Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Personality and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Can a leopard change its spots? The effects of implicit theories of personality
on forgiveness via attributions of behavioral stability
Tatiana Iwaia,⁎, João Vinícius de França Carvalhob
a Insper Institute of Education and Research, Brazil
bUniversity of São Paulo – FEA/USP, Department of Accounting and Actuarial Sciences, Brazil

A R T I C L E I N F O

Keywords:
Implicit theories of personality
Forgiveness
Interpersonal transgressions
Attributions of stability
Mindsets

A B S T R A C T

People differ in their implicit theories about the malleability of key individual attributes. While some people
hold the view that traits are fixed (entity theorists), others believe that they can be changed (incremental the-
orists). As these beliefs set up an interpretive framework for forming impressions and shaping attributions, they
may affect victims’ responses to interpersonal transgressions. With two studies, we investigate how victims’
implicit theories of personality influence forgiveness following a transgression. Using an autobiographical
narrative method, Study 1 (N= 82, college students) shows that having a fixed view of personality is associated
with a lower willingness to forgive. In Study 2 (N = 181, adult workers), using a standardized hypothetical
scenario of a transgression, we measure three motivations associated with forgiving: avoidance, revenge, and
benevolence. Our results provide evidence that attributions of behavioral stability to the offender play a med-
iating role in the relationship between implicit theories and forgiveness. Having an incremental view of per-
sonality leads to lower attributions of behavioral stability to offenders. Such attributions in turn reduce victims’
motivations to avoid offenders and also improve positive feelings toward them. However, stability attributions
do not decrease the victims’ desires to seek revenge against offenders.

1. Introduction

Although we strive to nurture positive, harmonious and collabora-
tive relationships, interpersonal transgressions are commonplace in our
everyday life. Broken promises, lies, unfulfilled expectations, violations
of rules or social norms are some of the various ways that relationships
can be damaged. Once harmed, they need to be repaired. One important
step toward healing a relationship is to let go of resentment and ven-
geful feelings against offenders. That is, to forgive. Forgiveness has been
found to yield several benefits to both sides in a relationship: on the
victims’ side, forgiveness is associated with greater mental and physical
health (Hannon, Finkel, Kumashiro, & Rusbult, 2012;
Karremans, Van Lange, Ouwerkerk, & Kluwer, 2003; Toussaint &
Webb, 2005); on the side of the offenders, it fosters repentance and
discourages repeated offenses (Struthers, Eaton, Shirvani, Georghiou, &
Edell, 2008; Wallace, Exline, & Baumeister, 2008). Although desirable,
not all transgressions are forgiven. While in some cases victims forego
the grudge and act prosocially toward perpetrators, in other cases, of-
fenses may start a vicious spiral of conflict, resentment and retaliation.
Given the various ways victims may react to transgressions, an inter-
esting question then to be asked is why some people forgive and others

do not.
To address this question, an important stream of research has been

taking a cognitive perspective to investigate situational and disposi-
tional factors that may affect how victims interpret the offense and
guide their behavior toward the offender (Fehr, Gelfand, & Nag, 2010).
At the situational level, research has focused on properties of the
transgression context itself, such as transgression severity
(Fincham, Jackson, & Beach, 2005; McCullough, Fincham, & Tsang,
2003), relationship closeness (Donovan & Priester, 2017;
McCullough et al., 1998), intentions and responsibility attributions of
the transgression (Adams & Inesi, 2016; Bradfield & Aquino, 1999;
Struthers, Eaton, Santelli, Uchiyama, & Shirvani, 2008), and the use of
apologies (Fehr & Gelfand, 2010; Gold & Weiner, 2000; Takaku, 2001).
At the dispositional level, prior work has explored how individual dif-
ferences, such as narcissism (Exline, Baumeister, Bushman, Campbell, &
Finkel, 2004), the Big Five factors of personality (McCullough &
Hoyt, 2002), and empathic concern (McCullough, Worthington, &
Rachal, 1997), predispose victims toward certain interpretations of the
transgressions.

Building on this cognitive perspective, we aim to contribute to the
ongoing discussion by proposing that willingness to forgive is

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109800
Received 29 June 2019; Received in revised form 8 December 2019; Accepted 23 December 2019

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: tatianai@insper.edu.br (T. Iwai), jvfcarvalho@usp.br (J.V.d.F. Carvalho).

Personality and Individual Differences 157 (2020) 109800

Available online 06 January 2020
0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

T