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Interpersonal Forgiveness and Psychological Well-being
in Late Childhood
Reine C. van der Wal, Johan C. Karremans, Antonius H. N. Cillessen
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Volume 62, Number 1, January 2016, pp.
1-21 (Article)
Published by Wayne State University Press
For additional information about this article
Access provided by Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (4 Jan 2016 14:23 GMT)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mpq/summary/v062/62.1.van-der-wal.html
1
MERRILL-PALMER QUARTERLY, VOL. 62, NO. 1
Interpersonal Forgiveness and Psychological
Well-being in Late Childhood
Reine C. van der Wal, Johan C. Karremans
and Antonius H. N. Cillessen Radboud University–Nijmegen
Although the ability to forgive offending peers may be crucial for maintaining
long-term friendships in childhood, little is actually known about forgiveness among
peers in childhood. In the present research, we examined whether forgiveness
among children is related to enhanced psychological well-being. Importantly, we
hypothesized that this association should be most pronouncedwhen friendship
is strong rather than weak. In a sample of 275 nine- to 13-year-olds who com-
pleted self-reported and behavioral measures of forgiveness and various indi-
cators of psychological well-being, the present study revealed that forgiveness
among peers was indeed associated with enhanced psychological well-being. In
line with predictions, the association with psychological well-being was stronger
when it concerned forgiveness toward friends rather than forgiveness toward
nonfriends. Implications for the extant literature on forgiveness among children,
and interpersonal relationships more broadly, are discussed.
Friendships are important in the lives of children and generally provide
them with positive outcomes, such as a sense of security and social support,
and opportunities to develop emotionally and socially. At the same time,
even in the closest friendship, it seems inevitable that children sometimes
feel offended or hurt (e.g., Burk & Laursen, 2005; Laursen & Hafen, 2010).
Reine C. van der Wal, Johan C. Karremans, and Antonius H. N. Cillessen, Behavioural
Science Institute.
This research was funded by a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific
Research (NWO 431-09-023) to Johan C. Karremans. We are grateful for the support of the
teachers and students of the schools that participated in the studies.
Address correspondence to Reine C. van der Wal, Social and Organizational Psychology
Department, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. Phone:
+31302534615. E-mail: r.c.vanderwal@uu.nl.
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, January 2016, Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 1–21. Copyright © 2016 by
Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201.
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2 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
They may discover that a peer had lied to them or divulged one of their
secrets to others, or, more extremely, children may bully or exclude each
other. How do children maintain friendships in the face of such offenses?
Can children overcome the often initial and natural impulse for revenge
against those who hurt them? Does a forgiving response benefit the child’s
psychological well-being even though the offense was painful? And, if so,
does the type of relationship in which forgiveness occurs play a role in
affecting the child’s psychological well-being?
Surprisingly little research has examined the role of forgiveness in
children’s peer relationships (but see Denham, Neal, Wilson, Pickering,
& Boyatzis, 2005; Flanagan, Van den Hoek, Ranter, & Reich, 2012; Peets,
Hodges, & Salmivalli, 2013). Yet, the scientific literature on interpersonal
forgiveness suggests that forgiveness may be one of the keys to understand-
ing how people maintain close bonds (e.g., Karremans & Van Lange, 2008;
McCullough et al., 1998; Paleari, Regalia, & Fincham, 2005). The main
purpose of the current study was to examine whether children’s tendency to
forgive is associated with psychological well-being. Importantly, we argue
that the association between children’s forgiving tendencies and psycho-
logical well-being depends on the nature of the relationship in which for-
giveness occurs.
The Benefits of Friendships in Childhood
Peer and friendship relations in late childhood play an essential role in
children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development (Berndt & Ladd,
1989; Sullivan, 1953). Research shows that friendships are associated with
a greater sense of well-being, better self-esteem, and fewer social prob-
lems, both concurrently and later in life (e.g., Bukowski, Motzoi, & Meyer,
2009; Ladd, 1990; Marion, Laursen, Zettergren, & Bergman, 2013; Rose
& Asher, 1999; Vitaro, Boivin, & Bukowski, 2009). In contrast, children
and adolescents who lack close friendships are more likely to manifest
behavioral and emotional problems during childhood and even adulthood
(Berndt, 2002; Glick & Rose, 2011; Hartup, 1996; Ladd & Troop-Gordon,
2003; Newcomb & Bagwell, 1995). For example, they are more likely to
feel lonely and isolated (Asher & Paquette, 2003), have low self-esteem
(Bagwell, Newcomb, & Bukowski, 1998), be victimized by peers (Hodges,
Boivin, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 1999), or engage in deviant behaviors
(e.g.,Parker & Asher, 1993).
