Women are more forgiving than men after all

Washington, Mar 4 : Forgiveness is a virtue, but it does not come naturally for both sexes. According to a new research, men have a harder time forgiving than women do.

However, men's attitude can change if they develop empathy towards the offender by seeing that they may also be capable of similar actions. Then the gender gap closes, and men become less vengeful.

The research, led by Julie Juola Exline, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University, was based on seven forgiveness-related studies, which were conducted between 1998 through 2005 with more than 1,400 college students.

The analyses revealed that the gender differences between men and women consistently emerged throughout the studies.

When asked to recall offenses they had committed personally, men became less vengeful toward people who had offended them. Women reflecting on personal offenses, and beginning at a lower baseline for vengeance, exhibited no differences in levels of unforgiving.

When women had to recall a similar offense in relation to the other's offense, women felt guilty and tended to magnify the other's offense.

"The gender difference is not anything that we predicted. We actually got aggravated, because we kept getting it over and over again in our studies. We kept trying to explain it away, but it kept repeating in the experiments," said Exline.

The studies used hypothetical situations, actual recalled offenses, individual and group situations and surveys to study the ability to forgive.

Exline said prior studies have shown that at baseline, men tend to be more vengeful than women, who have been taught from childhood to put themselves "in the shoes of others" and empathize with them.

In Exline's study, women who recalled similar offenses of their own did not show much difference in their levels of vengeance, in contrast to men.

Women, having been taught from an early age to be more empathetic, lean toward relationship building and do not emphasize the vengeful side of justice to the degree that men do.

The researchers found that people of both genders are more forgiving when they see themselves as capable of committing a similar action to the offender's; it tends to make the offense seem smaller.

Seeing capability also increases empathic understanding of the offense and causes people to feel more similar to the offenders. Each of these factors, in turn, predicts more forgiving attitudes.

"Offenses are easier to forgive to the extent that they seem small and understandable and when we see ourselves as similar or close to the offender," said Exline.

The article "Not so Innocent: Does Seeing One's Own Capability for Wrongdoing Predict Forgiveness" is published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

ANI