An Obligation to Right Relationship Wrongs: Victims Believe that Transgressors Expect Forgiveness

In this work, we propose that victims believe transgressors expect forgiveness, and that this belief makes victims feel obligated to forgive. In Study 1, we find that victims believe that transgressors expect forgiveness, leading to a feeling of obligation. Furthermore, we find that these beliefs predict victims’ actual forgiveness. In Study 2, we investigate whether the perceived obligation is a unique source of victims’ obligations to forgive, above-and-beyond sources already identified in the literature. In Study 3, we examine the mechanism through which victims experience this expectation to forgive transgressors – that is, victims’ beliefs that they can alleviate transgressors’ moral emotions – and how this drives the obligation to forgive. In Study 4, we examine whether victims are accurate in their beliefs about this expectation and demonstrate that victims overestimate the extent to which transgressors obligate forgiveness. We discuss the implications of these findings for conflict management.