Remorse, confession, group identity, and expectancies about repeating a transgression

Within impression management and attribution research confession presents a paradox. Rather than trying to reduce blame, confessors accept responsibil ity for the transgression. Yet confession is an effective strategy for posi tive impression formation. In this article, the explanation for these benef its focuses on other's utilitarian concerns regarding future expectations o f negative behavior by the transgressor. In 3 studies, level of remorse, ha rm, personal relevance, and group status are examined in situations of tran sgression. Remorse had the largest overall multivariate effect on the measu res of forgiveness. Most affected by level of remorse was the perceived sta bility of the cause of transgressor's actions, which was a major antecedent of expectancies regarding future negative acts. It appears that an effecti ve confession must include remorse to positively affect these future expect ancies.