Forgiveness Page

Forgiveness and Revenge

PAPERS AND CHAPTERS

Burnette, J. L., McCullough, M. E., Van Tongeren, D. R., & Davis, D. E. (in press). Forgiveness results from integrating information about relationship value and exploitation risk. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. PDF

Tabak, B. A., McCullough, M. E., Root, L. M., Bono, G., & Berry, J. W. (in press). Conciliatory gestures facilitate forgiveness and feelings of friendship by making transgressors seem more agreeable. Journal of Personality. PDF

Tabak, B. A., McCullough, M. E., Szeto, A., Mendez, A. J., McCabe, P. M. (2011). Oxytocin indexes relational distress following interpersonal harms in women. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 36, 115-122. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Luna, L. R., Berry, J. W., Tabak, B. A., & Bono, G. (2010). On the form and function of forgiving: Modeling the time-forgiveness relationship and testing the valuable relationships hypothesis. Emotion, 10, 358-376. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Kurzban, R., & Tabak, B. A. (2010). Evolved mechanisms for revenge and forgiveness. In P. R. Shaver and M. Mikulincer (eds.), Understanding and reducing aggression, violence, and their consequences (pp. 221-239). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Root, L. M., Tabak, B., & Witvliet, C. v. O. (2009). Forgiveness. In S. J. Lopez (Ed.), Handbook of Positive Psychology (2nd ed.). (pp. 427-435). New York: Oxford. PDF

Bono, G., McCullough, M. E., & Root, L. M. (2008). Forgiveness, feeling connected to others, and well-being: Two longitudinal studies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 182-195. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Bono, G., & Root, L. M. (2007). Rumination, emotion, and forgiveness: Three longitudinal studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 490-505 . PDF

McCullough, M. E., Orsulak, P., Brandon, A., & Akers, L. (2007). Rumination, fear, and cortisol: An in vivo study of interpersonal transgressions. Health Psychology, 26, 126-132. PDF

Bono, G. & McCullough M. E. (2006). Positive responses to benefit and harm: Bringing forgiveness and gratitude into cognitive psychotherapy. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 20, 147-158. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Root, L. M., & Cohen, A. D. (2006). Writing about the benefits of an interpersonal transgression facilitates forgiveness. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 887-897. PDF

Tabak, B. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2011). Perceived transgressor agreeableness decreases cortisol response and increases forgiveness following recent interpersonal transgressions. Biological Psychology, 87, 386-392. PDF

Tsang, J., McCullough, M. E., & Fincham, F. D. (2006). The longitudinal association between forgiveness and relationship closeness and commitment. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25, 448-472. PDF

Hoyt, W. T., Fincham, F. D., McCullough, M. E., Maio, G., & Davila, J. (2005). Responses to interpersonal transgressions in families: Forgivingness, forgivability, and relationship-specific effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 375-394. PDF

Tsang, J., McCullough, M. E., & Hoyt, W. T. (2005). Psychometric and rationalization accounts for the religion-forgiveness discrepancy. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 785-805. PDF

Bono, G., & McCullough, M. E. (2004). Religion, forgiveness, and adjustment in older adults. In K. W. Schaie, N. Krause & A. Booth (Eds.), Religious influences on health and well-being in the elderly (pp. 163-186). New York: Springer. PDF

Exline, J. J., Worthington, E. L., Jr., Hill, P. C., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Forgiveness and justice: A research agenda for social and personality psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 337-348. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Emmons, R. A., Kilpatrick, S. D., & Mooney, C. N. (2003). Narcissists as “victims”: The role of narcissism in the perception of transgressions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 885-893. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Fincham, F. D., & Tsang, J. (2003). Forgiveness, forbearance, and time: The temporal unfolding of transgression-related interpersonal motivations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 540-557. PDF

Kendler, K., Liu, X., Gardner, C. O., McCullough, M. E., & Prescott, C. A. (2003). Dimensions of religiosity and their relationship to lifetime psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 496-503. PDF

McCullough, M. E., & Hoyt, W. T. (2002). Transgression-related motivational dispositions: Personality substrates of forgiveness and their links to the Big Five. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1556-1573. PDF

McCullough, M. E. (2001). Forgiveness: Who does it and how do they do it? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 194-197. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Bellah, C. G., Kilpatrick, S. D., & Johnson, J. L. (2001). Vengefulness: Relationships with forgiveness, rumination, well-being, and the Big Five. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 601-610. PDF

McCullough, M. E. (2000). Forgiveness as human strength: Theory, measurement, and links to well-being. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19, 43-55. PDF

McCullough, M. E., & Worthington, E. L., Jr. (1999). Religion and the forgiving personality. Journal of Personality, 67, 1141-1164. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Rachal, K. C., Sandage, S. J., Worthington, E. L., Jr., Wade-Brown, S., & Hight, T. (1998). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships II: Theoretical elaboration and measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1586-1603. PDF

McCullough, M. E., Worthington, E. L., Jr., & Rachal, K. C. (1997). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 321-336. PDF. Note: Use of the five-item measure of forgiveness that we used in this study is not authorized, however. For more information please see Robert D. Enright (1999), "Correction to McCullough et al. (1997)", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, p. 218.

MEASURING FORGIVENESS

Much of our work on forgiveness in the past few years has used a self-report measure called the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations (TRIM) Inventory. The version of the TRIM that is most widely in use right now is the TRIM-12. Here is a version of the TRIM-12 that includes scoring instructions, and technical and psychometric information. All credit to Dr. Susan Wade (now Susan Wade Brown) for developing these items as part of her doctoral dissertation at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.

More recently, we have also been using an 18-item form of the TRIM that includes items for measuring positive, benevolent motivations. The items comprising the 18-item form appear in this article. Here are the items and scoring instructions

TRANSLATIONS

Dutch adaptation/translation due to J. Karremans and P. A. M. Van Lange (2004). European Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 207-227.
Latvian translation due to Saiva Brudere-Ruska and V.Perepjolkina at the Riga Teacher Training and Education Management Academy (RTTEMA).
Hebrew translation due to Prof. Dr. Avi Besser, Department of Behavioral Sciences & Center for Research in Personality, Life Transitions, and Stressful Life Events, Sapir Academic College.
Polish translation of the TRIM-12, due to Marlena Kossakowska at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities.
German translation by the Personality and Assessment Group at the Dept. of Psychology, University of Zurich. Contact R. Proyer for details.
Spanish translation by Mónica Guzmán at the Universidad Catolica Católica del Norte of Chile.
Portuguese translation by Sonia Sousa.
Persian translation by Farshad Lavafpoor.