Abstract
Although justice and forgiveness are generally held to be competitive constructs, increasingly, studies indicate that when justice is operationalized on the basis of its inclusive characteristics, it is compatible with forgiveness. This study (N = 142) applied a human values framework to provide a theoretical explanation for the positive association between justice (operationalized as just world beliefs about the self [BJW-self]) and forgiveness.
Replicating previous research, BJW-self was associated positively with forgiveness and negatively with revenge in response to a specific transgression. Importantly, the self-transcendent values of universalism and benevolence, but not the self-enhancing value of power, played an explanatory role in relations between BJW-self and forgiveness and revenge. Theoretical implications and future research ideas are discussed.
Introduction
Justice is fundamentally important to humans (see Lerner, 1980). So, too, is social harmony—which, following wrongdoing, is often re-established through forgiveness (e.g., Strelan, McKee, Calic, Cook, & Shaw, 2013). Yet, justice and forgiveness have traditionally been viewed as antithetical. People usually equate the former with punishment and the latter with positive responding, even love—and, often, the foregoing of justice (for a review of the many ways in which the two constructs are pitted against each other, see Strelan, Feather, & McKee, 2008).
Certainly, this perspective is borne out empirically when justice is conceptualized in its classic retributive form (e.g., Strelan et al., 2008). However, there is also a varied set of studies indicating that justice and forgiveness are positively associated.
Restorative (Strelan et al., 2008, Wenzel and Okimoto, 2013) and social justice cognitions (Karremans & Van Lange, 2005), rehabilitative punishment goals (Strelan, Feather, & McKee, 2011), procedural and distributive justice beliefs (Lucas, Young, Zhdanova, & Alexander, 2010), and just world beliefs about the self (Strelan, 2007, Strelan and Sutton, 2011) have been found to encourage forgiveness.
What is common to these studies is that each operationalizes a form of justice that has an ‘inclusive’ orientation. That is, rather than being alienated—which is effectively what happens in the case of retributive justice—offenders are included in victims’ moral circles insofar as they are given voice and their welfare and needs taken into consideration (for a detailed discussion see Strelan et al., 2011).
Taken together, these studies indicate that justice and forgiveness may not be so incompatible after all; depending on how justice is operationalized, individuals may desire, and pursue, both justice and forgiveness at the same time. Presently lacking, however, is a theoretical explanation for the association: why are forgiveness and several different inclusive versions of justice congruent? At the simplest of levels, each reflects concern for re-establishment of the social bond.
In this article we apply a well-established and highly influential theoretical framework, that pertaining to motivational human values, to scaffold and elaborate this basic assumption. As we will see shortly, values arguably inform all aspects of human cognition, affect, and behavior, insofar as they help guide decisions and represent desirable goals (see Schwartz, 1992).
Both justice and forgiveness are motivated social behaviors; as such, values would seem to provide an ideal theoretical basis for explaining their relation.
We begin with justice. To represent justice in our analyses we invoke arguably the most influential theory of justice, belief in a just world (BJW; Lerner, 1980).
Lerner (1980) theorized that humans need to believe in a just world. In such a world, outcomes are logical and predictable. People get what they deserve and deserve what they get; good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people.
Viewing the world through such a lens provides a conceptual framework for negotiating and making sense of the world, empowering individuals to navigate through life confident that events and outcomes will indeed be logical and predictable (e.g., Sutton & Winnard, 2007).
Notably, individuals partition their spheres of justice, according to whether the world is just for the self (BJW-self) or others (BJW-others) (for a brief review see Strelan & Sutton, 2011). BJW-self and BJW-others are moderately correlated. However, the former is associated with coping and prosocial responding whereas the latter is associated with harsh social attitudes (for a discussion of the differential relations, see Sutton & Winnard, 2007).
Because BJW-self is concerned with how oneself is treated, whereas BJW-others is concerned with how others are treated, and forgiveness is most relevant to how oneself is treated, in this article we address only BJW-self.
According to BJW theorizing, individuals implicitly agree, as a result of early socialization experiences, to abide by a personal contract with the world: In exchange for following social rules and norms, the world will treat them accordingly. As such, BJW-self is an inclusive representation of justice insofar as it reflects an imperative to treat others as one would expect oneself to be treated—that is, decently, appropriately, and fairly (Lerner, 1980).