Given the numerous benefits of close friendships, children’s capacity
to maintain such friendships is crucial. However, this may be not so easy
because negative interactions are especially salient in friendship relations
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Forgiveness and Well-being 3
(e.g., Burk & Laursen, 2005) and tend to intensify in late childhood when
peer relations grow more complex (Parker, Rubin, Erath, Wojslawowicz,
& Buskirk, 2006). Hartup, French, Laursen, Johnston, and Ogawa (1993)
demonstrated that conflict occurred most frequently, and lasted longer, in
relationships in which children were socially interdependent and interact
over substantial periods (Simpkins & Parke, 2002; cf. Fincham, 2000).
Thus, to reap the benefits of long-lasting friendships, an important chal-
lenge for children is to maintain their friendships in the face of interper-
sonal offenses.
Forgiving Responses and the Maintenance of Friendships
How do children respond to a peer’s offensive act? One way in which
children may respond is to do harm in return (e.g., McCullough, Fincham,
& Tsang, 2003; Rose & Asher, 1999). Indeed, Troop-Gordon and Asher
(2005) demonstrated that children often rely on aggressive, retaliatory
strategies when reacting to an offense. However, although retaliatory
responses may occur relatively automatically and may provide an immedi-
ate sense of reward (e.g., Singer et al., 2006), they may be detrimental for
the relationship. Instead, responding in a more forgiving manner may be
more beneficial to the maintenance of close relationships (e.g., Fincham,
2000; McCullough, Worthington, & Rachal, 1997; Paleari et al., 2005).
Forgiveness can be defined as the process of regulating negative emo-
tions, cognitions, and behavior caused by another person’s hurtful behavior
into more neutral or positive emotions, cognitions, and behavior toward
the offender (Karremans & Van Lange, 2008; McCullough et al., 1998).
Whereas it may seem only natural that an initial and impulsive response
to an offense is to retaliate, forgiveness involves the ability to inhibit and
transform such an impulsive response and instead react in a more prosocial
manner toward the offender.
Consistent with research among adults (e.g., Finkel, Rusbult,
Kumashiro, & Hannon, 2002; Karremans & Aarts, 2007), some recent evi-
dence suggests that children tend to be more forgiving toward offending
friends than nonfriends (Peets, Hodges, Kikas, & Salmivalli, 2007; Peets
etal., 2013; Van der Wal, Karremans, & Cillessen, 2014a). Peets et al.
(2013) demonstrated that hurt caused by a disliked (vs. liked) transgressor
resulted in more negative responses (hostile attributions, angry feelings)
than did hurt caused by a liked peer transgressor. Moreover, friends (vs.
nonfriends or acquaintances) are more likely to make concessions and to
continue their interactions when the conflict is solved (Laursen, Finkelstein,
& Betts, 2001). Such findings support the notion that forgiveness is an
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4 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
important mechanism by which children maintain friendships, despite the
inevitable offenses that occur within them.
Forgiving Responses and Psychological Well-being
Are children’s forgiving tendencies associated with their psychological
well-being? To address this question, we argue that it is important to con-
sider the relationship context in which forgiveness (or the lack thereof)
occurs. Despite the general finding that friendship promotes forgiving ten-
dencies, children may not always be capable of responding in a forgiving
manner when offended, even when the offender is a close friend. It may
actually even be harder sometimes to forgive a friend than a nonfriend—for
example, when basic friendship norms, such as trust, are threatened (e.g.,
breaking a promise; for similar reasoning, see Karremans, Van Lange,
Ouwerkerk, & Kluwer, 2003). Although, in some cases, children may
psychologically distance themselves from a friend (i.e., by reducing the
friendship), there may also be moments, particularly in long-term friend-
ships, when a child actually wants to maintain the friendship despite of
what happened. Thus, at some point, children may find themselves in a
situation in which (a) they are in a close friendship with a peer while, at the
same time, (b) they find it difficult to forgive the offending friend.
