 1991).
Recent theoretical development of the forgiveness construct has
attempted to differentiate “true” forgiveness and “false” or “pseudo-
Jeanne S. Zechmeister and Catherine Romero, Department of Psychol-
ogy, Loyola University of Chicago.
Portions of these data were presented at the 107th Annual Convention of
the American Psychological Association, Boston, August 1999, and the
annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago,
May 2000. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the Fetzer Insti-
tute, Kalamazoo, Michigan, for their support of this research, in coopera-
tion with the Templeton Foundation. We thank an anonymous reviewer,
Roy Baumeister, Robert Emmons, and Eugene Zechmeister for their in-
sightful comments and suggestions.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jeanne S.
Zechmeister, Department of Psychology, Loyola University of Chicago,
6525 North Sheridan Road, Chicago, Illinois 60626. E-mail: jzechme@
luc.edu
forgiveness” (e.g., Baumeister, Exline, & Sommer, 1999; Enright
& The Human Development Study Group, 1991, McCullough &
Worthington, 1994; Vitz & Mango, 1997), an effort that has a long
history in philosophers’ attempts to understand forgiveness
(Haber, 1991; Scobie & Scobie, 1998). For example, Baumeister et
al. (1999) described two dimensions of forgiveness: intrapsychic
and interpersonal. The former involves the emotional and cogni-
tive aspects of forgiveness, and the latter involves social or be-
havioral aspects. Whereas “total forgiveness” requires the presence
of both dimensions, “hollow forgiveness” (or pseudoforgiveness)
is characterized as the interpersonal act in the absence of the
intrapsychic state. For example, a victim may verbally express
forgiveness to the offender, yet may continue to harbor resentment
and hurt. Such hollow forgiveness may be motivated by the vic-
tim’s desire to fulfill a socially prescribed role (Trainer, 1981; see
also Scobie & Scobie’s, 1998, description of responses to minor
offenses). Similarly, victims may “forgive” to feel morally supe-
rior or to gain power over the offender (e.g., Trainer’s “expedient
forgiveness”). Baumeister et al. (1999) also described “silent for-
giveness,” in which the intrapsychic state is not accompanied by an
interpersonal act, such as reconciliation.
Several theorists have explicitly noted that forgiveness does not
require reconciliation (e.g., Enright & Zell, 1989; Scobie & Sco-
bie, 1998; but see Power, 1994, for an exception). In these con-
ceptualizations, it is possible to forgive someone without recon-
ciling, and in fact reconciliation may at times be undesirable (Fow,
1996; Freedman, 1998). Hence, conciliatory behaviors need not
include reunion of the two parties involved. For example, forgivers
may express kind words about the offender to others or pray for the
well-being of the offender.
True forgiveness (or “intrinsic forgiveness,” Trainer, 1981) is
defined as a conscious choice in which individuals give up their
legitimate claim for retaliation following an interpersonal offense
and substitute conciliatory responses. A key feature of some the-
orists’ definitions of true forgiveness is that it is offered uncondi-
tionally (e.g., Al-Mabuk, Enright, & Cardis, 1995). Thus, forgive-
ness is seen as a gift that is offered to an offender whose behaviors
may justify retaliation or demands for restitution, but the forgiver

675
676 ZECHMEISTER AND ROMERO
neither retaliates nor requires particular behaviors of the offender
(e.g., apology, restitution).
Such a conceptualization of forgiveness may be at odds with
victims’ experience of interpersonal offenses and forgiveness. That
is, it is possible that victims may require an apology, an attempt by
the offender to make amends, visual displays of the offender’s
remorse, or some other conditions before they forgive. Thus, the
actual experience of forgiveness may not conform to theoretical
definitions of forgiveness. Little psychological research has ex-
plored individuals’ concepts of forgiveness, and participants’ un-
derstanding of what it means to forgive has been open to idio-
graphic interpretation in most forgiveness research. Thus, an
important step in forgiveness research is to describe what individ-
uals mean when they say they “forgive” or “do not forgive” and to
compare these meanings to theoretical definitions of forgiveness.
The narrative method (Baumeister & Newman, 1994; Gergen &
Gergen, 1988) provides an excellent tool for studying forgiveness
as it occurs naturally, that is, in real-life situations and from the
perspective of the person doing the forgiving.
The Narrative Method
Narratives provide subjective accounts of what happened from
one person’s (i.e., the narrator’s) point of view. Narratives indicate
the aspects of an incident a narrator regards as important and
meaningful enough to be included in the story (Gergen & Gergen,
1988). The objective truth of the events is not as important as the
narration itself, which involves motivated choices regarding which
details to emphasize. For example, if a narrator does not mention
an apology, we cannot assume an apology did not occur or that it
did occur and the narrator denies its occurrence. Instead, we
assume that the presence or absence of an apology in an incident
was not critical to the meaning of the narrator’s personal story.
Baumeister and colleagues (e.g., Baumeister, Stillwell, &
Heatherton, 1995; Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1990; Leith
& Baumeister, 1998; Schultz & Baumeister, 1999) advocated the
use of personal narratives as a tool for investigating the phenom-
enology of psychological constructs—that is, how people experi-
ence anger, guilt, shame, and interpersonal conflicts. Narratives
may be particularly useful for understanding people’s motivations
as they describe important events in their lives. Baumeister and
Newman (1994) proposed that people structure their experiences
in story-like form to make sense of these experiences. In narratives
about unpleasant events such as interpersonal offenses, people may
seek to explain the purpose behind the offense and interpret and
justify events in terms of their values. Narratives can also provide
a sense of efficacy and control as individuals attribute the causes
of events to internal or external determinants. Finally, Baumeister
and Newman suggested that individuals may construct narratives
so as to maximize their self-worth.
Baumeister and his colleagues (1990, 1995) used narratives to
examine individuals’ responses to interpersonal transgressions in-
volving anger and guilt. They demonstrated that how individuals
perceive interpersonal conflicts depends on their role as victim or
offender. For example, Baumeister et al. (1990) observed that
victims of interpersonal conflicts involving anger tend to place the
incident in a longer time frame, with continuing anger and rela-
tionship damage, and to perceive the offenders’ motivations as
arbitrary or senseless. These same individuals, however, when
writing about their own actions as an offender (using a repeated
measures design), place the incident in an isolated context and
perceive their own actions and motivations as justified. Thus, the
role one assumes, either victim or offender, influences perception
and/or recall of the event (see also Gonzales, Manning, & Haugen,
1992). Baumeister et al. (1990) suggested that offenders are mo-
tivated to perceive their actions as inoffensive and to perceive
themselves as acceptable people. Victims, in contrast, are moti-
vated to portray the incident as harmful and themselves as deserv-
ing of sympathy or restitution; in so doing, victims may claim a
higher moral standing. Thus, both victims and offenders seem to
portray events in a self-serving manner. One purpose of the present
study was to replicate these findings by having participants write
about incidents involving anger or hurt in which they were the
victim or the offender.
