Forgiving the friend who harmed you : a study between Hong Kong and New Zealand

This study is designed to investigate people’s experiences of being harmed by a friend and their psychological and behavioral responses towards the experience. We are especially interested in the dynamics of interpersonal forgiveness and its relationship with different behavioral and motivational responses, and how forgiveness impact on the change of relationship quality after such unpleasant social encounter. In this study, university students are asked to recall an experience of being harmed by a friend. They are then prompted to report on the level of perceived norm violation, the relationship quality both before and after the experience, and the respondents’ motivational and behavioral responses. Interpersonal forgiveness will be examined for its relationships with all these variables to show its underlying mechanism. Previous research has shown that forgiveness is beneficial to the harmed person’s mental and physical well-being (Young et al., 2004), and the present study will be an attempt to investigate the social implication of forgiveness on the restoration and maintenance of close interpersonal relationships. In light of the currently limited empirical knowledge of the relationship between culture and forgiveness (Sandage & Williamson, 2005), Hong Kong Chinese and New Zealand European will be compared to reveal any possible similarity or difference of the psychosocial correlates of interpersonal forgiveness across cultures.