We argue that the second situation is particularly important for under-
standing the association between children’s forgiveness and their psycho-
logical well-being. Psychological well-being can be seen as a broad category
of phenomena that includes emotional responses, domain satisfactions,
and global judgments of life satisfaction (based on Diener, Suh, Lucas, &
Smith, 1999). Specifically, the lack of forgiveness toward a friend—and
less so toward a nonfriend—may undermine psychological well-being in
at least two ways. First, the lack of forgiveness may be related to hostile
or retaliatory behavioral responses that may deteriorate the relationship
with the friend (Karremans & Van Lange, 2005). Such responses may set
into motion a reciprocal cycle of negativity within the friendship relation-
ship. Research indicates that children using hostile or retaliatory conflict
strategies in response to (hypothetical) offenses by peers have poor-quality
friendships and are less accepted by their peers (Newcomb, Bukowski, &
Pattee, 1993; Rose & Asher, 1999; Troop-Gordon & Asher, 2005). Thus,
given the otherwise beneficial outcomes of friendships, children’s inability
to forgive a friend may undermine their psychological well-being because
this inability deteriorates friendships.
Second, and relatedly, a child’s lack of forgiveness toward an interper-
sonal offense with a friend is psychologically incongruent with the child’s
MPQ 62.1_01.indd 4 12/12/15 9:29 AM
Forgiveness and Well-being 5
motivation to maintain the friendship. Previous research has demonstrated
that the combination of a lack of forgiveness, on the one hand, and the moti-
vation to maintain a close relationship, on the other hand, can contribute to
a state of psychological tension, which in itself is related to decreases in
psychological well-being (Karremans et al., 2003; Kluwer & Karremans,
2009). A child who is hurt by a good friend, but is not able to forgive that
friend, may feel torn between the motivation to retaliate and the motivation
to maintain the friendship. Psychological tension created by these compet-
ing motives may negatively affect a child’s overall psychological well-being.
Some initial evidence suggests that the lack of forgiveness may
negatively influence a child’s psychological well-being (e.g., Baskin&
Enright, 2004; Toussaint, Williams, Musick, & Everson-Rose, 2008;
cf.Egan & Todorov, 2009). In particular, Flanagan et al. (2012) demon-
strated that children who are less forgiving have lower self-esteem and
are more socially anxious. Importantly, however, they did not take the
relational context into account. Based on the foregoing analysis, we rea-
son that the degree to which forgiveness is associated with psychological
well-being should be affected by the child’s relationship with the offending
peer. A child who is generally unforgiving toward friends may have dif-
ficulty maintaining friendships and experience psychological tension rela-
tively often, which both may undermine psychological well-being. Such
processes should be less relevant to forgiving or not forgiving a nonfriend.
Thus, we predict that children’s general level of forgiveness, particularly
toward friends (rather than nonfriends), should be positively associated with
their psychological well-being. To test this general prediction, we asked
children to think back to an offense either by a friend (friend condition) or
by a nonfriend (nonfriend condition). In addition to measuring their level
of forgiveness regarding the past offense (with both a self-report and a
behavioral indicator of forgiveness), we measured children’s psychological
well-being in various ways.
Method
Participants
Participants were fourth- through sixth-graders from seven elementary
schools in the Netherlands. Passive parental consent was obtained a
week before the study was conducted. A total of 335 children agreed
to participate (96.5% participation rate). We excluded children who
did not complete the questionnaire because they were absent (n = 5)
or due to time constraints (n = 12) or because they could not recall a
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6 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
hurtful incident (n= 26). Wedropped 17 additional participants from
the analyses who did not follow the instructions (e.g., worked together
with a classmate instead of on their own; n = 7) or had missing data on
two of the main variables (forgiveness and psychological well-being;
n=10). As a result, complete data were available for 275 children rang-
ing 9–13 years old (149 girls; Mage = 10.41, SDage = .88; see Table1
for means and standard deviations per grade). Participants were ran-
domly assigned to the friend condition (n=134) or nonfriend condition
(n = 141). Participants received a small gift in exchange for their volun-
tary participation.1
Procedure
After a short plenary introduction, children received the paper-and-pencil
questionnaire and were first asked to recall an incident in which they felt
offended by one of their classmates using the following instructions:
In a moment you will get some questions about something hurtful one
of your classmates did to you. For example, a classmate did some-
thing unkind to you, which made you feel really angry or sad. Please
think back to such a situation you had with one of your classmates
who is “your friend” (friend condition) or “not your friend” (nonfriend
condition).
