Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships: II. Theoretical elaboration and measurement

Interpersonal forgiving was conceptualized in the context of a 2-factor mot ivational system that governs people's responses to interpersonal offenses. Four studies were conducted to examine the extent to which forgiving could be predicted with relationship-level variables such as satisfaction, commi tment, and closeness; offense-level variables such as apology and impact of the offense; and social-cognitive variables such as offender-focused empat hy and rumination about the offense. Also described is the development of t he transgression-relate interpersonal motivations inventory-a self-report m easure designed to assess the 2-component motivational system (Avoidance an d Revenge) posited to underlie forgiving. The measure demonstrated a variet y of desirable psychometric properties, commending its use for future resea rch. As predicted, empathy, apology, rumination, and several indexes of rel ationship closeness were associated with self-reported forgiving.