A second purpose of the study was to examine the role of
forgiveness following interpersonal offenses. A growing body of
empirical and theoretical work on forgiveness suggests that several
variables influence whether forgiveness occurs following an of-
fense, including empathy, apology, attributions, severity of the
offense, arousal, and relationship closeness (McCullough, 2000;
McCullough et al., 1998). A key factor in Baumeister et al.’s
(1990) narratives of interpersonal conflict was closure. They ex-
amined narratives for the presence or absence of apology to
differentiate victims’ and offenders’ motives to seek closure re-
garding the incident. They reasoned that offenders would be ex-
pected to mention an apology as a way to bracket the offense as
over. Social prescriptions indicate it is appropriate to forgive
following an apology (Scobie & Scobie, 1998; Trainer, 1981);
thus, offenders may mention an apology to demonstrate the offense
is over, or at least, should be over. In contrast, victims may be less
likely to mention an apology if they are motivated to maintain their
victim status. Baumeister et al. observed that offenders mentioned
an apology more than victims, supporting their hypothesis that
offenders were more motivated to seek closure for the past offense
compared with victims.
One way that offenders and victims can attain closure for an
offense is through forgiveness. Thus, perceptions of past interper-
sonal offenses are likely to differ depending on whether the event
is forgiven or not forgiven. For example, forgiven events may
include more references to empathy and apologies than do unfor-
given events and may be perceived as time-limited with positive
consequences, regardless of whether the writer is victim or of-
fender. In contrast, unforgiven events may be placed in a longer
time frame with negative consequences when the writer is the
victim (Baumeister et al., 1990). Thus, in addition to writing as
victim or perpetrator of an offense, we asked participants to choose
events that were forgiven (other forgiveness or self-forgiveness,
respectively), or not forgiven. Our aim was to extend Baumeister
et al.’s (1990) findings by examining the role of forgiveness in
victim and offender narratives.
To the extent that forgiveness represents a motivational shift
from relationship-destructive tendencies to relationship-con-
structive tendencies (McCullough et al., 1997, 1998; Rusbult et al.,
1991), victims’ narratives of forgiven offenses may reflect the
same degree of closure as offenders’ narratives. However, forgive-
ness may also be used to enhance victims’ position of moral
superiority (Trainer, 1981). Thus, hollow forgiveness (Baumeister
et al., 1999) or incomplete forgiveness (Enright & The Human
 FORGIVENESS NARRATIVES
Development Study Group, 1991) may be reflected in victims’
portrayals of forgiven offenses in which the offense continues to
remain open and has lasting negative consequences. Such a por-
trayal would allow victims to maintain their victim status, despite
their report of forgiveness.
Previous accounts of forgiveness have emphasized forgiveness
of others rather than self-forgiveness. Baumeister et al. (1990)
observed that offenders were motivated to portray their offense in
the least negative light, thus preserving a positive self-concept.
This self-enhancing motivation may be greater in offenders who
have forgiven themselves and weakened in offenders who have not
forgiven themselves.
Dispositional Empathy and Forgiveness
Using McAdams’s (1995, 1996) framework, Emmons (2000)
conceptualized personality not only as a set of dispositional traits,
but also as personal strivings or motives and more broadly as
integrative life stories. Thus, as snapshots of such life stories,
narratives may reflect individual differences in personality. That
is, narrative features may be included more or less frequently
depending on the narrator’s personality, as measured with standard
instruments. For example, individuals high in dispositional empa-
thy may be more likely to include empathy features in their
narratives relative to individuals low in dispositional empathy.
This is important because, as noted above, narratives are shaped by
a host of factors, only one set of which are the objective “facts” of
the incident described. Thus, by taking into account individual
differences in key dimensions such as empathy, it is possible to
determine the relative contributions of dispositional and situational
determinants of narrative responses.
We assessed other-focused empathy, which comprises per-
spective-taking and emotional concern for another (Davis, 1983,
1996), because previous theoretical work considered these com-
ponents critical for forgiveness (e.g., Enright & The Human De-
velopment Study Group, 1991; McCullough, 2000; Worthington,
1998, 1999). Furthermore, empirical research has identified situ-
ational empathy (e.g., empathy for a specific offender) as a key
mediator in the forgiveness process (e.g., McCullough et al., 1997,
1998). It is possible that dispositional empathy may promote
situational empathy, which may in turn promote forgiveness. Thus,
we hypothesized that dispositional empathy would predict whether
narrators included empathy-related features such as perspective
taking in their narratives. In addition, one way in which disposi-
tional empathy may facilitate forgiveness is through narrators’
ability to identify benign causes for the offense, such as by
recognizing that some offenses are due to external circumstances.
Therefore, we also hypothesized that individuals high in disposi-
tional empathy would be more likely to attribute the offense to
benign causes.
Overview
Similar to Baumeister et al. (1990), we asked participants to
write two narratives. Participants recalled incidents in which they
angered or hurt someone (offender) or someone angered or hurt
them (victim). Further, participants chose situations in which they
forgave or did not forgive (either themselves or the other person).
We randomly assigned participants to one of four narrative pair-
677
ings (order of narrative instructions was counterbalanced): of-
fender forgives/does not forgive, victim forgives/does not forgive,
offender forgives/victim forgives, and offender does not forgive/
victim does not forgive.1 Following Baumeister et al. (1990), we
coded narratives for the presence or absence of variables relating
to offense severity, blameworthiness, self-threat, time frame and
consequences of the event, motives and intentions, writer’s affec-
tive response, victim’s response, and empathy for the other person.
Method
Participants
Participants were friends, family members, and coworkers of students in
an advanced psychology research course at Loyola University Chicago.
Each student asked 8 individuals to write two narratives for a class project.
The final sample (N ⫽ 122) wrote one or two usable narratives for a total
of 215 narratives. The sample was predominantly female (60.7%), Cauca-
sian (72.1%), and Catholic (49.2%) and were predominantly full-time
students (58.2%; see Table 1 for demographics). The mean age was 27.7
(SD ⫽ 13.2, range ⫽ 18 – 68, Mdn ⫽ 21).
Materials
Narrative instructions. Instructions for each narrative asked partici-
pants to describe an incident in which they were the victim or offender of
an offense that was either forgiven or not forgiven. Participants were asked
to choose an especially important or memorable event and were encour-
aged to tell the whole story. The personality inventory followed the two
narrative pages.
Empathy. The 28-item Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis,
1983) comprises empathy-related statements that participants rate on a
scale from 1 (Doesn’t describe me well) to 5 (Describes me very well).
Coefficient alphas in the present sample for the relevant subscales were .77
(Perspective-Taking) and .81 (Emotional Concern). We summed partici-
pants’ responses for these two subscales to form an other-focused empathy
measure (␣ ⫽ .85) to assess dispositional empathy. The mean empathy
score was 51.60 (SD ⫽ 9.43, range ⫽ 26 – 68).
Procedure
Students in an advanced psychology research-methods course asked
participants to write two narratives as part of a class project on forgiveness.
Participants wrote about two interpersonal offenses and then completed the
empathy measure. They then sealed their responses in an envelope, which
was returned to the course instructor (Jeanne S. Zechmeister). Most par-
ticipants wrote two narratives that conformed to the instructions, although
some participants wrote they could not think of an event that satisfied the
instructions (see Table 2). The average length of the narratives was 157.6
words and 9.5 sentences. A wide range of events was described, including
sexual infidelities, drug- or alcohol-related deaths, and social humiliations.
