The Psychology of Friendship - Oxford University Press (2016)

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Transgression, Forgiveness, and Revenge

in Friendship

Mahzad Hojjat, Susan D. Boon, and Elizabeth B. Lozano

In a provocative essay, McCullough, Kurzban, and Tabak (2013) argued that,
however different they may appear, forgiveness and revenge evolved to serve
complementary functions— the preservation of valuable relationships in the case
of forgiveness and the deterrence of harm in the case of revenge. So fundamental
to human survival are our relationships with kin and close members of our social
networks, McCullough and colleagues’ argument goes, that their maintenance
and preservation placed pressures on our evolution that led to the development of
behaviors designed to ensure their continuance into the future.
The premise that forgiveness has pride of place in this adaptive toolkit is per-
haps easier to appreciate than the premise that revenge does. When a transgression
causes a rift between individuals whose lives are intertwined in some valued or valu-
able respect, forgiveness, or a willingness to replace negative motivations toward an
offender with positive motivations (Fincham, 2000), seems well suited to repairing
that rift and thereby avoiding the costs that might accompany loss of or permanent
damage to the relationship (Fincham, 2000). What McCullough et  al. and others
who share similar perspectives on the social utility of revenge recognize, however,
is that in some interpersonal situations there may be important payoffs associated
with the use of revenge (McCullough et  al., 2013). Indeed, the same interdepen-
dence that motivates forgiveness and a conciliatory response to harm under some
sets of circumstances might motivate revenge, or acts designed to repay harm with
harm (Stuckless & Goranson, 1992), in other instances. In particular, when there
is too much riding on a relationship to tolerate continued bad behavior on a rela-
tional partner’s part, revenge (or the threat of revenge) may prove a powerful tool
for correcting the partner’s behavior and/ or regulating social interactions. Indeed,
this may be especially true if an individual has reason to expect that forgiving may
fail to bring about needed change in a partner’s behavior (McNulty, 2010).