How and why the omission bias affects victims' and third parties' responses to interpersonal transgressions

Prior research has identified an omission bias whereby third-party observers attribute greater intent, responsibility, and immorality to a transgressor for their harmful commissions than their harmful omissions. However, this research has not examined whether victims also show an omission bias in response to an interpersonal transgression committed against them, and whether these perceptions affect the apology-forgiveness process. We conducted four experiments (Ns = 376; 593; 595; 813) using complementary methods (hypothetical standardized offenses and real-life transgressions) to examine how and why commission and omission transgressions differentially affect victims’ forgiveness, and whether apologies are differentially effective at eliciting forgiveness for these transgressions. We found that forgiveness was generally lower for commission (vs. omission) transgressions. Moreover, victims perceived commission (vs. omission) transgressions as higher in responsibility and intent, and these offense perceptions in turn predicted reduced forgiveness, both on their own and serially through judgments of immorality. However, apologizing (vs. not apologizing) predicted greater forgiveness for both types of offenses. In Study 4, we also tested whether victims’ perceptions of commissions and omissions differed from third-party observers’ perceptions. The effect of the commission (vs. omission) transgression on offense perceptions, moral judgments, and apology-forgiveness was similar across victim and third-party observer perspectives. These studies demonstrate how and why forgiveness might be less forthcoming for commissions than omissions, but provide evidence that apologies confer benefits for both types of offenses.