Two coders evaluated the narratives for the presence or absence of vari-
ables associated with the offense severity, blameworthiness, self-threat,
time frame, consequences, intentions, affective responses, empathy, and
forgiveness. These variables were selected to replicate previous research on
victim and offender portrayals of interpersonal offenses (see Baumeister et
al., 1990). Dichotomous coding was used to increase the objectivity and
1
To avoid confounding the narrators’ perspective (victim, offender) and
forgiveness instructions (forgive, do not forgive) within any one partici-
pant’s two narratives, we did not use two pairings of narrative instructions:
victim forgives– offender does not forgive and victim does not forgive–
offender forgives.
678 ZECHMEISTER AND ROMERO

Table 1 even though they did not express their anger overtly (25.2%
Demographic Characteristics of the Sample (N ⫽ 122) vs. 5.8%). Offenders, on the other hand, were more likely to
describe the victim’s response as an overreaction (9.8% vs. 2.7%).
Variable n % Lest offenders appear too callous, we should note that narrators
Gender who wrote as offenders were more likely than victim narrators to
Women 74 60.7 mention regret for the incident (60.6% vs. 5.4%) and to blame
Men 46 37.7 themselves (59.6% vs. 2.7%).
Missing 2 1.6 Baumeister et al. (1990) observed that offenders, compared with
Race/ethnicity
victims, were more likely to mention an apology in their narra-
White/Caucasian 88 72.1
Hispanic 12 9.8 tives, suggesting that offenders were motivated to describe the
Asian/Pacific Islander 9 7.4 offense as over and isolated. Similarly, offenders in our study were
African American 2 1.6 slightly more likely to mention an apology than were victims
Native American 1 0.8 (16.0% vs. 8.1%). The presence of an apology, however, was
Missing 10 8.2
Student status moderated by forgiveness.
Full-time student 71 58.2
Nonstudent 50 41.0 Narratives of Forgiveness and Unforgiveness
Missing 1 0.8
Religion These findings for victim and offender narratives suggest that
Catholic 60 49.2 narrators’ self-enhancing motives influenced the features they in-
Protestant/other Christian 13 10.7
Jewish 13 10.7 cluded in their stories of interpersonal offense (see also Baumeister
Agnostic/Atheist 6 4.9 et al., 1990; Draycott & Dabbs, 1998; Gonzales et al., 1992). We
“Other” 14 11.5 hypothesized that these motives may be reduced or eliminated
“None” 8 6.6 when an offense is forgiven, relative to when the offense is not
Missing 8 6.6
forgiven. However, if narrators describe hollow or incomplete
Note. Missing refers to the number of participants who left an item blank. forgiveness, their narratives may not differ in terms of closure
Questions for race/ethnicity and religion used a free-response format. (e.g., time span, consequences of the offense). We also examined
the narratives for clues regarding the forgiving process, including
narrators’ mentions of apologies, excuses, making amends, re-
reliability of the ratings. The mean agreement was 86.1% (SD ⫽ 11.2, venge, affect, and empathy. Results indicated that forgiveness,
range ⫽ 54%–100%). After coding the narratives independently, the two relative to unforgiveness, dramatically influenced the stories that
coders discussed discrepancies until consensus was reached. A series of people tell about interpersonal conflicts.
2 ⫻ 2 ⫻ 2 chi-square analyses examined differences in narratives as a Narratives of forgiven offenses, whether written from the victim
function of victim versus offender role, forgiven versus not forgiven or offender perspective, were more likely than narratives of un-
events, and the presence or absence of coded features.
forgiven offenses to include features that indicated the offense was
closed. Narrators of forgiven offenses were more likely to describe
Results the offender’s apology (17.8% vs. 4.3%), ␹2(1, N ⫽ 211) ⫽ 9.07,
One goal of this study was to replicate Baumeister et al.’s (1990) p ⫽ .003, ␾ ⫽ .21, attempts to make amends (18.6% vs. 4.3%),
findings for victim and offender narratives of interpersonal con- ␹2(1, N ⫽ 210) ⫽ 9.74, p ⫽ .002, ␾ ⫽ .22, positive consequences
flict. In general, we successfully replicated their findings (see (22.9% vs. 4.1%), ␹2(1, N ⫽ 215) ⫽ 15.18, p ⬍ .001, ␾ ⫽ .27,
Table 3). Participants’ self-serving narration was most apparent happy endings (36.4% vs. 3.1%), ␹2(1, N ⫽ 215) ⫽ 35.20, p ⬍
when they described the offender’s intentions and motives. When
writing as offenders, compared with victims, narrators more often
portrayed their actions as caused by external or mitigating circum- Table 2
stances (44.2% vs. 19.8%), explained their actions could not be Number and Percentage of Completed and Missing
helped (13.5% vs. 5.4%), and asserted their actions were justified Narratives in Each Condition
(61.5% vs. 11.7%). Offenders were more likely than victims to
implicate the victim in provoking the incident (22.1% vs. 1.8%) Forgiveness condition
and to state that the cause of the incident included the victim
Forgive Did not forgive
(63.5% vs. 33.3%).
In contrast, victims were more likely than offenders to state Writer and presence N % N %
explicitly that the offender’s motives were incoherent or senseless
(12.6% vs. 4.9%) and more often portrayed the offender’s motives Offender
Completed 55 87.3 49 86.0
as arbitrary (50.5% vs. 14.4%), inconsistent (23.4% vs. 11.5%), Missing 8 12.7 8 14.0
and immoral (14.4% vs. 1.9%). Victims’ accounts were more Victim
likely than offenders’ accounts to describe the relationship as Completed 63 95.5 48 85.3
damaged (38.7% vs. 18.4%) and to claim that they suffered from Missing 3 4.5 10 17.2
multiple provocations (38.7% vs. 12.7%). Victims’ accounts, com- Note. Narratives were counted as missing if the page was blank or if
pared with offenders’ accounts, described continuing anger (23.4% participants wrote comments such as “I can’t think of anything” or “I have
vs. 3.0%), and portrayed their anger as justified (85.6% vs. 54.9%) forgiven every individual.”
 FORGIVENESS NARRATIVES 679

Table 3
Results of Content Coding for Offender and Victim Narratives (N ⫽ 215)

Offenders Victims
Item (%) (%) ␹2a ␾b

Offender’s intentions/motives
Described as incoherent or senseless (explicit statement) 4.9 12.6 3.98 .14*
Portrayed as arbitrary, contradictory, incoherent, or senseless
(rater’s judgment) 14.4 50.5 31.51 .38***
External or mitigating circumstances 44.2 19.8 14.80 ⫺.26***
Could not be helped 13.5 5.4 4.13 ⫺.14*
Justified or justifiable 61.5 11.7 57.99 ⫺.52***
Inconsistent 11.5 23.4 5.21 .16*
Immoral 1.9 14.4 10.92 .23**
Deliberately cruel or malicious 14.4 17.1 0.29 .04
Victim provoked incident (thus shares blame) 22.1 1.8 21.56 ⫺.32***
Cause of incident includes victim 63.5 33.3 19.53 ⫺.30***
Time frame and consequences
Long-term past events preceding incident 39.4 44.1 0.49 .05
Multiple or accumulated provocations 12.7 38.7 18.53 .30***
Positive consequences 16.3 12.6 0.61 ⫺.05
Happy endings 22.1 20.7 0.06 ⫺.02
Negative consequences at time of event 81.7 79.3 0.21 ⫺.03
Denial of lasting negative consequences 26.9 27.9 0.03 .01
Damage to relationship 18.4 38.7 10.69 .22***
Victim’s response
Victim still angry 3.0 23.4 18.51 .30***
Anger justified (rater’s judgment) 54.9 85.6 24.25 .34***
No overt expression 5.8 25.2 15.05 .26***
Portrayed as overreaction 9.8 2.7 4.68 ⫺.15*
Offender’s response
Offender regrets incident 60.6 5.4 74.99 ⫺.59***
Self-blame 59.6 2.7 82.45 ⫺.62***
Offender apologizes 16.0 8.1 3.14 ⫺.12†

Note. Percentages represent the proportion of narratives codable on that dimension that were coded as having
the feature present.
