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On the relationship between justice and forgiveness: Are all forms of justice made equal?
Author(s) -
Wenzel Michael,
Okimoto Tyler G.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/bjso.12040
Subject(s) - forgiveness , retributive justice , restorative justice , psychology , wrongdoing , feeling , economic justice , social psychology , injustice , criminology , political science , law
This research investigates whether, following a wrongdoing, the restoration of justice promotes forgiveness. Three studies – one correlational recall study and two experimental scenario studies – provide evidence that while a restored sense of justice is overall positively related to forgiveness, forgiveness is highly dependent on the means of justice restoration being retributive (punitive) versus restorative (consensus‐seeking) in nature. The findings showed that, overall, restorative but not retributive responses led to greater forgiveness. Although both retributive and restorative responses appeared to increase forgiveness indirectly through increased feelings of justice, for retributive responses these effects were counteracted by direct effects on forgiveness. Moreover, the experimental evidence showed that, while feelings of justice derived from restorative responses were positively related to forgiveness, feelings of justice derived from retributive responses were not.