Psychology & Christianity

Journal of Psychology and Christianity

2018, Vol. 37, No.2, 99-111

Copyright 2018 Christian Association for Psychological Studies

ISSN 0733-4273

99

that the process of granting or seeking forgive- ness is moderated by one’s standard of morali- ty. For example, one’s standard of morality may alter perceptions of the severity of an offense, and a number of studies have shown that severity of offense can alter the forgive- ness process (e.g., Kirchhoff & Wagner, 2012; Sheffield, 2003; Stanton, 2012; Webb, 1999).

Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004) was developed in an attempt to identify areas of moral regulation common across cultures and times. Haidt and Graham (2007) named these areas (or founda- tions): harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. Graham, Haidt, and Nosek (2009) developed several ways to measure the extent to which someone prioritizes these foundations. One rather intriguing finding from this approach has been that individuals embracing liberal politics tend to prioritize harm/care and fairness/reciprocity (the “indi- vidualizing foundations”) in their moral judg- ments. In contrast those embracing more conservative politics tend to incorporate all five foundations in their moral judgments (the “individualizing foundations” and the other three “binding foundations”). Thus, Moral Foundation Theory (MFT) provides a basis for understanding differences in moral concerns across individuals and groups. It is the thesis

Forgiveness: It May Be Less About Right and Wrong and More About You and Me

Portions of this paper were presented at the April 2014 meeting of the Christian Association for Psy- chological Studies in Atlanta, GA. The authors would like to thank Dr. Julia Grimm and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Rod Bassett, Psychology Department, Roberts Wesleyan College, 2301 Westside Drive, Rochester, NY, 14624; [email protected].

This project was designed to test the possibility that one’s moral position might predict that individu- al’s disposition to seek or grant forgiveness. Christian college students were given the Moral Founda- tions Sacredness Scale (MFSS; Graham & Haidt, 2012) which assesses five dimensions of morality designed to be relevant across culture and time. In addition, dispositional inclinations toward grant- ing forgiveness, seeking forgiveness, and self-forgiveness were also assessed. No connection was found between preference for the moral dimensions and dispositional forgiveness. Therefore, a sec- ond study was performed testing for the possibility that relational factors might trump moral criteria in regards to forgiveness. The MFSS was administered along with measures of forgiveness, empathy, grace-orientation, and narcissism. As predicted, relational factors were significantly more effective when independently predicting dispositional forgiveness than preferred moral standards.

As people who regularly need forgiveness, it has been exciting to see the exponential multi- plication of forgiveness research within psy- chology (see Worthington, 2005). This expanding interest has, in part, involved taking a more nuanced look at the construct of for- giveness. For example, forgiveness can be seen as involving two sides of an equation: seeking and granting forgiveness. On either side of that equation there are meaningful considerations and distinctions (Exline, Deshea, & Holeman, 2007; Fisher & Exline, 2006; Sandage, Worthington, Hight, & Berry, 2000; Tangney, Boone, & Dearing, 2005; Tous- saint & Williams, 2008; Worthington & Scherer, 2004; Yamhure Thompson et al., 2005).

By definition, the act of forgiveness (granting or seeking) occurs in the context of a trans- gression (by self or others). How people view transgressions would seem to flow from how people view morality. Thus, it may well be

Rodney L. Bassett Jessica Breault Kathryn Buettner

Julia Vitale Mandi Hochheimer

Roberts Wesleyan College

Sofia Moore

100 MFT AND FORGIVENESS

scales. An alternative to retributive justice is restorative justice (see Van Ness & Strong, 2010; Zehr, 2005). With restorative justice, the victim stays at the center of the picture and the intent is toward possibly repairing a fractured relationship between the victim and the offender, and certainly toward the restitution of losses suffered by the victim (de Keijser, van der Leeden, & Jackson, 2002).