Participants were asked to briefly describe what happened. Example
descriptions were “It really hurt me when my classmate called me little
baby (as I am quite small for my age)” and “I heard my best friend gossiping
about me.” Children then completed several measures. As a manipulation
1. The data were collected in two cohorts (Cohort 1, n = 195; and Cohort 2, n = 80) with
approximately 4 months in between. Adding “time of data collection” as a factor to the analyses
did not change the results.
nAge
Total Boys Girls M SD
Grade 6 87 36 51 9.71 .53
Grade 7 137 66 71 10.42 .60
Grade 8 51 24 27 11.57 .73
Table 1. Number of boys and girls, and means and standard deviations of age
for Grades 6–8
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Forgiveness and Well-being 7
check, we asked them to rate to what extent they were friends with the
offending classmate at the time of the offense from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very
much). In addition, we asked them how severe they thought the offense
was, from 1 (not severe) to 7 (very severe) (M = 5.07, SD = 1.67), and how
long ago the offense occurred (1 = today or yesterday, 2 = a week ago,
3=a month ago, and 4 = more than a year ago).
After participants completed the questionnaire regarding the offense,
we measured their self-reported forgiveness level. Next, after a short break
in which participants completed a connect-the-dots puzzle, we measured
participants’ behavioral forgiveness tendencies. At the end of the study, and
after some unrelated filler tasks, we assessed participants’ psychological
well-being. Finally, participants were thoroughly debriefed and thanked
for their participation.
Measures
Self-reported forgiveness. We measured self-reported level of
forgiveness toward the offending classmate with a modified Dutch
version of a forgiveness scale developed by Maio, Thomas, Fincham, and
Carnelley (2008) (see also Karremans et al., 2011). Due to translation
difficulties, we deleted two items of the original 8-item questionnaire
(see also Van der Wal et al., 2014a). Our measure thus consisted of six
items rated on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7
(completely agree). We used the mean of the six items as our indicator
of forgiveness (M = 4.37, SD=1.69). These were the example items:
If I think back to what my classmate did to me, “I see my classmate as
positively as before” and “I can easily forgive my classmate.” Cronbach’s
α = .88.
Behavioral forgiveness. To measure participants’ behavioral
forgiveness level, they were pointed to a nicely decorated gift in front
of the classroom and were told that the peer with the most credits would
win the gift. Participants were asked to recall once more the offend-
ing classmate and to indicate how many credits they would like to give
him or her (with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 10). The number
of credits that participants gave to the offending classmate was our
behavioral indicator of forgiveness (M = 5.10, SD = 2.93, range 1–10).
This behavioral measure correlated with the self-report measure of
forgiveness (r=.50, p < .001).
Psychological well-being. We measured participants’ psychologi-
cal well-being by using items that directly ask children to evaluate their
lives as a whole without specifying particular aspects, as recommended by
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8 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
Huebner and Alderman (1993) (see also Cummins, 1996; Eid & Diener,
2004). Specifically, we first used the Delighted–Terrible Scale (Andrews &
Withey, 1976) to assess general life happiness. Participants saw a picture
of five faces with expressions that ranged from from sad to happy. Then
they were told that the smiling face, the fifth one, indicates that you are
really happy with life (including school, friends, and home setting). The
sad face, the first one, indicates that you are really not very happy with life.
Participants were instructed to circle the number that best fit how they felt
at the moment (M = 4.15, SD = .90).
Second, based on Cantril’s Self-Anchoring Scale (the ladder), we
measured general life satisfaction by asking participants to grade their life
from 1to 10 (Cantril, 1965) (M = 8.21, SD = 1.75). This measure corre-
lated strongly with the general happiness measure of well-being (r = .74,
p <.001).
Third, we also assessed participants’ state self-esteem with three
items: “I have a positive attitude toward myself,” “I have a bad feeling
about myself” (reverse coded), and “I am satisfied with myself” on a
7-point Likert scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree):
M = 5.49, SD = 1.34, Cronbach’s α = .80 (based on Robins, Hendin, &
Trzesniewski, 2001). This measure correlated with the other two measures
of psychological well-being: general life happiness (r = .42, p < .001) and
general life satisfaction (r = .46, p < .001).2
Given that the three well-being measures correlated substantially with
one another, rs > .42 and that a principal component analysis revealed only
one overarching component, we clustered the three well-being measures
together in one composite psychological well-being score. We did this by
standardizing the three measures first so that they were on the same metric
and then we took the average. Cronbach’s alpha for the composite score of
the three separate measures was .78.
