The Impact Of Consequence Severity And Offensive Intention On Situational Forgiveness After Rational/Experiential Priming

According to the different objects of forgiveness,Situational Forgiveness is divided into Forgiveness of Others and Self-forgiveness.Previous studies have identified many factors which influence situational forgiveness,such as Consequence Severity and Offensive Intention.Since the Rational/Experiential Priming will have an impact on the individual’s cognition and emotion,and Situational Forgiveness is affected by the combined action of cognition,emotion and constraints,the Rational/Experiential Priming will theoretically have an impact on Situational Forgiveness.This study,by investigating experimentally,mainly discusses if the Rational/Experiential Priming,Consequence Severity and Offensive Intention have an impact on the Forgiveness of Others/ Self-forgiveness as well as the effects of Rational/Experiential Priming,Consequence Severity,and Offensive Intention on Situational Assessment.Experiment 1 and experiment 3 were based on the perspective of the offender,and the dependent variables were Situational Forgiveness and Situational Assessment.Experiment 2 was based on the perspective of offender,and the dependent variables were Self-forgiveness and Situational Assessment.Experiment 1 and experiment 2 adopted a mixed experimental design of 3(Rational/Experiential Priming: Rational,Experiential and Controlled)x 2(Consequence Severity: high and low).Experiment 3 adopted a three-factor mixed experimental design of 2(Rational/Experiential Priming: Rational,Experiential)x 2(Consequence Severity: high,low)x 2(Offensive Intention: intentional,unintentional).Among them,Rational/Experiential Priming was the intersubjective variable,while Consequence Severity and Offensive Intention were the internal variables.The Indicators of Forgiveness of Others and Self-forgiveness are the scoring for the possibility of forgiveness and the speed of forgiveness.The indicators of Situational Assessment are the scoring for the assessment of injury and the assessment of intention.Result of the experimental study :(1)Rational/Experiential Priming has an impact on Forgiveness of Others.In the unintentional and high-severity situation,the possibility of forgiveness in the rational group is significantly higher than that in the experienced group.In the intentional and high-severity situation,the speed of forgiveness in the rational group is significantly lower than that in the experienced group.(2)Rational/Experiential Priming has an impact on Self-forgiveness.In both high severity and low severity situation,the possibility of forgiveness in the experienced group is significantly higher than that in the rational group and the control group.(3)Based on the perspective of the offenders,Rational/Experiential Priming will have an impact on the situational assessment.Considering Consequence Severity,in the low-severity situation,the assessment of damage in the rational group is significantly lower than that in the control group.Considering Consequence Severity and Offensive Intention,the edge of the assessment of injury in the rational group is significantly higher than that in the experienced group,in both low-severity and high-severity situation.In the situation of intentional offence,the assessment of intention to offend in the rational group was significantly higher than that in the experienced group.(4)Based on the perspective of the offenders,Rational/Experiential Priming has no significant influence on the situational assessment when considering the severity of the consequences.(5)Situational Assessment has predictive effect on Forgiveness of Others/Self-forgiveness.The conclusion of this study:in some situations,Rational/Experiential Priming has an impact on Situational Forgiveness.