Witvliet et al. (2008) considered some of the physiological implications of forgiveness. Par- ticipants were asked to imagine various trans- gression/forgiveness scenarios. Actual physical responses to imagery of justice were measured, with better physical outcomes connected to restorative justice and granting forgiveness (less heart rate reactivity and better heart rate recov- ery). In addition, the reactivity of the sympa- thetic branch of the autonomic nervous system (e.g., skin conductance) was more relaxed for restorative compared to retributive justice.

One of the “binding foundations” of Moral Foundation Theory is ingroup/loyalty. Group loyalty, patriotism, family loyalty, and ingroup vs. outgroup dynamics can all be tied to this foundation. Riek and Mania (2012) recently published a meta-analysis summarizing many of the key factors which have been shown to correlate with forgiveness. One of the estab- lished antecedents of forgiveness is relation- ship strength. Relationship/commitment strength has been shown to correlate positive- ly with willingness to forgive. Apparently, the more committed the relationship, the more willing both parties are to cooperate and to overlook offenses. Another antecedent reported by Riek and Mania was empathy. Empathy involves taking another’s viewpoint. This ability to see life from the other person’s point of view seems to be a key step in grant- ing forgiveness (e.g., Wade, Worthington, & Meyer, 2005). Connecting empathy, forgive- ness, and ingroups, it could be argued that people are naturally more empathic to those similar to themselves and to members of their own social and cultural groups. Koutsos, Wertheim, and Kornblum (2008) reported that the extent to which an individual values the relationship is indicative of their likelihood to grant forgiveness.

The two other binding foundations are authority/respect and purity/sanctity. In regards to the foundation of purity/sanctity, forgiveness may become relevant when there

of this paper that differences in the prioritizing of moral concerns may alter tendencies toward granting and seeking forgiveness.

One way to begin a consideration of this thesis would be to look at the granting forgive- ness literature through the lenses of the five moral foundations of MFT. One of the individ- ualizing foundations is harm/care. Zechmeis- ter and Romero (2002) found an inverse relationship between severity of offense and willingness to grant forgiveness. Kirchhoff and Wagner (2012) demonstrated that the inclusion of more verbal elements in an apology increased willingness to grant forgiveness, especially with more severe offenses. In a fol- low-up study, these researchers found that with more severe offenses the most helpful elements of an apology included: conveying emotions, admitting fault, a clear statement of apology, and an attempt at explanation. How- ever, with some offenses apologies may not be all that helpful. Eaton, Struthers, Shomrony, and Santelli (2007) found that with people who had defensive self-esteem (e.g., high explicit and low implicit self-esteem) tended to maximize the aspects of an apology that acknowledged harm to the victim and mini- mize aspects of an apology that expressed remorse. For these individuals, the end result was actually less forgiveness granted (because the apology mainly reminded them of the harm experienced through the transgression). The other individualizing foundation is fair- ness/reciprocity. Exline, Worthington, Hill, and McCullough (2003) suggested five chal- lenging questions about forgiveness. One of those challenging questions was: do factors that influence perceived justice/fairness also influence forgiveness?

Another way in which justice/fairness and forgiveness have been intersected is in terms of different standards of justice: retributive and restorative (Bazemore, 1998; Braithwaite, 1989; Umbreit, 2000; Wenzel & Okimoto, 2010, 2012; Wenzel, Okimoto, Feather, & Platow, 2008). Retributive justice tends to focus upon the past and “righting a past wrong” (see de Keijser, van der Leeden, & Jackson, 2002; Vid- mar & Miller, 1980). There is little concern that the punishment will decrease future mis- behavior. Instead, there is a sense that past misbehavior has “unbalanced” the scales of justice and punishment needs to be assigned to the offender as a way of “rebalancing” those