2. In addition to the three psychological well-being measures presented in this study, a
subsample of the participants (Cohort 2) also completed a positive and negative affect scale. At
the end of the questionnaire, participants indicated on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5
(every day) how they felt last week. An example item for the positive affect scale was “I felt happy”
(M=3.82, SD = .63, α = .59) and for the negative affect scale was “I felt tired,” recoded (M = 2.19,
SD = .73, α = .48) (see Abdallah, Steuern, Marks, & Page, 2008). Regression analyses on the affect
measures did not reveal any main effects of forgiveness level (ps > .239), interaction effects with
friendship condition (ps > .468), or main effects of either self-reported or behavioral forgiveness
on positive affect or negative affect in the friendship condition (ps > .134). Given the relatively
low reliability of both scales, a possible explanation for the nonsignificant findings is that children
were not sufficiently able to answer the questions with these anchors.
MPQ 62.1_01.indd 8 12/12/15 9:29 AM
Forgiveness and Well-being 9
Results
Preliminary Analyses
Manipulation check. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed
a significant effect of the friendship condition on perceived friendship,
F(1,273)= 92.59, p < .001, ηp
2 = .25. Participants reported being more
friendly with a friend (M = 4.24, SD = 1.95) than with a nonfriend (M=2.19,
SD=1.58). Thus, the instructions caused the intended effects.
Friendship condition and forgiveness. Replicating previous findings
by Peets et al. (2013), an ANOVA revealed a significant effect of the friend-
ship condition on self-reported forgiveness, F(1, 273) = 71.10, p<.001,
ηp
2 = .21, indicating more forgiveness of friends (M = 5.16, SD=1.54) than
of nonfriends (M = 3.62, SD = 1.49). We found similar effects of friendship
condition on forgiveness behavior, F(1, 273) = 56.75, p < .001, ηp
2 = .17,
such that participants acted more forgivingly in response to an offense by
a friend (M = 6.35, SD = 2.73) than by a nonfriend (M = 3.92, SD = 2.61).
Self-Reported Forgiveness and Psychological Well-being
We predicted that the positive association between forgiveness and
psychological well-being would be more pronounced in the friend
condition than in the nonfriend condition. To test this hypothesis,
psychological well-being was regressed on the centered measure of self-
reported forgiveness, friendship condition (contrast coded: friend = 1,
nonfriend= −1), and the interaction between the centered self-reported
forgiveness measure and friendship condition.
Replicating previous findings (Flanagan et al., 2012), the analysis
revealed a main effect of self-reported forgiveness, β = .19, t(271)=2.86,
p= .005, indicating a positive association between psychological well-
being and self-reported forgiveness. We did not find a main effect of
friendship condition (p = .747). Most importantly, the analysis yielded
a significant interaction between self-reported forgiveness and friend-
ship condition, β= .14, t(271) = 2.34, p = .020. In line with our
central hypothesis, tests of the effects by friendship condition (Aiken
& West, 1991) revealed that self-reported forgiveness toward friends
was significantly associated with increased psychological well-being,
β=.34, t(132)=4.09, p < .001. Forgiveness toward nonfriends was not
associated with psychological well-being, β = .03, t(139) = .34, p = .736
(see Figure 1). Notably, controlling for perceived severity or time since
the offense did not change the pattern of results.
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10 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
As can be seen in Table 2, although the interaction term did not reach
significance for all three indicators of psychological well-being separately,
for all three indicators the effect of forgiveness was significant in the friend
condition but not in the nonfriend condition.
Behavioral Forgiveness and Psychological Well-being
We ran a similar regression analysis in which psychological well-being
was regressed on the centered measure of forgiveness behavior, friendship
condition (contrast coded: friend = 1, nonfriend = −1), and the interac-
tion between the centered behavioral forgiveness measure and friendship
condition. This analysis yielded a main effect of behavioral forgiveness,
β= .17, t(271) = 2.55, p = .011, and no main effect of friendship condition
(p = .492). Again, the analysis revealed a significant interaction between
behavioral forgiveness and friendship condition, β = .13, t(271) = 2.12,
p= .035. More behavioral forgiveness toward friends was associated with
more psychological well-being, β = .30, t(132) = 3.66, p < .001, whereas
this was not true for forgiveness toward nonfriends, β = .02, t(139) = .28,
p= .784 (see Figure 2). The results remained the same when we controlled
for perceived severity or time since the offense.
