Validity
Convergent/Concurrent
Negative attitudes toward the partner were correlated with less money allocated ( r52.20,p,.05) and more
post-message defections ( r5.20,p,.05).
Divergent/Discriminant
Defections were negatively correlated with positive attitudes toward the partner ( r52.17,p,.10).
Location
Exline, J.J., Baumeister, R.F., Bushman, B.J., Campbell, W.K., & Finkel, E.J. (2004). Too proud to let go:
Narcissistic entitlement as a barrier to forgiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87 , 894-912.
DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.87.6.894.
Results and Comments
Exline et al. found that narcissistic entitlement was associated with distributing less money to the partner and
with a more negative affective tone in a response to the partner’s hostile message. There was no relationship
between entitlement and defection after the message. This may mean that defection in a prisoner’s dilemma is a
less optimal behavioral measure of forgiveness compared to money distribution, or simply that prisoner’s
dilemma defection does not tap into a dimension of forgiveness that is related to narcissistic entitlement.
Resource distribution, this time in the form of money, and affective tone in written communication, seemed
to measure forgiveness, showing similar patterns of results to previous studies utilizing self-report measures
(Exline et al., 2004 , Studies 1 /C04).Weiner, Graham, Peter, and Zmuidinas (1991) used resource sharing in children
who shared letters in a word-puzzle solving task. Santelli, Struthers, and Eaton (2009, Study 2) combined
a resource distribution measure with a social distance measure in studying 70 undergraduates (43 women).
A transgression was induced in the laboratory, and participant behaviors were observed to assess forgiveness.
Participants were told that they were working online with another participant. The experimenter instructed both
participants to avoid dragging the cursor into a covered area on the computer screen. The partner failed to
adhere to instructions, freezing the computer and causing the participant to have to return later to complete
the experiment. For the first behavioral measure of forgiveness, participants were given 10 raffle tickets for a
$50 prize and allowed to anonymously divide the tickets between themselves and their partner. Second, the parti-
cipants were led to a row of seven chairs with a jacket draped over one of the chairs. The jacket ostensibly
belonged to their partner. The experimenter recorded how far from the offender the participant chose to sit (typi-
cally from two to five chairs away). Researchers found similar results using resource distribution, social distance,
and self-reports.
Overall, both the resource distribution and social distance forms of behavioral forgiveness are more covert and
costly indications of forgiveness than self-reports. Behavioral measures of forgiveness tend to be weak.
Sometimes treatment and control conditions did not differ, and differences were small when they did occur.
Nevertheless, we suggest devising laboratory manipulations that provide strong, valid, and reliable measures of
forgiveness are well worth the effort.
MEASURES OF TRAIT FORGIVINGNESS
Trait Forgivingness Scale (TFS)
(Berry et al., 2005 ).
Variable
The TFS is a brief self-report measure of interpersonal dispositional forgiveness.
Description
Forgivingness is defined as a disposition of being forgiving across time and situations. The TFS consists of
ratings of four statements that describe willingness to forgive in different situations and over time, a summary
statement of being a forgiving person, and five statements (reverse scored) that describe generally or frequently493 MEASURES OF TRAIT FORGIVINGNESS
IV. INTERPERSONAL STYLES