BASSETT ET AL 101

is a perception that what is sacred is violated (Mahoney, Rye, & Pargament, 2005). These authors have suggested that to understand this issue there must first be an understanding of “sanctification.” Mahoney et al. proposed that sanctification involves seeing an aspect of life as having divine significance. They further argued that this sanctification can involve “theistic sanctification” (an aspect of life is seen as a manifestation of God) or “nontheis- tic sanctification” (which occurs without refer- ence to a specific deity). With either form of sanctification, an aspect of life takes on a timeless and transcendent quality. So, mar- riage becomes a sacred covenant, a job becomes a holy calling, and a piece of ground can become blessed. Within this context, des- ecration becomes a violation of a sanctified aspect of life. Research in this area has tend- ed to show that perceiving an offense as a desecration tends to intensify reactions to that offense (e.g., Magyar, Pargament, & Mahoney, 2000; Mahoney et al., 2002). As a result, vic- tims may have a more intense desire to pun- ish the perpetrators and be more confident in judging the offense as wrong. Or, more sim- ply, victims may be less forgiving.

In the same vein, Davis et al. (2013) consid- ered the degree to which relational spirituality may help or hinder forgiveness. The study con- sidered the extent to which spiritual appraisals such as anger toward God, viewing the trans- gression as a desecration, and viewing the offender as evil might affect forgiveness. The researchers found that higher levels of spirituali- ty predicted overall greater forgiveness emo- tions, but increased spirituality also predicted greater feelings of contempt, disgust, and anger when the transgression was perceived as a des- ecration. Vasiliauskas and McMinn (2013) reported that people who spent time in reli- gious or spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation were more likely to pursue healthy relationships and forgiveness.

So far, the discussion of Moral Foundation Theory and forgiveness has focused upon the granting side of the forgiveness equation. However, the other side of the equation is seeking forgiveness. Generally, less empirical work has been done with seeking forgiveness than granting forgiveness (Bassett et al., 2008). However, one study that cuts across at least the harm/care and ingroup/loyalty foundations has been done by Riek (2010). Riek proposed

a model of seeking forgiveness that included predictive factors such as rumination, feelings of responsibility, severity of the offense, rela- tional closeness, and negatively valenced emo- tions like anger and guilt. Path analysis revealed that rumination, responsibility, severi- ty of offense, and decreased anger all con- tributed to seeking forgiveness through the mediating variable of guilt. Closeness inde- pendently predicted seeking forgiveness, with greater closeness predicting enhanced inten- tions to seek forgiveness.

In another study considering the relation- ship between closeness and seeking forgive- ness, Kelley and Waldron (2005) identified and coded forgiveness-seeking behaviors with 186 couples. The behaviors that were most helpful in repairing any relational damage were acknowledgement of wrong doing, use of nonverbal apologetic gestures, and the offering of compensation. The researchers hypothesized the reason these behaviors were so effective was that they communicated to the wronged partner that the partner’s feelings were legitimate and put the partner in a posi- tion of being able to control the course of the forgiveness process.

So, given the above possible intersections between morality and forgiveness, this study was conceived as a way of bringing Moral Foundation Theory and forgiveness together within the same research paradigm. Because the assessment of moral foundations was planned at a dispositional level, it was consid- ered appropriate to also look at dispositional tendencies toward seeking and granting for- giveness. Given that level of aggregation, it was predicted that the individualistic founda- tions (harm/care & fairness/reciprocity) would be more predictive of granting and seeking for- giveness than the binding foundations since they are more person-focused. The researchers suspected that the binding foundations (which combine person and contextual factors) might be more affected by situational factors like closeness of relationship, similarity, and the extent to which a situation or behavior tres- passed upon the holy or sacred.

Study 1

Method Participants. The questionnaire was given

to students in undergraduate psychology

102 MFT AND FORGIVENESS

classes at a Christian liberal arts college. The general nature of the study was discussed in class, and students were encouraged to look over the questionnaire, complete the ques- tionnaire outside of class, and then anony- mously return the questionnaire at a later class. Students were encouraged to complete the questionnaire from beginning to end. A small amount of class extra credit was given to participants as a way of thanking them for their involvement in the study. Under these conditions, 138 students (participation rate = 77.8%) returned questionnaires.

