Figure 4. Time-frequency analysis results. A, Grand averages of
event-related oscillations (ERO) energy for alpha bands
(8~13 Hz). B, Alpha oscillation. C, The value of the
frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA). A higher FAA score means stronger
activity in the left hemisphere. Forg-Fri, forgive friend condition;
Comp-Fri, complain friend condition; Forg-Str, forgive stranger
condition; Comp-Str, complain stranger condition.*p <
.05.
Discussion
Combined with a word identification
test and EEG techniques, this study examined reactive attitudes and the
associated neural correlates toward wrongdoers with varied interpersonal
distances. It is found, in both the behavioral and electrophysiological
measures, that individuals were more inclined to forgive rather than
complain about the friend-wrongdoer: they reacted faster and exhibited
lower alpha oscillation and FAA
value to “forgive-friend” than to “complain-friend” word pairs.
Whereas, no such behavioral or neural biases were found for the
stranger-wrongdoer, individuals with similar reaction time, alpha
oscillation, or FAA to “forgive-stranger” and “complain-stranger”
combinations. These results suggest that forgiveness is more likely to
occur within a close interpersonal relationship, even when measured
implicitly.
Behaviorally, we found that people spent less time reacting to the
“forgive-friend” than to “complain-friend” combinations (Figure 2D),
even though their attention was directed to target words (i.e.,
categorizing words related to forgive or complain) rather than word
pairs, which suggested that the former is more congruent with their
implicit attitude. This finding aligns well with numerous explicit
studies showing that closeness promotes forgiveness, either measured by
self-reported forgiveness, deliberate economic decisions, or aggressive
performance (Fatfouta et al., 2018; Karremans et al., 2011; Li et al.,
2021). Our findings generalize previous findings depending on the above
explicit measures (Karremans et al., 2011; Karremans & Aarts, 2007)
into situations where forgiveness was measured implicitly and hence
minimized confounding factors such as social desirability. Therefore, we
are now confident in the effect of interpersonal distance on
forgiveness: the closer, the more forgiveness. However, negative results
of reaction time were found in the stranger-wrongdoer condition, which
is inconsistent with our hypothesis but understandable. Combining with
the main effect of interpersonal distance on reaction time that
individuals responded more slowly in the stranger condition, negative
findings found here might fit with the notion that people did not shift
their attitude from negative to positive, and thus the reaction speed
was disturbed by their negative
attitudes towards stranger-wrongdoers. A pertinent study conducted by He
et al. (2018) found that individuals who underwent social exclusion
exhibited a reduced fixation duration on the wrongdoers (i.e., people
who socially exclude them), which may indicate a deliberate avoidance of
processing information relevant to someone they have not yet forgiven.
Supported evidence also from a previous study demonstrating in an
adapted version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm that, only when
stranger wrongdoers did apologize, victims reduced their reactive
aggression and hold less negative attitudes (Beyens et al., 2015). In
general, the present study employed an implicit method and purely showed
the benefits of interpersonal distance on implicit forgiveness attitude.
Neurally, in line with our hypothesis, lower alpha oscillation and FAA
were observed for the “forgive-friend”, relative to the
“complain-friend”, combinations (Figure 4). As mentioned in the
introduction that alpha oscillation reflects an inhibitory process, we
speculated that the lower alpha oscillation presents less attentional
resources allocated to process congruent word pairs (i.e.,
“forgive-friend”), while the higher alpha oscillation of
“complain-friend” corresponds to the more resource recruited to
inhibit incongruent information. The neural responses found here are
consistent with an electrophysiological study conducted by Schiller et
al. (2016), where they used the microstate approach to identify and time
the entire chain of metal processes unfolded during the Implicit
Association Test. They found an additional inhibitory process involved
in the incongruent condition (Schiller et al., 2016), which might help
individuals overcome the automatic evaluation of stimuli that are
incompatible with their inner attitudes. Also, we observed a significant
decrease (or more precisely, more negative) value in the FAA toward
forgive- than complain-friend combinations, suggesting a relatively
greater activation in the right prefrontal network. Neuroimaging studies
have demonstrated that forgiveness or other prosocial decisions toward
wrongdoers rely on activation within the right prefrontal cortex (the
dorsolateral and ventrolateral, DLPFC/VLPFC), crucial brain regions in
top-down cognitive control (Brüne et al., 2013; Will et al., 2015).
Moreover, evidence by using noninvasive brain modulation techniques has
also causally revealed the relationship between the right DLPFC and
forgiveness: both Maier et al. (2018) and Müller-Leinß et al. (2018)
found in the Ultimatum Game that inhibitory stimulation over the right
DLPFFC reduced forgiveness, reflected in the less tolerance for unfair
proposals and increased punishment regarding previously unfair
opponents, respectively. The neural basis of forgiving friends may
involve voluntarily invoking more prefrontal cognitive resources,
thereby suppressing the input of complain-related information.
