Receiving forgiveness in the presence of an attentive audience

Victims often have to decide whether or not they want to forgive the offender after a transgression. Forgiveness has in general been shown to have positive consequences (e.g. for the victim–transgressor relationship), but recent theorizing suggests that these may be conditional on the extent to which a forgiveness response is attributed to benevolent (vs. malevolent) motives. Here, we investigate how the presence of an attentive audience influences offenders' motive attributions and post-transgression behavior. Specifically, we hypothesize that offenders attribute a forgiveness reaction to malevolent rather than benevolent motives if it occurs in front of an audience vs. in private, and that this leads to withdrawal from the victim rather than reconciliation. While two preliminary vignette studies (N = 396) provided initial support for these assumptions, a preregistered virtual reality experiment (N = 156) yielded more mixed results. Specifically, in line with our predictions, receiving a forgiveness response from the victim in front of an attentive audience made participants keep a greater distance to the victim than receiving a forgiveness response in private. This effect was, however, found in only one out of three approach–avoidance tasks. We discuss possible explanations for these results and future research avenues.