Revengers: Infinity Factor
S2 2018 Distinction
As humans are social animals, we are inevitably exposed to the risk of being offended or harmed by other people (McCullough, 2001). When faced with this transgression a person commonly chooses one of the behaviors from these four options – acceptance, avoidance, revenge, and forgiveness (McCullough et al., 2013). Among them the essay will explore two drastic measures on the opposing end (i.e. revenge and forgiveness) and attempt to psychologically approach the question of “why do some people take revenge on their partners while others forgive and forget”? This essay question particularly stood out for me since there are numerous media coverages of retaliatory murder and harassment cases between couples, I believed studying on this matter may help to mitigate the risk of getting into a relationship with a vengeful person in the future. Further, this study may also help me to find out whether I am a vengeful person.
The essay will begin with the exploration of evolutionary reason for revenge and forgiveness, then discuss the rationale for resisting the urge to ‘get back’ at a relationship partner. Lastly, it will conclude by analysing the factors that might influence partners’ decisions to ‘forgive and forget’.
Human Evolutionary History
The Oxford English Dictionary defines revenge as a response to a wrong by harming the transgressor and/or the urge to pay back wrongs (Schumann and Ross, 2010). The undesirable outcome from a vengeful act conveys to the offender that the transgression is unacceptable, which is a more transparent communication than the discomfort created by forbearance or conciliation (Boon et al., 2017). Accordingly, evolutionary theorists argue that revenge has served as an adaptive function to discourage behavior that potentially interferes with survival and reproductive goals (Fitness and Peterson, 2008).
However, despite its universal usage as a response to the imposition of costs (McCullough et al., 2013) people tend to act on the desire for vengeance rather infrequently (Boon et al., 2017). Behaviors are strategies humans use to secure incentives (Wang and Leung, 2010) and it is reasonable for interdependent, social animals to suppress or moderate the urge to take revenge for the sake of a less cost (Fitness and Peterson, 2008). This is especially the case when the aggressor is someone of value to the victim; taking revenge carries the cost of an end in social relations (building a new relationship requires the cost of search and accumulation of trust), or occurrence of counter-revenge (McCullough et al., 2013).
Why do partners resist the urge to take revenge
Despite that forgiveness is more highly associated with psychological well-being in more committed couples (Morse and Metts, 2011), happy couples do not necessarily inhibit punitive responses to partner provocations (Fitness and Peterson, 2008). Rather, they demonstrate resistance towards responding in a retaliatory fashion.
The romantic relationship research conducted by Boon, Rasmussen, Deveau, and Alibhai (2017) postulates that people do not surrender to the temptation of taking revenge when they consider the costs of retaliating (or perceive its costs to outweigh its benefits), or the harm that vengeance might cause their avengee/relationship.
The most common reason for the impediment was seen when they question the morality of responding vengefully (Boon et al., 2017). This relates to the evolutionary history of moral emotions. A research conducted by Brosnan found that chimpanzees responded with temper tantrums when their wants were not met – which requires a sophisticated sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (Fitness and Peterson, 2008). As primates have evolved the aptitude in responding negatively to perceived inequity (Fitness and Peterson, 2008), it is reasonable that one’s moral compass has a signifianct influence on the urge to retaliate.
Why do people ‘forgive and forget’
Although the scholarly definitions of forgiveness have yet to come to the conclusion, they all correspondingly indicate that the victim’s perception of the offender ceased to catalyse motivations for avoidance and revenge (McCullough, 2001).
Researchers suggest that the disposition that influences partners’ decisions to forgive is correlated with a broad array of variables.
“Big Five” Personality traits
First to be discussed is the notable McCullough’s (2001) “Big Five” Personality traits – which involve agreeableness, emotional stability, empathy, religiousness and spirituality, and attributions and appraisals.
Agreeable individuals are reported to have higher levels of moral responsibility (McCullough, 2001) and as previously discussed, morality contributes significantly towards resisting retaliation. Emotionally stable individuals have low vulnerability to experiences of negative emotion (McCullough, 2001) which may allow them to be more generous in forgiveness.