a
The N for each analysis was typically 215, although this varied slightly between 210 and 215. Some features
were not codable in all stories. For example, victims’ responses to the offense were not coded if the narrator
reported the victim had died as a result of the offense. b ␾, the Pearson product–moment correlation for
dichotomous variables, indicates the strength of the relationship between whether the feature was present or
absent and whether the narrative was written from the offender or victim perspective. Following Cohen (1988),
values of ␾ representing small, medium, and large effect sizes are .10, .30, and .50, respectively.
† p ⬍ .10. * p ⬍ .05. ** p ⬍ .01. *** p ⬍ .001.

.001, ␾ ⫽ .40, and feelings of peace following the incident (31.4%
vs. 1.0%), ␹2(1, N ⫽ 215) ⫽ 33.65, p ⬍ .001, ␾ ⫽ .40. In contrast,
when describing unforgiven offenses, compared with forgiven
offenses, narrators were more likely to describe negative conse-
quences of the offense (91.8% vs. 71.2%), ␹2(1, N ⫽
215) ⫽ 14.33, p ⬍ .001, ␾ ⫽ ⫺.26, refer to present circumstances
(76.3% vs. 44.9%), ␹2(1, N ⫽ 215) ⫽ 21.67, p ⬍ .001, ␾ ⫽ ⫺.32,
and claim that anger was justified (85.3% vs. 59.3%), ␹2(1, N ⫽
213) ⫽ 17.16, p ⬍ .001, ␾ ⫽ ⫺.28. Thus, just as many of these
features distinguished victims’ and offenders’ narratives in
Baumeister et al.’s (1990) study, individuals’ narratives of inter-
personal conflict were also differentiated on the basis of the
presence of forgiveness or unforgiveness.
A central aspect of forgiveness definitions is that victims re-
nounce their desire for revenge. We coded narrators’ desire for
revenge and whether revenge occurred. Only 19 (8.9%) narrators
mentioned revenge, and this was unrelated to whether narrators
described a forgiven or unforgiven offense and whether the nar-
rator was an offender or victim. It is not clear from these data
whether revenge was not important in narrators’ accounts of the
events or whether social desirability concerns prevented partici-
pants from mentioning revenge.
For the remaining coded variables, narrators’ descriptions de-
pended on whether they wrote as a victim or offender and whether
the offense was forgiven or unforgiven. To explicate these effects,
we describe forgiven and unforgiven narratives first from the
victims’ perspective and then from the offender’s perspective.
Victim narratives. Of the 111 victim narratives, 63 were writ-
ten in the offender-forgiven condition and 48 were written in the
offender-not-forgiven condition. Consistent with the manipulation,
victims were more likely to state explicitly they had forgiven the
offender in the forgiven condition (84.1%) than in the not-forgiven
condition (0%). Moreover, 25% of victims who wrote about un-
forgiveness stated they would “never forgive” the offender (see
Table 4, Victim narratives columns).
The time frame and consequences of the offense differed de-
pending on whether victims forgave the offender or did not for-
give. Compared with forgiving narrators, victims who wrote about
unforgiven offenses were more likely to refer to long-term events
preceding the event (33.3% vs. 58.3%) and relationship damage
680 ZECHMEISTER AND ROMERO

Table 4
Results of Content Coding for Victim (N ⫽ 111) and Offender (N ⫽ 104) Narratives
in Which the Offense Is Not Forgiven or Is Forgiven

Victim narratives Offender narratives

Offender Offender Self Self

is not is is not is
forgiven forgiven forgiven forgiven
Item (%) (%) ␹2 ␾ (%) (%) ␹2 ␾

Victim explicitly forgives 0.0 84.1 77.28 .83*** 15.6 16.4 0.01 .01
Victim “will never forgive” 25.0 1.6 14.44 ⫺.36*** 0.0 0.0
Offender’s intentions/motives
Described as incoherent or senseless (explicit statement) 8.3 15.9 1.40 .11 6.1 3.7 0.32 ⫺.06
Portrayed as arbitrary, contradictory, incoherent, or
senseless (rater’s judgment) 58.3 44.4 2.10 ⫺.14 22.4 7.3 4.84 ⫺.22*
External or mitigating circumstances 16.7 22.2 0.53 .07 46.9 41.8 0.28 ⫺.05
Could not be helped 0.0 9.5 4.83 .21* 12.2 14.5 0.12 .03
Justified or justifiable 8.3 14.3 0.93 .09 53.1 69.1 2.81 .16†
Inconsistent 18.8 27.0 1.03 .10 14.3 9.1 0.68 ⫺.08
Immoral 27.1 4.8 11.00 ⫺.32** 2.0 1.8 0.01 ⫺.01
Deliberately cruel or malicious 29.2 7.9 8.66 ⫺.28** 16.3 12.7 0.27 ⫺.05
Victim provoked incident (thus shares blame) 2.1 1.6 0.04 ⫺.02 12.2 30.9 5.24 .22*
Cause of incident includes victim 31.2 34.9 0.16 .04 59.2 67.3 0.73 .08
Time frame and consequences
Long-term past events preceding incident 58.3 33.3 6.91 ⫺.25** 46.9 58.3 1.26 .11
Multiple or accumulated provocations 47.9 31.7 3.00 ⫺.16† 17.0 9.1 1.43 ⫺.12
Refers to present circumstances 70.8 49.2 5.25 ⫺.22* 81.6 40.0 18.66 ⫺.42***
Positive consequences 2.1 20.6 8.51 .28** 6.1 25.5 7.08 .26**
Happy endings 0.0 36.5 22.10 .45*** 6.1 36.4 13.76 .36***
Improved relationship 0.0 4.8 2.35 .14 4.2 16.4 4.00 .20*
Negative consequences at time of event 91.7 69.8 7.90 ⫺.27** 91.8 72.7 6.34 ⫺.25*
Denial of lasting negative consequences 0.0 49.2 32.77 .54*** 8.2 43.6 16.57 .40***
Damage to relationship 72.9 12.7 41.63 ⫺.61*** 22.9 14.5 1.19 ⫺.11
Victim’s response
Victim still angry 39.6 11.1 12.31 ⫺.33*** 4.4 1.8 0.59 ⫺.08
Anger justified (rater’s judgment) 97.9 76.2 10.42 ⫺.31** 72.3 40.0 10.70 ⫺.32**
No overt expression 18.8 30.2 1.88 .13 6.2 5.5 0.03 ⫺.02
Portrayed as overreaction 4.2 1.6 0.69 ⫺.08 0.0 18.2 9.47 .30**
Revenge 10.2 9.7 0.01 ⫺.01 8.5 7.3 0.05 ⫺.02
Victim makes amends 2.1 14.3 4.95 .21* 6.7 1.8 1.52 ⫺.12
Offender’s response
Offender regrets incident 2.1 7.9 1.88 .13 89.8 34.5 33.12 ⫺.56***
Self-blame 2.1 3.2 0.12 .03 89.8 32.7 35.06 ⫺.58***
Offender explicitly apologizes 2.1 12.7 4.12 .19* 6.7 23.6 5.30 .23*
Offender makes excuses 20.8 7.9 3.88 ⫺.19* 0.0 3.6 1.67 .13
Offender makes amends 2.1 17.5 6.68 .24** 6.8 20.0 3.50 .10†
Narrator’s affect
Guilt 0.0 1.6 0.77 .08 73.5 40.0 11.77 ⫺.34**
Anger 45.8 50.8 0.27 .05 4.1 25.5 9.09 .30**
Peaceful 2.1 27.0 12.43 .34*** 0.0 36.4 22.06 .46***
Love 0.0 7.9 3.99 .19* 2.0 5.5 0.28 .09
Empathy
Fantasy 8.3 1.6 2.88 ⫺.16† 8.2 3.6 0.98 ⫺.10
Personal distress 0.0 1.6 0.77 .08 30.6 9.1 7.73 ⫺.27**
Perspective taking 10.4 39.7 11.83 .33*** 28.6 21.8 0.63 ⫺.08
Emotional concern 2.1 11.1 3.32 .17† 69.4 36.4 11.32 ⫺.33**
Self-focus 95.8 71.4 10.98 ⫺.32*** 71.4 92.7 8.21 .28**
Other focus 0.0 30.2 17.47 .40*** 53.1 29.1 6.18 ⫺.24*

Note. Percentages represent the proportion of narratives codable on that dimension that were coded as having the feature present.