Those who returned the questionnaire included 101 females (73.2%) and 37 males. The average age was 21.2 years (SD = 7.46). When participants were asked to self-identify on a 6-point scale the extent to which they were Christian, the modal response was “strongly agree” (M = 5.20, SD = 1.13).

Participants were also given the opportunity to respond to 4 single-item measures of reli- gious orientation. Three of these items were taken from the Gorsuch and McPherson (1989) I/E–Revised Scale. These items have been vali- dated as single-item measures of different aspects of religious orientation (intrinsic, extrin- sic-personal, or extrinsic-social). A final reli- giousness item was taken from the Batson and Schoenrade (1991) Quest Scale ("My life expe- riences have led me to rethink my religious convictions"). While this particular item has only been validated as part of an overall scale, it was included in an attempt to provide an indication of quest religious orientation.

Regarding the religious orientation items, the highest average response was for extrinsic-per- sonal faith (M = 4.27, SD = 1.27) and the lowest average score was for extrinsic-social faith (M = 2.85, SD = 1.23). The averages for intrinsic faith (M = 4.06, SD = 1.41) and quest faith (M = 3.58, SD = 1.51) fell in between. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA revealed a signifi- cant difference amongst these means, F(3, 402) = 31.14, p <_ .001, η2 = .19. Post hoc Bonfer- roni pair-wise comparisons revealed that all of the motivation means were significantly differ- ent from each other except for extrinsic-per- sonal and intrinsic faith.

Questionnaire. The first page of the ques- tionnaire was a consent form which was signed by anyone considering participation and col- lected separately from the remainder of the questionnaire (which remained anonymous).

The next page reviewed the study and partici- pant rights and collected the demographic information presented above. The remainder of the questionnaire consisted of three sections which were randomly counter-balanced for order across the questionnaires.

One section of the questionnaire involved the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale (MFSS; Graham & Haidt, 2012). The scale assesses the extent to which people prioritize five moral foundations. The assumption behind the items of the scale is that the more important a foun- dation is to a participant, the more money would be required as an incentive for that par- ticipant to violate that foundation. Thus, each item requires participants to envision perform- ing an activity that would violate a foundation. Participants are then asked to report on an 8- point scale how much of a monetary incentive would be required for them to perform that activity (and the money cannot be used to erase the implications of the behavior). The rating scale was arranged so that a “1” indicat- ed they would perform the behavior for free and an “8” indicated that no amount of money would be sufficient as an incentive. Thus, the higher the value selected, the greater the priori- tization of the underlying foundation. The MFSS contains four items for each foundation.

Another section of the questionnaire consist- ed of the Revised Fundamentalism Scale (RFS; Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 2004). The RFS was designed to capture fundamentalism across a variety of religions (Christian, Hindu, Muslim, etc.). The original fundamentalism scale was shortened from 20 to 12 items. The response format for both scales is an 8-point scale (1 = very strongly disagree, 8 = very strongly agree). Some of the items are aimed in a con- trait direction and require reverse-scoring. The shorter version of the scale was used in this questionnaire and was included because some interesting findings had previously been reported for the MFSS across the conservative- liberal dimension (see Graham & Haidt, 2012).

The remaining section of the questionnaire assessed dispositional tendencies toward differ- ent types of forgiveness. To be consistent with the other scales, all of the forgiveness subscales used an 8-point response format (1 = strongly disagree, 8 = strongly agree). In addition, some of the items across all these subscales were aimed in a contrait direction and required reverse-scoring. The first type of forgiveness

BASSETT ET AL 103

groups. In regards to the relationships between the moral foundations and the different types of forgiveness, nothing changed. There were still no statistically significant correlations for low or high religious fundamentalists.