Importantly, when individuals with strong BJW-self experience victimization, there is evidence that, rather than responding in kind (e.g., by retaliating), they may go beyond prescribed moral duty and respond in an approach-oriented manner, including forgiving (Strelan, 2007, Strelan and Sutton, 2011) and accommodating (Lipkus & Bissonnette, 1996).
There are several inter-related theoretical explanations for why individuals with high BJW-self are able to respond constructively to personally-experienced transgressions. First, they may do so out of the motivation to act consistently with their just world beliefs (i.e., treat others appropriately, for to do otherwise would cause dissonance).
Second, they may refrain from negative responding because negative responding in itself potentially violates the contractual obligation to show restraint, even in the face of unfair treatment (e.g., Sutton & Winnard, 2007). Third, constructive responding is easier to enact when the unfair treatment is unusual (e.g., Kelley & Thibaut, 1978)—which it is, by definition, for those who believe the world generally treats them fairly.
Fourth, individuals with strong BJW-self have learnt that abiding by the social contract is usually rewarding and often reciprocated down the line. As such, the contract empowers individuals with the confidence to respond constructively, rather than destructively, to a transgression (e.g., Sutton & Winnard, 2007). Thus,
Human values occupy a central space in cognitive networks of attitudes and beliefs (see Rokeach, 1973), and have been implicated in a wide variety of social psychological and personality phenomena (for a brief review, see Maio & Olson, 1998). Values are cognitive representations of general or abstract learned beliefs that people think are important guiding principles in their lives. As such, values are motivating.
If a value is important to an individual, then it will be relevant across a wide range of actions and situations. Values serve as standards, insofar as they help people evaluate their own and others’ past and potential actions. Notably, value activation depends on context and the importance of the value to the individual. The more important a particular value, the more likely a person will act in accordance with that value in a given situation.
Finally, individuals prioritize their values in order of importance. Thus, because any attitude or behavior usually has implications for multiple values, one value is more likely to be expressed in a given situation in preference to others that might also be relevant (see Schwartz, 1992).
Schwartz (1992) identified 10 motivationally-distinct value types arranged in a circumplex, conceptualized along two bipolar dimensions to reflect their compatibilities and conflicts: openness/conservation, and self-transcending/self-enhancing. Although some values on the former dimension may be relevant to justice (e.g., conformity, security; see Feather, 1991), it is arguable whether they are also relevant to forgiveness (we address this issue further in the discussion). Thus, we examine only values on the self-transcending/self-enhancing dimension.
Self-transcending values emphasize concern and respect for others. They are represented by two value types: benevolence (preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact), and universalism (understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection for the welfare of all).
Conversely, self-enhancing values reflect self-interest and preoccupation with social comparison, represented by power (social status and prestige, control, or dominance over people and resources), and achievement (personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards) (Schwartz, 1992). Because achievement values are conceptually unrelated to both justice and forgiveness, we will use only power to represent the self-enhancing pole.
The self-transcending values of universalism and benevolence are given expression in inclusive behavioral preferences. For example, they predict positive attitudes by majorities towards improving the lives of the marginalized (e.g., Feather, Woodyatt, & McKee, 2012) and are associated with a prosocial disposition (Strelan et al., 2011). Conversely, power values are manifested in defensive and controlling tendencies.
For example, power is related to right wing authoritarianism (Feather, 2005) and social dominance orientation (McKee & Feather, 2008), and expressed in negative social attitudes such as punitive goal preferences (Strelan et al., 2011), prejudice (Feather & McKee, 2012), and endorsing aggressive responses in conflict situations (Cohrs, Moschner, Maes, & Kielman, 2005).
When their just world framework is threatened, individuals with strong BJW-self are empowered by the personal contract to respond prosocially—consonant with the expression of self-transcending values. The personal contract also requires individuals with strong BJW-self to restrain themselves from defensive, avoidant, or antisocial responding; that is, non-inclusive behavior which reflects power values. Thus,
One previous study has examined relations between values and forgiveness. Strelan et al. (2011) reported that universalism and benevolence values were positively related to dispositional forgiveness whereas power was negatively related. These results are consistent with theorizing and research discussed earlier: Values emphasizing concern for others are likely to be reflected in behaviors or dispositions consistent with such values (Schwartz & Bardi, 2001)—in this case, an other-oriented response or disposition such as forgiveness.
Conversely, the more individuals endorse values that emphasize social distance and defensive responding to threat—i.e., power—the less likely they are to exhibit other-oriented behaviors or dispositions.
