Communicating Forgiveness in Friendships and Dating Relationships

Retrospective accounts of transgression and forgiveness situations in ongoing friendships and dating relationships were coded based on Kelley's (1998) three forms of forgiveness granting (direct, indirect, and conditional). Across the sample, indirect forgiveness was reported most frequently, followed by direct and conditional forgiveness. Forgiveness-ranting tendencies varied by relationship type, as friends reported more instances of indirect forgiveness than did dating partners, and dating partners reported more instances of conditional forgiveness than did friends. For both relationship types, transgressions of increasing severity and blameworthiness tended to be forgiven indirectly or conditionally. An additional focus of this study was ongoing negative affect (ONA) that persists after forgiveness has been communicated to a transgressor. ONA was salient for about 22% of participants, was positively related to transgression severity and was negatively related to relational satisfaction. Conditional forgivers reported higher levels of ONA than did direct or indirect forgivers.