Discussion The results from Study 1 suggested there

was no connection between the criteria used to discern what is moral or not and the ten- dency to forgive (seeking, granting, or self-for- giveness). Upon further reflection perhaps this should not have been such a surprise. Sandage, Worthington, Hight, and Berry (2000) reported that level of moral thinking (using Kohlberg’s model of moral develop- ment) did not predict seeking forgiveness. What did predict tendencies to seek forgive- ness were narcissism and self-monitoring. This finding suggests that what predicts for- giveness is not so much how you view right and wrong, but rather how you relate to oth- ers. If it is true that forgiveness is “relational glue,” it may matter less how you decide something is broken and may matter more how motivated you are to repair any broken- ness once it is identified.

Therefore, a second study was done to test the possibility that forgiveness may be more about relational issues than issues of morality. The study was conducted with a similar group of participants at the same school.

Study 2

Method Participants. One hundred and eighty-two

undergraduate students were recruited from psychology and criminal justice courses (par- ticipation rate = 59.5%). The classes were selected so as to minimize any overlap between the sample in the first study and this sample. A protocol similar to the first study was used with the questionnaires handed out in class and then anonymously collected at later classes. Again, a small amount of class extra credit was given to participants as a way of thanking them for returning the question- naires (completed or not).

Those who returned the questionnaire included 135 females (73.8%) and 47 males. The average age was 20.6 years (SD = 5.61). In regards to religiousness, the modal response to the Christian identity item was 6

assessed was self-forgiveness. This was done using the six self-forgiveness items from the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (Thompson et al., 2005). The second and third types of forgive- ness were granting forgiveness and seeking for- giveness. There were six items each for assessing, granting, and seeking forgiveness. These items were selected from the work of Mullet and others (e.g., Mullet, Girard, & Bak- shi, 2004). The actual items were obtained from a website of the Universite De Toulouse Le Mirail (http://clle-ltc.univ-tlse2.fr/accueil-clle- ltc/annuaire/chercheurs/mullet-etienne/q-four- forgiveness-related-questionnaires-146456.kjsp?R H=1183111501792). A sample item for granting forgiveness would be: “I can easily forgive even if the consequences of the harm done have not been cancelled.” A sample item for seeking forgiveness would be: “My worldview leads me to always seek forgiveness.”

Results Inter-item reliabilities were calculated for the

multi-item scales in the questionnaire. Those scales all had reasonable reliability (.61 - .88) except for the purity subscale of the MFSS which had a Cronbach’s alpha of .43 and was thus dropped from further consideration in the study. As a result of the inter-item reliability analyses, the decision was made to create over- all scores for each participant by averaging across the responses to the relevant items in each scale. Correlational analyses were per- formed on the moral foundation subscales (except purity), the different types of disposi- tional forgiveness, and religious fundamentalism.

Considering those correlations, there were no significant relationships between dispositional forgiveness and the moral foundations. Con- trary to our predictions, affirming particular moral foundations (especially the individual foundations) did not predict tendencies toward dispositional forgiveness. However, it was still possible that religious fundamentalism mediated or moderated some of these relationships. Thus, a median-split was performed amongst the participants along the dimension of reli- gious fundamentalism. Participants with an average RFS overall score below 5.33 were clas- sified as “low” religious fundamentalists while participants above 5.33 were classified as “high” religious fundamentalists. Correlations were then calculated between the moral foundations and the different types of forgiveness for both

104 MFT AND FORGIVENESS T

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(“strongly agree”) and the average value was 5.14 (SD = 1.34). A repeated measures single factor ANOVA indicated an overall significant difference amongst the religious orientation ratings [F (3, 534) = 55.83, p < .001, η2 = .24]. Post hoc Bonferroni pair-wise comparisons revealed the means (see Table 1) were signifi- cantly different from each other.