† p ⬍ .10. * p ⬍ .05. ** p ⬍ .01. *** p ⬍ .001.

(12.7% vs. 72.9%) and to state that they are still angry (11.1%
vs. 39.6%). In general, forgiving and unforgiving victims de-
scribed their offender’s motives similarly. Three important differ-
ences did emerge in victims’ descriptions of motives, however.
Victims who forgave were more likely than unforgiving victims to
state that the offender could not help his or her actions (9.5% vs.
0%). In contrast, unforgiving victims were more likely than for-
giving victims to portray the offenders’ actions as immoral (27.1%
vs. 4.8%) and deliberately cruel or harmful (29.2% vs. 7.9%),
suggesting that a potential stumbling block to forgiveness is vic-
 FORGIVENESS NARRATIVES
tims’ perception that the offender behaved immorally or unjustly.
Unforgiveness, therefore, may be related to a moral stance that
justice should prevail over forgiveness.
Victims who forgave their offender were more likely than
unforgiving victims to mention the offender’s apology (12.7%
vs. 2.1%) and attempts to make amends (17.5% vs. 2.1%), their
own attempts to make amends (14.3% vs. 2.1%), and feelings of
love (7.9% vs. 0%). In contrast, unforgiving victims were more
likely than forgiving victims to describe the offender as making
excuses for the offense (20.8% vs. 7.9%).
To the extent that apologies and making amends can be viewed
as signs that offenders and victims achieve closure regarding an
offense, victims who forgave admitted more closure than victims
who did not forgive. Similarly, forgiving victims were less likely
than unforgiving victims to place the offense in a longer time
frame with lasting negative consequences. In fact, forgiveness,
relative to unforgiveness, was associated with positive conse-
quences and victims’ denial of lasting negative consequences.
Note, however, that even when offenders were forgiven, a large
proportion of victims referred to long-term events with the of-
fender (33.3%) and multiple provocations (31.7%), their present
circumstances (49.2%), and angry affect (50.8%) and portrayed
their anger as justified (76.2%). These findings suggest that some
victims who forgive do not fully relinquish their victim status but
instead are careful to describe both their victim status and their
forgiveness of the offender.
Finally, we coded empathy using Davis’s (1983) description of
four types of empathy: fantasy, personal distress, perspective tak-
ing, and emotional concern. Victims who forgave their offender
were more likely to take the offender’s perspective (39.7%) and to
express emotional concern for their offender (11.1%) compared
with victims who wrote about unforgiven offenses (10.4%
and 2.1%, respectively). Coders also judged narratives for the
extent of self- and other focus using two dichotomous, independent
criteria (e.g., self-focused vs. minimal self-focus). Narratives of
unforgiven offenses evidenced more self-focus than did forgive-
ness narratives (95.8% vs. 71.4%), and coders more often judged
forgiveness narratives as other focused than they did unforgiveness
narratives (30.2% vs. 0%). These results are consistent with pre-
vious research on the relationship between forgiveness and empa-
thy (e.g., McCullough et al., 1997), in which forgiveness was
associated with victims’ ability to understand the offender’s
perspective.
Offender narratives. Of the 104 offender narratives, 55 de-
scribed an offense in which the narrator had forgiven him- or
herself, and 49 described an offense in which the narrator had not
forgiven him- or herself. These offender narratives differed dra-
matically from the victim stories (see Table 4, Offender narratives
columns). Of the 41 coded items comparing forgiven and not-
forgiven narratives shown in Table 3, only 9 (22.0%) of the coded
items had similar results for victim and offender narratives.
It is interesting that whether offenders forgave themselves or did
not forgive themselves was unrelated to reports of their victim’s
forgiveness (16.4% vs. 15.6%, ns). The motives and intentions
identified by offenders differed as a function of whether they
forgave themselves. Narrators who did not forgive themselves
were more likely to portray their offense as arbitrary or senseless
(22.4%) compared with narrators who had forgiven themselves
(7.3%). Offenders who did not forgive themselves reported more
681
regret (89.8%), self-blame (89.8%), and guilt (73.5%) than did
self-forgiving offenders (34.5%, 32.7%, and 40.0%, respectively).
In contrast, offenders who forgave themselves were more likely to
report an improved relationship with their victim (4.2%
vs. 16.4%). In addition, offenders who had forgiven themselves
were more likely to portray the victim’s response as an overreac-
tion (0% vs. 18.2%), report that the victim provoked the offense
(12.2% vs. 30.9%), and describe feelings of anger about the
offense (4.1% vs. 25.5%). In this way, offenders who forgave
themselves implicated the victim in sharing the blame for the
offense.
Similar to victims’ accounts, offenders who forgave themselves
were more likely to mention an apology (23.6%) and making
amends (20.0%) than were offenders who did not forgive them-
selves (6.7% and 6.8%, respectively), indicating offenders’ at-
tempts to close the incident. Indeed, whereas offenders in
Baumeister et al.’s (1990) study described offenses with a limited
time frame and consequences, this tended to be true only for
offenders who had forgiven themselves in our study. Thus, for-
giving themselves may have been a way for offenders to diminish
the gravity of their offense and experience closure regarding the
offense.