Figure 1. The effect of varying levels of self-reported forgiveness toward friends
and nonfriends on the composite well-being measure.
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Forgiveness and Well-being 11
Again, Table 2 shows that, although the interaction term did not reach
significance for all three indicators of psychological well-being separately,
the effect of forgiveness was significant in the friend condition but not in
the nonfriend condition for each indicator of well-being.
In short, these findings support our hypothesis that children’s tendency
to forgive is positively related to psychological well-being, but only when
forgiving a close other (a friend) and not when forgiving a nonclose other
(a nonfriend).
Gender Differences
We explored whether gender affected the aforementioned findings. First,
we found no significant three-way interaction between self-reported
forgiveness, friendship condition, and gender, regarding composite well-
being (p = .962). However, a regression analysis with forgiveness behavior,
friendship condition, and gender did reveal a significant three-way inter-
action regarding composite well-being, β = .14, t(267) = 2.11, p =.036.
Unexpectedly, further testing revealed that the two-way interaction between
behavioral forgiveness and friendship condition was significant for girls,
β= .23, t(145) = 2.92, p = .004, but not for boys, β = −.03, t(122) = −.39,
p = .699. Girls’ forgiving behavior was significantly positively associated
Psychological
well-being
Forgiveness ×
friendship Forgiveness
nonfriend Forgiveness
friend
Self-report Behavior Self-report Behavior Self-report Behavior
Composite
well-being .14*.13*.03 .02 .34** .30**
General life
happiness .07 .09 .12 .06 .31** .29*
General life
satisfaction .10†.10†.04 .05 .28*.30**
State
self-esteem .16*.12*−.06 −.06 .28*.19*
Table 2. Beta values of the interactions between self-reported forgiveness and
forgiveness behavior and friendship condition, and beta values of the effects within
nonfriend and friend condition
Note. †p < .10.
*p < .05.
**p < .001.
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12 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
with well-being when forgiving a friend, β = .37, t(66) = 3.30, p = .002, but
not when forgiving a nonfriend (p = .367).3
Discussion
Conflict and disagreement are not uncommon in peer relations and are
actually inevitable aspects of a peer relationship. Not being able to deal
successfully with interpersonal offenses may have detrimental effects on a
child’s well-being (e.g., Berndt, 2002). In the current research, we addressed
whether responding forgivingly toward interpersonal offenses may be
related to enhanced psychological well-being. The findings suggest that
acting forgivingly toward a classmate’s prior offense is indeed associated
with higher levels of psychological well-being, but only in relationships of
strong as compared to weak commitment (i.e., friends vs. nonfriends). As
such, the current research extends previous research by suggesting that the
relational peer context is essential to understand when and why forgiveness
is associated with increased psychological well-being.
Why is forgiveness only positively related to psychological well-being
in relationships with friends? As noted before, one of the explanations may
3. This study was part of a larger project in which we also collected data on sociometric
status and parental forgiveness tendencies.
Figure 2. The effect of varying levels of behavioral forgiveness toward friends
and nonfriends on the composite well-being measure.
MPQ 62.1_01.indd 12 12/12/15 9:29 AM
Forgiveness and Well-being 13
be related to the generally positive impact of stable friendships. Children
who forgive their offending friends are more likely to restore positive rela-
tions with them; in comparison, children who are relatively less forgiv-
ing toward offending friends harm their relationships. Because the lack of
positive, supportive peer relations has been linked to numerous negative
outcomes (e.g., Berndt, 2002; Hartup, 1996), forgiveness is likely to be
associated with psychological well-being precisely because forgiveness
helps children to maintain and restore a set of stable and close relation-
ships (Bono, McCullough, & Root, 2008; McCullough, 2000). Moreover,
despite the perceived feelings of friendship toward the offender, children
may sometimes—for whatever reason—still be unable to actually forgive
the offender. Based on previous work, we reasoned that the combination of
strong commitment (i.e., feelings of friendship) and absence of forgiveness
contributes to psychological tension, which may be a second explanation
for the reduced levels of psychological well-being when a child is unable
to forgive his or her offending friend.