Questionnaire. Essentially the same con- sent and cover pages were used as with the first study. The remainder of the question- naire contained the following measures: (a) the MFSS, (b) the measures of dispositional forgiveness, (c) a measure of grace-orienta- tion, (d) a measure of narcissism, and (e) a measure of empathy. The ordering of these measures was randomly counter-balanced across each questionnaire. Thus, participants were encouraged to go through the question- naire sequentially from beginning to end.

The MFSS and the dispositional forgiveness measures were identical to those used in Study 1. The one exception to this pattern was that we also included the perception of being for- given by God. These two items were taken from Toussaint, Williams, Musick, and Everson (2001). We modified one of the items to make it especially clear that forgiveness was from God. The resulting items were: (a) “Knowing that God has forgiven my sins gives me the strength to do better,” and (b) “I know that God forgives me.”

The measure of grace-orientation was The Amazing Grace Scale (TAGS; Bassett et al., 2013). This measure was developed to assess internalization of faith, an understanding of grace, resulting gratitude, and a transformed life. In a sense, this measure is designed to assess the relational dynamic between a per- son and God within a Christian context. Exploratory factor analysis has revealed the items of the scale largely load on two factors: grace identified (e.g., internalization) and grace awareness (e.g., understanding). Higher overall scores on this measure of grace have been associated with higher scores on Chris- tian identity, extrinsic-personal faith, intrinsic faith, gratitude, empathic concern, and grant- ing forgiveness.

Assessing narcissism seems to involve the realization that narcissism can have two faces (Wink, 1991). There is the grandiose-exhibi- tionistic face of narcissism and then there is the brittle-hypersensitive face of narcissism.

The brittle-hypersensitive side of narcissism was assessed using the Hypersensitive Narcis- sism Scale (HNS; Hendin & Cheek, 1997). This scale contains 10 items in a Likert-like format (e.g., “My feelings are easily hurt by ridicule or the slighting remarks of others.”). The grandiose-exhibitionistic side of narcis- sism was assessed using the Narcissistic Per- sonality Inventory-13 (NPI-13; Gentile, Miller, Hoffman, Reidy, Zeichner, & Campbell, 2013). This scale is a shortened version of probably the most popular scale for assessing grandiose narcissism, the Narcissistic Personality Inven- tory (Raskin & Terry, 1988). Again, a Likert- like response format was utilized with non-grandiose items requiring reverse-scoring. Both the HNS and the NPI-13 appeared on the same page of the questionnaire with the NPI- 13 presented first.

Finally, dispositional empathy was assessed using portions of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980; Davis, 1983). The IRI assesses four separate aspects of empathy (perspective taking, empathic concern, fanta- sy, and emotional distress). All four subscales contain 7 items, some of which are reverse- scored. The perspective taking and empathic concern subscales were included in this study since they capture the emotional (“feeling” with others) and cognitive (“seeing” with oth- ers) aspects of empathy. The response format was a 6-point Likert-like scale (1 = “strongly disagree,” 6 = “strongly agree”). This was the same response format used for The Amazing Grace Scale, the NPI-13, and the Hypersensi- tive Narcissism Scale.

Results Those items aimed in a contrait direction were

reverse-scored, such that higher values indicated more of what was being measured. Inter-item reliabilities were then calculated for the multi- ple-item subscales used in the questionnaire. These Cronbach’s alpha values are reported in Table 1. One of the subscales required drop- ping an item to increase the alpha value (empathic concern, dropped 1 item). The purity foundation and the self-forgiveness subscales had alphas that were so low (.47 and .11, respectively) that these subscales were dropped from further consideration. The remaining alphas ranged from .57 to .97 (M = .75), so the decision was made to create overall scores by averaging the individual item responses across

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each subscale for each participant (the means and standard deviations for these overall scores are also reported in Table 1).