In the previous section we noted that victims’ narratives of
forgiveness, compared with unforgiveness, were more likely to
include empathy features such as perspective taking and emotional
concern for their offender. When narrators wrote as offenders,
however, the relationship between forgiveness and empathy fea-
tures was reversed. Offenders who had not forgiven themselves
demonstrated more emotional concern for their victims (69.4%)
and other focus (53.1%) than did offenders who had forgiven
themselves (36.4% and 29.1%, respectively). Unforgiving offend-
ers also experienced more personal distress as a result of thinking
about their victims than did offenders who forgave themselves
(30.6% vs. 9.1%). These findings suggest that empathy for their
victim’s experience may make offenders’ self-forgiveness more
difficult. In contrast, offenders who forgave themselves demon-
strated more self-focus (92.7%) than did offenders who did not
forgive themselves (71.4%).
Descriptions of offenses. Across all narratives, most of the
offenses involved friends (34.4%), family (34.0%), and intimates
(19.1%), rather than strangers (2.3%) or acquaintances (10.2%).
Victims and offenders differed in the offenses they selected to
describe. When writing as victims, narrators were more likely to
select offenses involving threats to self-esteem or worth (63.1%)
compared with offenders (11.5%), ␹2(1, N ⫽ 215) ⫽ 60.42, p ⬍
.001, ␾ ⫽ .53; this effect was stronger for unforgiven (␾ ⫽ .61)
than forgiven (␾ ⫽ .46) offenses. In addition, coders evaluated
offenses according to blameworthiness (accidental/negligent, in-
tentional). When writing as victims, narrators portrayed offenses
as intentional (61.3%) rather than accidental or negligent (38.7%);
however, when writing as offenders, narrators’ offenses were
equally intentional (49.0%) or accidental/negligent (51.0%), ␹2(1,
N ⫽ 215) ⫽ 3.25, p ⫽ .072, ␾ ⫽ .12.
Forgiveness instructions were more directly related to narrators’
descriptions of the severity of harm following the offense. Regard-
less of victim versus offender instructions, offenses written in
response to no-forgiveness instructions were more often coded as
moderate or severe harm (79.6%) rather than mild harm (20.4%),
whereas offenses written in response to forgiveness instructions
682 ZECHMEISTER AND ROMERO
were equally mild (48.7%) or moderate to severe harm (51.3%),
␹2(1, N ⫽ 215) ⫽ 18.59, p ⬍ .001, ␾ ⫽ ⫺.29. Two possibilities
exist: Either moderate to severe offenses are more difficult to
forgive, or, once forgiven, offenses that may have been severe
were portrayed as mild in their harm. One clue to resolving this
time– order confounding is found in narrators’ descriptions of their
emotional arousal at the time of the offense (none/mild vs. mod-
erate/severe). Victims’ arousal was more likely to be coded as
moderate or severe (76.4%) compared with offenders’ arousal
(61.5%), ␹2(1, N ⫽ 214) ⫽ 5.51, p ⫽ .019, ␾ ⫽ .16. This effect
was largely due to the difference between victims’ and offenders’
arousal in stories of forgiveness: Forgiving victims were more
likely to describe moderate to severe arousal at the time of the
offense (75.8%) than offenders were (56.4%), ␹2(1, N ⫽
117) ⫽ 4.96, p ⫽ .026, ␾ ⫽ .21. This finding suggests that
forgiveness may lead victims to portray offenses initially experi-
enced as moderately or severely arousing as ultimately mild in
their harm.
Dispositional Empathy and Narrative Features
To increase the reliability of measuring the relationship between
dispositional empathy and narrative features, we aggregated nar-
rative features to create two continuous variables measuring
empathy-related constructs. Other-focused empathy comprised
coded narrative features of perspective taking and emotional con-
cern, and the benign-attributions aggregate comprised statements
indicating that the offender’s actions could not be helped, were
externally caused, and were justified. There was a trend for high
dispositional-empathy (⫹1 SD) participants to include more other-
focused empathy in their narratives (M ⫽ 0.63) than did low
dispositional-empathy (⫺1 SD) participants (M ⫽ 0.47), b ⫽ .01,
SE ⫽ .005, t(213) ⫽ 1.94, p ⫽ .053, ␤ ⫽ .12. Furthermore, high
dispositional-empathy participants made more benign attributions
for the offense (M ⫽ 0.90) relative to low dispositional-empathy
participants (M ⫽ 0.64), b ⫽ .01, SE ⫽ .005, t(211) ⫽ 2.83, p ⫽
.005, ␤ ⫽ .17.
However, the relationship between dispositional empathy and
benign attributions was moderated by forgiveness and narrator
role. High dispositional-empathy victims who had forgiven their
offender made more benign attributions (M ⫽ 0.72) relative to low
dispositional-empathy victims who had forgiven (M ⫽ 0.16), b ⫽
.03, SE ⫽ .01, t(211) ⫽ 2.70, p ⫽ .007, ␤ ⫽ .34. Thus, disposi-
tionally empathic victims showed an ability to consider benign
motives for the forgiven offense. Surprisingly, we observed a
similar effect of dispositional empathy on the attributions of of-
fenders who had not forgiven themselves. High dispositional-
empathy offenders were more likely to make benign attributions
for their behavior— despite their failure to forgive themselves—
relative to low dispositional-empathy offenders (M ⫽ 1.33
and 0.95, respectively), b ⫽ .02, SE ⫽ .01, t(211) ⫽ 2.20, p ⫽
.029, ␤ ⫽ .23. There was no effect of dispositional empathy on the
attributions of unforgiving victims and self-forgiving offenders. In
sum, dispositional empathy was directly related to the presence of
empathy in narratives, and this relationship was not moderated by
narrators’ role or forgiveness. In contrast, the relationship between
dispositional empathy and benign attributions for the offense de-
pended on narrators’ role and whether the offense was forgiven or
not forgiven.
Discussion
The results of this study demonstrate that individuals’ percep-
tions of interpersonal offenses depend both on their role as victim
or offender and on whether they have forgiven or not forgiven the
offense. Previous narrative research demonstrated that offenders
are motivated to portray their offenses as over and isolated, with no
lingering negative consequences, and to perceive their motives as
justifiable (Baumeister et al., 1990). Victims, in contrast, portray
offenses as open and continuing, perhaps as a way to maintain their
victim status. In general, our results replicated these findings and
extended them by exploring the role of forgiveness in people’s
understanding of their interpersonal conflicts. A central question of
this study was whether forgiveness was related to differences in
offenders’ and victims’ narratives of past offenses. In addition, we
also analyzed narratives to reveal whether participants portrayed
forgiveness as conditional (i.e., dependent on apologies, restitu-
tion) and whether narrators’ conceptualizations of forgiveness
could be characterized as total or hollow (Baumeister et al., 1999).
Clearly, forgiveness narratives were associated with narrators’
descriptions of more positive outcomes and affect, regardless of
whether the narrator wrote as a victim or an offender. Forgiveness
narratives were more likely to include indications that the offender
and victim had achieved closure about the offense, as evidenced by
apologies, descriptions of happy endings, and feelings of peace. In
contrast, narrators who described offenses that had not been for-
given were more likely to describe negative consequences, refer to
present circumstances, and describe continuing anger that was
justified. Thus, in general, narratives of forgiveness had the ap-
pearance of closure; the offense was over and in the past. Narra-
tives of unforgiven offenses continued to remain open, with neg-
ative consequences and affect lingering to influence narrators’
present circumstances. In addition, 25% of victims extended the
influence of the offense into the future, reporting they “would
never forgive” their offender.
