The association between transgressor’s remorse and victim’s forgiveness among young children: The activation effect of bystanders

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2023.01441

Abstract

Abstract:

Transgressors’ remorse and victim’s forgiveness are two key factors in restoring the ruptured interpersonal relationships between them. One hundred and thirty-nine 4- to 5-year-old children (80 girls) were recruited to participate in experiments of the classic paradigm of remorse and forgiveness, aiming to reveal the influence of remorse on forgiveness and to further explore the activation effect of different types of bystanders among the association between remorse and forgiveness. The results showed that both 4-year-old children and 5-year-old children could actually comprehend the intention under transgressors’ expression of remorse, and they showed more forgiveness to a remorseful transgressor than to a transgressor with no remorse. The presence of bystanders significantly influenced the level of forgiveness. Specifically, to remorseful transgressor, child victims were more forgiving in the presence of strangers than in the presence of their teachers or good friends; however, for unremorseful transgressor, child victims showed more forgiveness when being observed by their teachers and good friends than being observed by stranger bystanders. Bystanders onlooking did not significantly increase the level of forgiveness to remorseful transgressor, which may be related to children’s internalized social expectations (such as “requite injury with kindness”) during the socialization process. Based on this, this study tried to propose and discuss a new theoretical hypothesis, the “bystander-activation effect of social expectations”.

Key words: young child, remorse, forgiveness, bystander-activation effect, collectivism

CHEN Guanghui, LI Yihan, DING Wen, CHEN Jing, ZHANG Liang, ZHANG Wenxin. (2023). The association between transgressor’s remorse and victim’s forgiveness among young children: The activation effect of bystanders. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 55(9), 1441-1452.

Figures/Tables 5

Figure 1. Proportion of young children in Study 1 who answered each test question in the hypothesized ways.
Note. ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05.

Figure 2. Proportion of young children in Study 2 who answered each test question in the hypothesized ways.

Figure 3. Young children’s justification under bystander or no bystanders in Study 2.
Note. The error bar indicates standard error.

Figure 4. Young children’s distribution under different types of bystanders in Study 2.

Figure 5. Young children’s equal distribution under different types of bystanders in Study 2.

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