Implicit forgiveness attitudes predict -low stakes-responses to conflict

The psychological literature often frames forgiveness as a conscious and reflective process: a decision that is reached (or not) over time and after active deliberation. However, some recent work has found that forgiving behaviour may also sometimes occur relatively spontaneously (Karremans & Aarts, 2007). To reconcile these two accounts, it was hypothesised that automatic processes would be more predictive in 'low-stakes' contexts: for transgressions that are less severe, and for forgiveness-relevant behaviours that are more passive (benevolence, avoidance) than active (revenge). Participants (N=113) first completed an Implicit Association Test (IAT: Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), which assessed 'implicit' (non-conscious) attitudes towards forgiveness, and were then asked to recall a personally-experienced transgression, reporting levels of avoidance, benevolence and revenge towards the transgressor (TRIM: McCullough et al, 1998). A series of three 2 (high/low implicit forgiveness) X 2 (high/low severity) ANOVAs revealed significant interactions for the two 'passive' dependent variables, such that those who were more implicitly forgiving were significantly more benevolent and less avoidant of their transgressors, but only for low severity transgressions. As predicted, implicit attitudes did not predict revenge for either low or high severity transgressions. Implications for our understandings of the forgiveness process are discussed.