Correlation coefficients were then calculated amongst the religiousness items, the relational measures, the forgiveness measures (excepting self-forgiveness), and the moral foundations (excepting the purity foundation). These corre- lations are reported in Table 1. Focusing on the prediction of forgiveness, each type of forgive- ness correlated significantly with grace, at least some of the relational measures, and at least some of the moral foundations. The most direct test of our hypotheses seemed to involve multiple regression analyses (MRAs). If each regression equation involved a type of forgive- ness as the criterion variable and the predictors entered into the other side of the equation were those factors that correlated significantly with that type of forgiveness, then the predictor coef- ficients should give some indication of the abili- ty of each predictor to independently account for variability in that type of forgiveness. Thus, would self ratings of forgiveness be more about relational capacities, dispositional grace, or stan- dards for assessing right or wrong?

So, three MRAs were performed. Because we did not want to a priori give precedence to any type of predictor, the simultaneous method for entering the predictors was used with each equation. Of these analyses, the best fitting model was for divine forgiveness (the adjusted r2 was .64). The significant pre- dictors in this model were grace-orientation (β = .77) and hypersensitivity (β = -.11). The fit for the other two equations was a little more modest (granting forgiveness adjusted r2 = .21, seeking forgiveness adjusted r2 = .19). The significant predictors for granting forgiveness were perspective taking (β = .30) and grace- orientation (β = .26). With seeking forgive- ness, the significant predictors were grace-orientation (β = .20), hypersensitivity (β = -.20), and perspective taking (β = .17). For none of the MRAs did any of the moral foun- dations remain as significant independent pre- dictors of the forgiveness variability.

Discussion A study was done to test the possibility that

relational factors were stronger predictors of forgiveness than specific standards of morality. The results of the study generally confirmed that prediction. Contrary to the first study,

there were some significant correlations between the different types of forgiveness and the moral foundations. However, the MRAs predicting different types of forgiveness only revealed grace-orientation and relational fac- tors as significant independent predictors of forgiveness. It is worth noting that if grace- orientation is considered relational (after all, Christianity is a relational faith system—“love God and love others like yourself”—and grace is the basis for a restored relationship with God), then the contrast between relation- al and moral foundation predictors becomes even more dramatic. Thus, it looks like rela- tional factors are more important to the for- giveness process than how a transgression is judged as right or wrong.

Certainly, there are some qualifications to the above conclusion. First, the inter-item reliability for the purity subscale was a con- cern. It may be that the purity foundation is more predictive than the other foundations in regards to forgiveness. We just don’t know. On a related note, it looks like Moral Founda- tions Theory is being expanded to include another moral foundation: liberty/oppression (Dobolyi, 2013). Again, we don’t know if this new foundation would connect to forgiveness in the ways we found in these two studies. However, returning to the purity subscale, it would be helpful to have a revised version of the purity subscale items that does have good inter-item reliability, especially for religious individuals, to more fully address the issue of how forgiveness connects (or does not con- nect) with moral standards. It is interesting to note that such an effort was reported (Davis, Dooley, Hook, Choe, & McElroy, 2017) after this project was completed.

Another consideration might involve a more nuanced look at forgiveness. Moral Founda- tion Theory takes more of a cognitive/rea- soned approach to what factors are weighed when deciding right and wrong. In contrast, forgiveness is largely a personal and contextu- al issue. Worthington’s (2005) distinction between decisional and emotional granting of forgiveness may be relevant to this distinction. Decisional forgiveness involves conscious elaboration and the development of behav- ioral intentions to forgive. Such cognitive pro- cessing would likely be connected to principled thinking regarding personal values and attitudes. Moral Foundation Theory

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appeals to principles/foundations that identify right and wrong. Could it be that something like decisional forgiveness would be more connected to moral foundations?

It should also be pointed out that the discus- sion of moral foundations has assumed that these standards, or dimensions, are “reason- able.” For example, Sandage, Worthington, Hight, and Berry (2000) frame their definition of seeking forgiveness within the context of a transgression “. . . in which one is morally cul- pable” (p. 22). This framing of the definition suggests an objective wrong (not simply a self- perceived or made-up wrong). Similarly, an egoistic moral system (“heads I win, tails you lose”) would seem to minimize the tendency to seek or grant forgiveness. Thus, it is likely that an unreasonable standard of morality might profoundly affect forgiveness.