The present research makes an important contribution to the emerging
literature on forgiveness among children. To date, research on forgiveness
has focused mainly on adults, whereas forgiveness among children has
received little empirical or theoretical attention in the scientific literature.
Although the nature of transgressions differs between children and adults,
the current study reveals that similar underlying processes may influence
children’s tendency to forgive. Specifically, previous studies among adults
found a comparable pattern for the moderating role of relationship commit-
ment on the association between forgiveness and psychological well-being
(e.g., Karremans et al., 2003; Kluwer & Karremans, 2009). Moreover, a
similar overlap has been demonstrated regarding the nature of the relation-
ship and forgiveness tendencies; both adults and children seem to be more
strongly motivated to use forgiving strategies when they are provoked by a
friend than by a nonfriend (Finkel et al., 2002; Peets et al., 2013; Vander
Wal et al., 2014a). Nonetheless, what is universal or unique about forgive-
ness at different ages and at different developmental stages remains an
important topic for future investigation.
An interesting question is whether the association between interper-
sonal forgiveness and psychological well-being differs by age and across
different developmental stages. According to our functional perspective on
forgiveness, forgiveness should be associated with well-being particularly
strongly during stages in which friendships are most important, such as
in early childhood when children start to untie their parental bonds and
increasingly focus on relationships with peers (Hartup & Stevens, 1997;
Sullivan, 1953). In late adolescence, when the emphasis shifts from
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14 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
friendships to partner relationships, or during adulthood, when individuals
spend less time with their friends (Hartup & Stevens, 1997), the association
between forgiving friends and well-being may be weaker.
The current study also raises some questions about the roots of indi-
vidual differences in forgiveness at this specific developmental stage. For
example, parents and family factors very likely play an important role in
promoting children’s propensity to forgive their peers because children
may learn from their parents how to respond to interpersonal conflict. To
gain a broader understanding of when and why children forgive, it would
be interesting to examine how parents affect children’s forgiving behavior.
On a more practical note, the current study provides insight into the
question of whether we should tell children to forgive their offending peers
or not to forgive them. Specifically, laypeople seem to have very different
views on what best serves a child’s well-being. For example, a recent study
found that parents diverge widely in the kind of advice they give their children
when offended or hurt by another child; whereas some parents believe that
it is in the child’s best interest to retaliate, other parents advise their children
to inhibit such responses and forgive the offending peer’s hurtful behavior
(Vander Wal, Karremans, & Cillessen, 2014b). Although the present findings
are correlational, they may suggest that it is often in the child’s best interest to
act forgivingly, at least toward their friends. At the same time, it is important
to note that it may not always be beneficial to forgive. For example, when
an offending peer hurts the child repeatedly, forgiveness is most likely not
the most appropriate response because it may even result in lower self-worth
(Luchies, Finkel, McNulty, & Kumashiro, 2010; McNulty, 2008).
Furthermore, it is important to note that in the nonfriend as compared
to the friend condition the offenders represent a more heterogeneous group
that includes both neutral and disliked others. One may wonder whether
forgiveness toward neutral or disliked others is related differently to levels
of psychological well-being. As we argued in the introduction, understand-
ing the link between forgiveness and well-being partly depends on conflict-
ing goals. (A lack of forgiveness conflicts with the goal of maintaining the
friendship, which creates tension and weakens well-being.) Accordingly,
we expect no clear difference between the level of forgiveness of neutral or
disliked others and the association with psychological well-being because
in both of these relationships the goal of maintaining the relationship is
weak or absent. Similarly, in the friend condition, we expect level of for-
giveness to be associated with psychological well-being particularly when
the friendship bond is strong (i.e., in high-quality friendships).
In the present study, we found some gender differences in the association
between forgiveness and well-being. Specifically, exploratory analyses
MPQ 62.1_01.indd 14 12/12/15 9:29 AM
Forgiveness and Well-being 15
revealed that friendship moderated the relationship between forgiveness
behavior and psychological well-being for girls but not for boys. Frankly,
we did not expect this, and it was also not found on self-report forgiveness.
Given that girls tend to have stronger relationship-maintenance goals and a
greater tendency to resolve conflicts with peers (e.g., Rose & Asher, 1999),
a very speculative explanation could be that girls’ psychological well-being
is more strongly related to overt behavioral expressions of forgiveness (that
can be noticed by an offending peer), whereas this may be less important
for boys.