A central question in the psychology of forgiveness is whether
forgiveness is conditional; that is, does forgiveness follow only
after the offender expresses regret, apologizes, or makes amends?
Although forgiveness narratives were more likely to describe the
offender’s apology and attempts to make amends than unforgive-
ness narratives were, these features were present in fewer than
20% of the forgiveness narratives. Thus, apologies and restitution
did not appear to be critical features of the forgiveness process for
many narrators. Similarly, victims rarely described the offenders’
regret for the offense, regardless of whether the offense was
forgiven or not forgiven. Furthermore, when offenders experi-
enced regret for their actions, it was associated with lack of
self-forgiveness rather than forgiveness. These findings suggest
that although apologies and restitution are more frequently asso-
ciated with forgiveness than unforgiveness, these conditions may
not be necessary for forgiveness to occur.2
2
R. Baumeister (personal communication, September 17, 2001) offered
an interesting interpretation of these data: Assuming that narrators attempt
to present themselves favorably and seek moral credit for forgiving, one
would not expect victims to portray apologies and restitution from the
offender in their narratives. To the extent that victims feel obligated to
forgive when these conditions are present, their moral standing is not
 FORGIVENESS NARRATIVES
These conclusions are consistent with recent findings for a
largely Christian student sample who were asked to indicate their
agreement with several statements about forgiveness (Kanz, 2000).
Two-thirds of students in that sample believed that an apology is
not necessary for forgiveness. Together, these findings support a
conceptualization of forgiveness as a choice or act on the part of
the forgiver that does not necessarily depend on the offender’s
actions or repentance (e.g., Enright, Gassin, & Wu, 1992; Hope,
1987). In contrast, empirical studies have indicated that victims of
interpersonal offenses feel more favorably toward offenders and
are less likely to retaliate against them when the offenders offer
apologies (e.g., Ohbuchi, Kameda, & Agarie, 1989). Thus, what
individuals say about apologies, in narratives or in response to
statements about forgiveness, may not correspond well to how they
actually respond to apologies. Additional research that compares
individuals’ beliefs about the role of apologies and restitution to
their actual responses will help to clarify the extent to which
forgiveness is conditional on certain behaviors of the offender.
Victims’ Forgiveness of Offenders
The narratives of interpersonal offenses were more complex
than an open/closed analysis would indicate. Victims’ narratives
indicated aspects of closure as well as self-enhancing motives.
Victims who forgave, for example, often described and justified
their anger and mentioned multiple provocations and the negative
consequences of the offense. Similar to unforgiving victims, for-
givers were more likely than offenders to describe the offender’s
motives as arbitrary or senseless rather than justified. Thus, some
victims in our study may have sought to enhance their moral
standing by maintaining their victim status while proclaiming
forgiveness. Such forgiveness, however, may be characterized as
expedient forgiveness (Trainer, 1981).
It is important to note that participants were asked to describe
their whole story; therefore, victims who forgave may have felt
required to describe all events that led to their anger and the
negative consequence of the offense and to justify their anger, even
if these features were not important in their current thinking about
the forgiven offense. Thus, rather than being motivated to maintain
their victim status, while at the same time portraying themselves as
forgivers, some victims in our study may have tried to justify that
the offense was serious enough to warrant their effort at
forgiveness.
Slightly more than 10% of the victims who forgave their of-
fender described that they were still angry. Definitions of forgive-
ness frequently refer to victims’ “letting go” of anger and hurt in
favor of conciliatory responses (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1999;
Enright and The Human Development Study Group, 1991; Mc-
Cullough & Worthington, 1994; Scobie & Scobie, 1998). Thus, we
might characterize these victims’ forgiveness as hollow because of
their continued anger toward the offender (Baumeister et al.,
1999). Another interpretation is that these victims have made the
commitment to forgive, but may be at only the beginning of the
forgiveness process (Enright & The Human Development Study
enhanced greatly when they forgive. However, if apologies and restitution
are not readily apparent, the victims’ moral standing is enhanced when they
describe their forgiveness.
683
Group, 1991; Enright, Eastin, Golden, Sarinopoulos, & Freedman,
1992). Thus, rather than conceptualizing forgiveness as either total
or hollow, a process approach characterizes individuals’ progress
in stages of forgiveness. Given that our instructions asked narrators
to describe forgiven offenses, however, we assumed that victims
believed they had forgiven their offender (indeed, 84.1% explicitly
stated they had forgiven their offender). Our analysis of narratives
using dichotomous coding for the presence or absence of features
related to interpersonal conflict and forgiveness precluded a se-
quential analysis of the process from conflict to forgiveness. Ad-
ditional research that asks narrators to describe their process of
forgiveness and codes features based on if–then contingencies
(e.g., if offender apologizes, then victim’s anger is eliminated)
would help to identify processes related to forgiveness (e.g., Fehr,
Baldwin, Collins, Patterson, & Benditt, 1999).
Finally, additional theoretical and empirical work on victims’
forgiveness must address the extent to which it is desirable for
victims to exclude anger and details of the offense from their
personal narratives of the forgiven conflict and relationship with
the offender. Kanz’s (2000) study of Christian students revealed
that three fourths of the students believed it is possible to be
simultaneously angry and forgiving, and two thirds believed that it
is not necessary to forget the hurt when an offense is forgiven.
Similarly, our victims may not have been motivated to maintain
their victim status in relation to their offender but, instead, were
motivated to remember that they are vulnerable to hurt. Continued
anger at the offense, rather than the offender, may protect individ-
uals from additional harm. Several theorists have argued that
forgiveness must not be confused with forgetting (e.g., Enright &
Coyle, 1998; Parsons, 1988; Worthington, 1999); indeed, some
researchers have argued that forgetting the past harm may place
individuals at risk (e.g., Fow, 1996; Freedman, 1998; Katz, Street,
& Arias, 1997).
Offenders’ Self-Forgiveness
Although offenders who forgave themselves often expressed
regret and self-blame, they also implicated their victim in causing
the offense more than did offenders who did not forgive them-
selves. Self-forgiving offenders also described their own anger and
tended to justify their actions more than offenders who did not
forgive themselves. In general, narratives of offenders who for-
gave themselves were self-focused and portrayed victims as de-
serving what they got. These offenders seemed to achieve self-
forgiveness relatively easily. Similar to Baumeister et al.’s (1990)
findings, offenders in our study often tried to usurp the victim
status by portraying their offense as relatively minor and not
deserving of the victim’s angry reaction.
Perhaps the narrators who expressed the most difficulty in our
study were those who could not forgive themselves. Many offend-
ers expressed regret and guilt and blamed themselves; some re-
ported they would never forgive themselves despite their efforts to
apologize or make amends for their wrong, even when their victim
had forgiven them. These offenders seemed at a loss for how to let
go of their past offense and move toward forgiveness. Previous
narrative research revealed that guilt can strengthen interpersonal
relationships if it leads to behavior change following a transgres-
sion (Baumeister et al., 1995; Leith & Baumeister, 1998). In
contrast, shame—in which negative affect and evaluations focus
684 ZECHMEISTER AND ROMERO
on the self rather than the offensive behavior—limits individuals’
efforts to deal effectively with their offense and the consequences
for their relationship (Leith & Baumeister, 1998; Lewis, 1987;
Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992). Leith and
Baumeister observed that shame was associated with personal-
distress empathy, in which individuals focus on their own anxiety
and distress in response to their empathy for their victims’ suffer-
ing. In our study, nearly one third of offenders who did not forgive
themselves wrote about their own distress in response to their
empathy for their victims, suggesting that one obstacle to self-
forgiveness is feelings of distress and shame about oneself, rather
than guilt for the offending actions.