Finally, it may be that the rules governing the desecration of the sacred have different impli- cations than desecration of the non-sacred (see Mahoney, Rye, & Pargament, 2005). Painting graffiti in the Holy of Holies (I Kings 6:14-35) may have different implications for forgiveness than doing the same thing on the side of a rail- road car. In the context of the sacred, moral standards may impact forgiveness differently than when the context is more mundane. Again, it would have been nice to have a func- tional (with our sample) purity/sanctity sub- scale for the MFSS.

Overall Discussion

In sports, there is a reason why you play the game. In research, there is a reason why you collect the data. We thought that different moral standards would moderate tendencies toward different types of forgiveness. We were wrong. Instead, relational factors seem to be what matter. In retrospect, it was so clear (unless, of course, we are victims of hindsight bias). After all, empathy seems to undergird granting and seeking forgiveness (Bassett, Bas- sett, Lloyd, & Johnson, 2006), and relational closeness seems to have a similar effect (McCul- lough, 2001). In addition, forgiveness (with the exception of self-forgiveness) is typically “inter- personal” (see Rusbult, Hannon, Stocker, & Finkel, 2005). Now that we have discovered what seems to be obvious, an interesting ques- tion then becomes identifying the family of interpersonal factors that impact forgiveness,

exploring the extent to which these factors maximize or minimize inclinations to forgive, and considering the possibility that these mod- erating effects may be relevant to some types of forgiveness but not others.

One possible implication of the relative power of relational factors over moral stan- dards in regards to forgiveness may have to do with the concept of grace. Within the Chris- tian tradition, one way to bifurcate the con- struct of grace has been to distinguish between common grace and saving grace. Common grace is the idea that God shows kindness to all people, both believers and nonbelievers (Daalen, 2012). Berkhof (1932) illustrates common grace as follows:

[It] curbs the destructive power of sin, maintains in a measure the moral order of the universe, thus making an orderly life possible, distributes in varying degrees gifts and talents among men, promotes the develop- ment of science and art, and showers untold blessings upon the children of man. (p. 434)

Common grace suggests that God desires to reflect aspects of God’s character onto people so that they may begin to grasp, in a tangible fashion, how absolute God’s gifts of love and support truly are. Thus, common grace makes it clear that, “God’s goodness and redemptive presence are evident in all cre- ation, even those outside of the Christian faith” (McMinn, Ruiz, Marx, Wright, & Gilbert, 2006, p. 299).

Then there is saving grace. Saving grace adds the element of the forgiveness of sins for those who believe in Jesus Christ. This kind of grace is undeserved, forgives what may seem unforgivable, and offers hope for eternal life (Sisemore et al., 2011).

Both types of grace would seem to share the phenomenon of forgiveness. However, the find- ings from this project may speak most directly to common grace. Virtually every religious system embodies some type of moral code, and virtual- ly every human being is relational. The findings of this project suggest that regardless of people’s moral codes (within reasonable limits), forgive- ness is relevant to relational people. If it is true that forgiveness is “relational glue” that can reset fractured relationships, then this glue has been made available to virtually all people at virtually

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all times. After all, the claim of Moral Founda- tion Theory has been that the moral founda- tions/dimensions are relevant across time and across cultures (Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004). The findings of this project sug- gest that the specifics of one’s moral code may matter less than the extent to which someone is relational when it comes to the inclination to forgive or be forgiving. Thus, in a world created by a loving and holy God, forgiveness has been made available to all: common grace.

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Authors

Rodney L. Bassett is Professor of Psychology at Roberts Wesleyan College.

Jessica Breault, Kathryn Buettner, Julia Vitale, Mandi Hochheimer, and Sofia Moore are former undergraduate students at Roberts Wesleyan College.

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