We should note some limitations. First, the cross-sectional design of the
present study prevents us from drawing conclusions about causal links or
possible feedback loops among perceived friendship, (un)forgiveness, and
psychological well-being. For instance, acting in a forgiving manner estab-
lishes and restores good and stable friendships, but, in turn, healthy rela-
tionships may also increase the inclination to forgive (e.g., Karremans &
Van Lange, 2008; Paleari et al., 2005). In addition, not only may a stronger
forgiving response be related to enhanced well-being, but it may very well be
that, when their psychological well-being is high, children are more capable
of forgiving offending others. Indeed, Bono and colleagues (2008) found that
earlier well-being was associated with later increases in forgiveness. Also,
there is good reason to expect that the way children respond to conflict may
be influenced by their earlier interactions. Specifically, children were asked
to think of a friend or nonfriend after the incident. Obviously, the incident
itself may have (negatively) affected feelings of perceived friendship. Future
prospective, longitudinal research whereby perceived friendship is measured
before an offense occurs is needed to reveal such possible feedback loops.
Second, we cannot be sure whether the behavioral measure indeed
reflects forgiveness per se or whether it reflects children’s prosocial tenden-
cies in general. As a measure of forgiving behavior, we assessed children’s
prosocial responses toward the offending classmate (i.e., the number of
credits given to the offending classmate to win a gift). Given that partici-
pants were assigning these credits to the other child while thinking about
the offense, we reasoned that the behavior would reflect the level of forgive-
ness regarding the offense. Supporting this reasoning, the behavioral mea-
sure correlated strongly with the self-report measure of forgiveness (r = .50,
p<.001). This, however, does not rule out the possibility that the measure,
at least partly, reflects a child’s prosocial tendencies in general. Indeed, such
general prosocial tendencies may also be associated with psychological
well-being (e.g., Ryan & Deci, 2001).
Third, we did not incorporate the views from both children in the
relationship (e.g., Burk & Laursen, 2005). In fact, whereas the findings of
MPQ 62.1_01.indd 15 12/12/15 9:29 AM
16 Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
the present study suggest that the psychological consequences of forgiveness
need to be considered in light of the relationship, we focused solely on the
perceptions and behavior of the offender by the offended peer. It would
be interesting to involve the perspectives of both dyad members in future
research. An exploration of dyadic perceptions of forgiveness may demon-
strate whether shared perceptions of forgiveness are linked to children’s well-
being. In addition, dyadic data may clarify whether (shared) perceptions of
forgiveness also benefit the individual well-being of the forgiven peer.
Last, the present findings provide evidence in line with our reason-
ing that forgiveness of friends in particular (rather than nonfriends) is
associated with psychological well-being. However, in this study, we exam-
ined forgiveness regarding only one specific recalled incident with a friend
or nonfriend. Although forgiveness reports regarding a specific incident are
generally correlated with dispositional forgiving tendencies (e.g., Eaton,
Struthers, & Santelli, 2006; Fehr, Gelfand, & Nag, 2010), one may wonder
whether general forgiving tendencies, particularly toward friends, are asso-
ciated with psychological well-being, as we suggested in the introduction.
In the present study, the findings may partly be driven by the participants
being instructed to remember a past offense, which may have temporar-
ily weakened well-being. Although we do not know how often children
spontaneously recall past incidents, evidence suggests that children par-
ticularly tend to ruminate about conflicts with friends (Peets et al., 2013).
According to our psychological tension account, each time an unforgiven
offense by a friend is recalled would negatively affect current well-being,
and ruminating about such an offense may have a long-term impact on
well-being. Thus, we argue that children’s unforgiving tendencies toward
friends across situations negatively affect well-being by accumulation of
psychological tension and because it may deteriorate friendships. However,
whether forgiveness across various offenses with various friends and non-
friends is indeed differently associated with well-being remains an impor-
tant question for future studies.
Conclusion
To conclude, maintaining close relationships with peers may be a
challenging—yet rewarding—endeavor throughout childhood. The
findings of current study highlight that acting forgivingly toward
interpersonal offenses by friends is related to enhanced psychological
well-being and, as such, may be fruitful in cultivating essential peer
relationships.
MPQ 62.1_01.indd 16 12/12/15 9:29 AM
Forgiveness and Well-being 17
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