Empathy and Forgiveness
Previous investigations of forgiveness demonstrated that for-
giveness is more likely when victims empathize with the offender,
through either taking the offender’s perspective or feeling emo-
tional concern for the victim (e.g., McCullough et al., 1997, 1998;
Worthington, 1998, 1999). The results of this investigation sup-
ported the association between situational empathy and victims’
forgiveness of offenders. Victims who forgave were more likely to
demonstrate perspective taking and emotional concern for their
offender than were victims who did not forgive. However, the
opposite occurred when narrators wrote as offenders: Self-
forgiveness was associated with less empathy for the victim and
often was associated with righteous self-focus and victim blaming.
It is easy to wonder whether their victims forgave these offenders
as easily as they seemed to forgive themselves.
To the extent that both empathy for others and forgiveness are
desirable prosocial responses following interpersonal offenses, a
dilemma exists when offenders seek to forgive themselves. Em-
pathy that results in personal distress and shame is associated with
less self-forgiveness, which may prevent the offender from expe-
riencing closure following the offense. Thus, interventions aimed
at helping offenders to forgive themselves should focus on empa-
thy for the victim and guilt for the particular behaviors associated
with the offense, but help offenders to prevent personal distress
and shame in response to their actions.
Although the empathy evident in the narratives appears to have
been more situational than dispositional, we observed some sup-
port for dispositional empathy as an important moderator in the
forgiveness process. Overall, the narratives reflected individual
differences in empathy, as high dispositional-empathy individuals
tended to evidence more narrative empathy, regardless of their role
(victim vs. offender), and whether or not forgiveness had occurred.
Dispositional empathy was also associated with closure-promoting
attributional processes such as asserting benign motives for the
offender’s behavior; however, this association was context depen-
dent. As expected, there was a strong link between dispositional
empathy and the presence of benign attributions in victims’ nar-
ratives depicting forgiveness of an offender: Empathic victims
more frequently identified nonmaleficent causes of the offender’s
behavior. Thus, in this context, dispositional empathy may pro-
mote successful closure and may be predictive of true forgiveness
or a more advanced stage of the forgiveness process than that
achieved by the low dispositionally empathic victims who express
forgiveness.
An unexpected finding was that high-empathy offenders ap-
peared to justify their behavior by offering benign attributions
more frequently (relative to low-empathy offenders) when they
had not forgiven themselves. As noted above, narratives of offend-
ers who forgave themselves were associated with less empathy for
the victim. Dispositionally empathic offenders may find it difficult
to forgive themselves if they see self-forgiveness as being at odds
with their usual empathic stance. What may be portrayed in these
offenders’ narratives is their effort to obtain closure while remain-
ing empathic toward the victim. In contrast to their victim role
when forgiving others, where their benign attributions may repre-
sent a more advanced stage of forgiveness, offenders’ benign
attributions for their behavior may represent an early stage of true
self-forgiveness. That is, perhaps high dispositional-empathy of-
fenders who have not yet forgiven themselves grapple with the
dilemma of choosing between the two competing prosocial re-
sponses of forgiveness and empathy and attempt to resolve their
conundrum by considering mitigating factors that would permit
them to forgive themselves while acknowledging their culpability
and maintaining a high level of empathy for their victim. The
relationships among dispositional empathy, situational empathy,
attributions, and forgiveness are obviously complex and merit
further investigation.
Limitations and Future Directions
The sample for this investigation was predominantly students
from a private, Catholic university, but we also included narratives
from members of the surrounding community to increase the
diversity of the sample and offenses. We sampled a range of
interpersonal offenses, including betrayals of trust, infidelities,
drug- and alcohol-related deaths, and social humiliations. Our
reading of these narratives suggest that experiences of forgiveness
(and unforgiveness) likely differ across the life span. Our limited
sampling across the life span precluded analyses that compared
narratives according to age, victim or offender role, and forgive-
ness versus no-forgiveness instructions. Additional research that
examines developmental aspects of the forgiveness process, such
as the frequency of forgiveness, changes in the types of offenses
that require forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and changes in people’s
conceptualizations of what it means to forgive, will enhance our
understanding of forgiveness processes.
Clearly, victims and offenders differed in the offenses they
chose to describe in our study. In general, victims tended to select
offenses that were self-threatening and intentional. Thus, it is
difficult to determine whether victim and offender narratives dif-
fered because of the role of the narrator or because of the different
offenses described. In addition, coders rated narratives of forgive-
ness—regardless of whether they represented victim or offender
perspectives—as less severe in their consequences. Features asso-
ciated with forgiveness, such as positive outcomes and affect, may
have been portrayed more frequently because the offenses were
less severe, rather than as a result of the forgiveness process
(although three quarters of forgiving victims did portray their
emotional arousal at the time of the offense as moderate or severe).
In addition, it is likely that the forgiveness process differs depend-
ing on the severity of the offense (Scobie & Scobie, 1998). Future
research that removes the confounding between the type of of-
fense, narrator role, and forgiveness will help to clarify how
 FORGIVENESS NARRATIVES
individuals forgive themselves and others for different types of
offenses.
Although personal narratives may help to reveal individuals’
motives and beliefs about events in their lives, they do not allow
researchers to examine cognitive processes associated with the
encoding and retrieval of these events. However, our goal in
examining participants’ narratives of forgiveness was to describe
their understanding of forgiveness and to assess how well this
understanding matches theoretical and empirical work on forgive-
ness to date. Subjective, personal accounts of interpersonal con-
flicts do not necessarily reveal the truth about what happened, but
do offer valuable information about what people think forgiveness
is and how they think it occurs. An additional limitation of narra-
tive data is that we are unable to identify causal mechanisms
underlying the forgiveness process. Despite this limitation, how-
ever, we gain external validity in our descriptions of forgiveness
by examining participants’ stories of the important conflicts in
their lives. Narrative research, in conjunction with experimental
work, will improve our understanding of the forgiveness process.
One goal of this research was to compare narrators’ conceptu-
alizations of forgiveness and unforgiveness to current theories of
forgiveness using narrators’ own words, on the basis of their own
experiences of interpersonal conflict. We successfully demon-
strated that personal narratives of forgiveness often do not include
apologies and making amends and that forgiveness stories are
more likely to portray the offense as over and isolated, and with
positive consequences. However, forgiveness stories also de-
scribed anger and negative consequences. Future research that
examines the extent to which negative and positive cognition,
affect, and behavior coexist as part of forgiveness will help to
clarify this complex process.
Conclusion
Accumulating evidence suggests that how individuals portray
interpersonal conflicts depends on their role as victim or offender.
The findings of this investigation demonstrated that whether of-
fenses are forgiven or not forgiven was also strongly related to
participants’ inclusion of narrative features and moderated the
influence of narrators’ role. Personal narratives offer a rich source
of information about how people conceptualize and experience
forgiveness in their everyday lives and should help to guide
theoretical developments in the growing area of empirical forgive-
ness research.
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Received July 11, 2001
Revision received October 4, 2001
Accepted October 17, 2001 䡲