Forgiveness and its determinants depending on the interpersonal context of hurt

Children and adolescents encounter different hurtful experiences in school settings. How these events are processed (e.g., whether they think that the transgressor was hostile) is likely to depend on the relationship with the transgressor. In this study, we examined how adolescents (58 girls and 35 boys, mean age = 14.03 years, SD = 0.60) dealt with the hurt caused by someone they liked or disliked. Our findings show that the hurt caused by a disliked transgressor is likely to lead to more negative cognitive (e.g., hostile attributions), affective (e.g., feelings of anger), and motivational (e.g., avoidance/revenge) outcomes than the hurt caused by a liked peer. In addition, we found that associations between cognitive processes and avoidance/revenge were mediated by feelings of anger, but only when the transgression occurred in the context of disliking. These results highlight the importance of studying how adolescents process hurtful experiences in different relational contexts.

► We studied emotiocognitive processing of hurt caused by liked versus disliked peers.
► Negative relationships serve as primary contexts in which hurtful acts occur.
► Transgressions caused by disliked versus liked peers are processed differently.
► There are individual differences in how hurt is processed within the same context.
► Anger mediates associations between cognitive processes and avoidance/revenge.