Making Meaning of Conflict: Motivational Processes Underlying Resentment, Retaliation, and Forgiveness in Colombian Emerging Adults’ Narratives

The present study examined Colombian emerging adults’ interpersonal conflict narratives within a motivational framework of forgiveness, focusing on contexts of forgiveness and unforgiveness. A diverse sample of 227 emerging adults wrote stories in which they forgave and did not forgive a close social partner and responded to questions regarding their past violence exposure and gratitude. We coded narratives for resentment and retaliation, decisional/emotional forgiveness, and social partners as antagonists. Individual differences in past violence exposure and gratitude were associated with resentment, retaliatory desires/actions, and retaliation carried out. Resentment correlated positively with decisional and emotional forgiveness, revealing motivational complexity in transforming from malevolence to benevolence. Retaliatory desires/actions were linked to more explicit decisional forgiveness, but retaliation carried out was linked to less decisional forgiveness. Participants described more explicit forgiveness with family and romantic partners, consistent with interdependence theory’s assertion that higher relationship commitment motivates stronger benevolent transformations.