To note, our ERP results showed a main effect in the frontal N2
amplitude, that is, we observed that the amplitude of the frontal N2 was
more negative in forgive than complain condition whereas it did not
distinguish between friend and stranger (Figure 3C). Given that the N2
component is a sensitive index in early top-down attentional engagement
and conflict monitoring (Clayson & Larson, 2013), the larger amplitude
of N2 evoked by the forgive-label words might due to the psychological
salience after being offended, because individuals have to contend with
instinct reaction like complaint or counterattack (see Smart & Leary,
2009 for a review). More importantly, we found a significant interaction
in the frontal P3 amplitude (Figure 3D). Specifically, while no
significant differences were found in the friend condition, individuals
had enhanced P3 amplitude when reacting to the complain-stranger than
forgive-stranger combinations. The
P3 has been widely associated with the motivated attention and
elaborative processing of emotionally salient stimuli (see Hajcak &
Foti, 2020 for a review). Thus, enhanced P3 amplitude in the
stranger-wrongdoer condition may reflect an encoding bias for the
“complain-stranger” combination that is consistent with inner
attitude. It is also noteworthy that, only in the stranger-wrongdoer
condition, a positive correlation was observed between offended
experience and self-reported forgiveness. We thus speculate that
negative appraisal and corresponding neural response toward stranger
wrongdoers may play a vital role in the future escalation of conflicts.
Besides the main findings above, we also attempted to discuss the
contradictory argument, that is, love well, whip well. Here, we
speculated that the contradiction might derive from the different
methods of inducing offensive experiences. Previous studies provided
important insights on offended inducing, either presented individuals
with unfair allocation proposals (e.g., the Ultimatum Game; Campanhã et
al., 2011; Will et al., 2015) or made participants ostracized (e.g., the
Cyberball Paradigm; Dorn et al., 2014; Eisenberger et al., 2003).
Whereas, the unpleasantness of being unfairly treated may pale in
comparison to the hurtful feelings caused by social exclusion and
isolation, as the latter presents the breakdown of the essential of
relatedness (Deci et al., 2001; Kluwer et al., 2020). In this sense,
individuals might become more hurtful when offended by someone close in
severe offensive scenarios, while they are more inclined to forgive the
intimate for relatively mild offensive events. The present study focused
solely on the uncomfortable physiological feelings caused by noise (a
relatively mild offensive context). To gain a more comprehensive
knowledge of the relationship between interpersonal distance and
forgiveness, it may be beneficial to examine and compare the effect of
mild and major offenses in a single study.
Some limitations should be noticed when interpreting the current
findings. First, we recruited dyads of college friends, rather than
lovers, couples, or any other intimate relationships; therefore, caution
is needed when applying the study findings to different populations.
Another important limitation pertains to the method of inducing offended
experience. While the present study induced offensive feelings by
presenting high-intensity noise, moral offenses (e.g., betrayal, lying,
etc.) are more hurtful and may lead to worse consequences (Koutsos et
al., 2008). Hence, whether the findings that interpersonal distance
promotes forgiveness still hold in severe moral offenses situations, or
arise an opposite outcome. In addition, forgiveness is embodied in
personal interaction and the ex-post actions of wrongdoers certainly
affect the forgiveness decision of victims (Beyens et al., 2015; Li et
al., 2021). We suggest future studies using hyper-scanning techniques to
investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying forgiveness
in real-life social interactions with high ecological validity.
Nevertheless, our findings have valuable implications for interpersonal
connectivity and conflict coping. Specifically, while the effect of
interpersonal distance on forgiveness is widely investigated in the
social cognitive domain, this study provides pure empirical evidence of
this intricate phenomenon via implicit paradigm and electrophysiological
measures. In this study, it is found that the forgive-related response
is associated with increased activity in the right-hemisphere frontal
cognitive control network (see also Maier et al., 2018; Müller-Leinß et
al., 2018, 2018; Will et al., 2015), which indicates that integrating
cognitive control training with brain stimulation seems to be a
promising method to promote forgiveness for individuals caught in
interpersonal distress. In addition, this study provides valuable
insights for wrongdoers. Establishing friendly relationships in daily
life and promptly offering sincere apologies might facilitate
forgiveness and prevent conflicts from escalating (Beyens et al., 2015;
Gao et al., 2021; Witvliet et al., 2020).
In conclusion, both behavioral and electrophysiological measures
indicate that closeness facilitates forgiveness. Specifically,
individuals hold a relatively forgiving attitude towards the friend
wrongdoer and recruited more cognitive resources to suppress
complaint-related information, whereas they retained a negative attitude
towards the stranger wrongdoer and exhibited a processing bias for
complain-stranger information.
Acknowledgments
This Project was granted financial support from the Humanities and
Social Sciences Research Youth Fund from Ministry of Education of China
(grant number 20YJC190011).
Data and code
availability
The data and code of this study would be available upon reasonable
request and with the approval of the School of Psychology, Shenzhen
University, and College of Education, Shanghai Normal University. More
information on making this request can be obtained from the
corresponding author, X. Li (lxuthus@shnu.edu.cn).
Author contributions
S. Li, G. Shangguan, and X. Li, designed the research; S. Li and X. Su
performed the experiment; X. Li, S. Li, and S. Cheng analyzed data; X.
Li, S. Li, S. Cheng, and G. Shangguan wrote the paper.
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Tables
Table 1 Descriptive statistical results of forgiveness degree and
familiarity of forgive- and complain-label words (M ±SE ).