Wenzel et al. (2023) Does victims' forgiveness help offenders to forgive themselves? The role of meta-perceptions of value consensus.

Interpersonal transgressions are disruptive to relationships as they violate values presumed to be shared and threaten the integrity of victim and offender, and their shared identity. Forgiveness and self-forgiveness are understood to be important elements of the moral repair process, however commonly they are studied as intrapsychic phenomena without considering the dynamics between them. Here, we investigate whether victims’ expression of forgiveness can facilitate offenders’ genuine self-forgiveness – the restoration of the offender’s moral self by taking responsibility and working through their guilt. We argue that forgiveness can do so when it leads offenders to perceive that the victim believes the offender shares in a consensus about the violated values (meta-perceived value consensus) and, in turn, leads offenders to affirm their perception of value consensus. Three experimental studies (N = 807, 606, and 752) provided evidence for the hypothesized sequential mediation, with forgiveness having an indirect positive effect on genuine self-forgiveness via meta-perception of value consensus and offender’s affirmation of value consensus. Study 2 furthermore manipulated the victim’s belief in the offender sharing in the value consensus and provided causal evidence for its role in the process. The findings highlight the importance of a restored value consensus for the offender’s repair of integrity through genuine self-forgiveness, which depends on the offender knowing, and knowing that the victim knows, that they share those values. The research advances our understanding of moral repair as a dyadic negotiated process

Effects of expressed forgiveness on offender self-forgiveness via value consensus perceptions

This research investigates the effects of a victim’s expression of forgiveness on the offender’s self-forgiveness, sequentially mediated via the offender’s meta-perception that the victim believes in a value consensus shared with the offender, and the offender’s affirmation of their own belief in a value consensus with the victim

Cognitive bias modification for energy drink cues.

Energy drink consumption is increasing worldwide, especially among young adults, and has been associated with physical and mental health problems. In two experiments, we tested the prediction that energy drink consumption is in part driven by biased cognitive processing (attentional and approach biases), with a view to modifying these to reduce consumption. Young adults (18-25 years) who regularly consume energy drinks completed the dot probe (Exp.1; N = 116) or approach-avoidance task (Exp.2; N = 110) to measure attentional and approach bias for energy drink cues, respectively. They then underwent a cognitive bias modification protocol where they were trained to direct their attention away from pictures of energy drink cans (Exp.1), or to push a joystick away from themselves in response to these pictures (Exp.2). Following a post-training assessment of attentional (Exp.1) or approach bias (Exp.2), energy drink consumption was measured by an ostensible taste test. Regular energy drink consumers showed both an attentional and an approach bias for energy drink cues. Cognitive bias modification successfully reduced both biases. However, neither attentional nor approach bias modification significantly reduced energy drink intake. The results lend some support to incentive sensitisation theory which emphasises the role of biased decision-making processes related to addictive behaviours

Meta-analysis R scripts and files - no control variables

This component contains the R scripts and associated files to calculate the effect size and sample variance estimates and perform the meta-analyses for each DV without control variables

Full Surveys Studies 1-9

This component contains the full surveys for each study included in the meta-analysis

Iterative stochastic simulations R scripts and files

This component contains the R scripts and associated files to perform the iterative stochastic simulations

Meta-analysis R scripts and files - controlling for age and gender

This component contains the R scripts and associated files to calculate the effect size and sample variance estimates and perform the meta-analyses for each DV while controlling for age and gender

Meta-analysis R scripts and files

This component contains the R scripts and associated files to calculate the effect size and sample variance estimates and perform the meta-analyses for each DV (with and without controlling for age and gender)