Beliefs and values may be located in the same personality space (see, for example, McCrae & Costa, 1999), so that they likely share a bi-directional relationship; that is, values may influence the extent to which an individual believes in a just world as much as a just world framework influences an individual’s values (for reviews see Hitlin and Piliavin, 2004, Rohan, 2000). Longitudinal research supports the idea that values and beliefs have a reciprocal effect on each other (e.g., Goodwin, Polek, & Bardi, 2012).
The likely bi-directional relationship between justice beliefs and values has implications for how we frame our primary hypothesis. Based on the theorizing and research discussed, individuals who endorse inclusive representations of justice (i.e., BJW-self) also endorse other-focused values (benevolence and universalism). Such values are manifested in other-oriented responding, i.e., forgiving.
Conversely, increased endorsement of BJW-self is associated with decreased endorsement of power values, which also encourages forgiving. In short, BJW-self is associated with forgiveness because it (BJW-self) is associated with certain values.
We expect to find that when these values are taken into account, the hypothesized relation between BJW-self and forgiveness is considerably dampened. Such an outcome would indicate that one explanation for why BJW-self and forgiveness are related is because of variance shared with relevant values.
We measured BJW-self, values, and forgiveness in the context of personally experienced transgressions. In so doing, we aimed to test the extent to which the more distal effects of person variables (BJW-self and values) on behavioral intentions—in this case, forgiveness—would persist even when more immediate and salient transgression-specific information was taken into account—specifically, harm severity, relationship closeness, and offender amends. Finally, for the purpose of discriminant validity we also measured revenge, a variable that is conceptually and empirically opposite to forgiveness (e.g., McCullough, Fincham, & Tsang, 2003). Hypotheses for relations between BJW-self, values, and revenge are the same as for forgiveness, except in the opposite direction.
Section snippets
Participants
Participants were 142 undergraduates from an Australian university (112 women, 28 men, two did not specify gender; Mage = 24, SD = 7.61; vast majority White), participating as part of course requirements.
Procedures and materials
BJW-self was measured with the eight-item scale developed by Lipkus, Dalbert, and Siegler (1996) (1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree). Scores are summed and averaged so that higher scores reflect stronger BJW-self (α = .86).
Self-transcending and power value types were measured with 16 relevant
Results
Table 1 indicates significant relations—all in the expected directions—between BJW-self, self-transcending values, and each of forgiveness and revenge. Although power was not significantly associated with either of forgiveness or revenge, we included it in subsequent analyses as we were interested in its effect when examined in conjunction with self-transcending values.
Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted with BJW-self entered as the predictor at step 1 and each of forgiveness and
Discussion
It has become increasingly clear that when justice is operationalized on the basis of its inclusive properties, it is positively associated with forgiveness. BJW-self, reflecting as it does a personal contract with the world to respond constructively to unfair behavior, is one such representation of inclusive justice beliefs. Commensurately, the present study replicates previous research with the finding that BJW-self is positively associated with forgiveness and negatively with revenge (H1).
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- Good outcomes are more likely for me than you—Especially in a just world2020, Personality and Individual DifferencesCitation Excerpt :A sense of control has itself been linked to a range of positive characteristics and outcomes (for a review, see Peterson, 1999), and there is direct evidence that personal control mediates relations between BJW-self and positive outcomes (e.g., Ucar, Hasta, & Malatyali, 2019).
- Accordingly, BJW-self is associated with enhanced wellbeing (e.g., Sutton, Stoeber, & Kamble, 2017); a heightened ability to deal with hardship (e.g., Dalbert, 2002), including being approach oriented despite poor treatment by others (e.g., Strelan & McKee, 2014); and future-oriented dispositions including optimism (e.g., Jiang, Yue, Lu, Yu, & Zhu, 2016), hope (Şeker, 2016), and interpersonal trust (Begue, 2002). Notably, BJW-self is associated with confidence in achieving social goals (Sutton & Winnard, 2007) and a growth mindset (Bartholomaeus & Strelan, 2016).Show abstract
- The adaptive, approach-oriented correlates of belief in a just world for the self: A review of the research2019, Personality and Individual DifferencesCitation Excerpt :At a motivational level, BJW-self, but not BJW-others, is related to social goals that require the suspension of immediate self-interest. Specifically, it shows associations with a desire to learn more about others, to talk about feelings, and to make others feel better (Sutton et al., 2017), and the human motivational values of benevolence (Strelan & McKee, 2014). BJW-self is related to prosocial outcomes across a number of social spheres.