However, empathy for the transgressor is a debatable variable. A study done by Fitness and Peterson (2008) contradicts to the rationale that empathy evokes forgiveness. Generally, most people can recall when they passionately wish to inflict pain on their partners, but no individuals can recall passionate, empathic desires to forgive their partners. Although the study is limited to the participants, within reason, one needs to moderate the intensity of negative emotions before even thinking about forgiveness. Hence, the study postulates forgiveness as more of a cognitive process rather than an emotional one (Fitness and Peterson, 2008).
The following variables to be discussed require further future research as they lack reliability in present time. It has been found that people who consider themselves to be highly religious or spiritual tend to have higher value of forgiveness. However, it is possible that they only aspire or delude themselves to be so (McCullough, 2001). Additionally, it is questionable whether the degree of forgiveness reflects the causal effects of attribution and appraisal processes, or the victims’ accurate perceptions (McCullough, 2001).
Self Esteem
Secondly, the most apparent and unfortunate factor for forgiveness in a romantic relationship is one’s self esteem. McCullough, Kurzban, and Tabak (2013) hypothesize that individuals who lack self-esteem, characterized by their low demand in the mating pool, are more willing to forgive their partners as their chance of forming and maintaining a romantic relationship is scarce.
Cultural Factors
Wang and Leung (2010) attest through their experiment that social mobility drives reward and punishment decisions, not bounded by the country but rather the culture. Individuals in less mobile cultures do not encounter strangers as frequently, and are always within a close-knit network. This possibly increase the likelihood of affording mutual monitoring within the social network to regulate the partner’s behavior. Hence, due to more responsibilities and obligations imposed on the relationships (Wang and Leung, 2010), victims may develop retalitaory intentions.
In contrast, highly mobile culture is expected to have relatively loose relationship boundaries. Therefore, due to less binding social network, individuals can avoid wrongdoers and spare the use of punishment in the case of misconduct (Wang and Leung, 2010).
Limitation to the study
It should be noted that due to lack of prior research on the fields of revenge in close relationships (Fitness and Peterson, 2008) and concept of forgiveness as a productive response to transgression (McCullough, 2001) there should be further future study on this matter.
Conclusion
The essay has begun by exploring the adaptive function of revenge and its need for moderation or suppression. It has substantiated that one’s cost-benefit analysis and their moral compass to be the reasons for resisting the urge to retaliate in a romantic relationship context. The essay then introduced three key factors that can possibly influence romantic partners’ decisions to forgive, which were “Big Five” personality traits, self-esteem, and cultural factors.
In conclusion, it is biologically acceptable that humans feel the urge to take revenge on people who have offended or harmed us. However, the way to distinguish a revenger is rather an accumulation of multiple factors (i.e. partly explored in this essay). Hence, one definite answer cannot be provided regarding whether who takes revenge and who forgives; as each individual has distinct characteristic, everyone requires his or her own specific medicine. However, one clear finding is that forgiveness is rather an impossible task for complex creatures like humans.
References:
Boon, S., Rasmussen, K., Deveau, V., and Alibhai, A. (2017). Resisting revenge: An investigation of reasons for foregoing revenge in romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 24(3), pp.474-490.
Fitness, J., and Peterson, J. (2008). Punishment and forgiveness in close relationships: An evolutionary, social-psychological perspective. In J. P. Forgas & J. Fitness (Eds.), Social relationships: Cognitive, affective, and motivational perspectives (pp. 255-269). New York: Psychology Press.
McCullough, M. (2001). Forgiveness: Who does it and how do they do it? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, pp 194-197.
McCullough, M., Kurzban, R. and Tabak, B. (2013). Cognitive systems for revenge and forgiveness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(01), pp.1-15.
Morse, C. and Metts, S. (2011). Situational and Communicative Predictors of Forgiveness Following a Relational Transgression. Western Journal of Communication, 75(3), pp.239-258
Schumann, K. and Ross, M. (2010). The Benefits, Costs, and Paradox of Revenge. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(12), pp.1193-1205.
Wang, C. and Leung, A. (2010). The Cultural Dynamics of Rewarding Honesty and Punishing Deception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(11), pp.1529-1542
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