# The link between Empathy and Forgiveness: Replication and extensions Registered Report of McCullough et al. (1997)'s Study 1
Chi Fung Chan & Gilad Feldman

COGNITION AND EMOTION 2025, VOL. 39, NO. 6, 1227–1249 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2024.2434156

The link between Empathy and Forgiveness: Replication and extensions Registered Report of McCullough et al. (1997)’s Study 1
Chi Fung Chan and Gilad Feldman
Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

## ABSTRACT

McCullough et al. [McCullough, M. E., Worthington, E. L., & Rachal, K. C. (1997). Interpersonal Forgiving in Close Relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(2), 321–336.] demonstrated that in situations of feeling hurt by an offender, empathy towards the offender is positively associated with forgiving the offender, which in turn is positively associated with conciliatory behaviour and negatively associated with avoidance behaviour. In a Replication Registered Report with a Prolific US online sample (N = 794), we conducted a replication of Study 1 from McCullough et al. (1997) with extensions manipulating empathy to determine causality and measuring revenge motivation adopted from McCullough et al. [McCullough, M. E., Rachal, K. C., Sandage, S. J., Worthington, E. L., Brown, S. W., & Hight, T. L. (1998). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships: II. Theoretical Elaboration and Measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(6), 1586–1603]. We found that empathy was positively associated with perceived apology (r = 0.45[0.35,0.55]) and forgiveness toward the offender (r = 0.64 [0.56,0.70]), and forgiveness was positively associated with conciliatory motivation (r = 0.51[0.41,0.59]) and negatively associated with avoidance motivation (r = −0.51 [−0.59,−0.42]) and revenge motivation (r = −0.43[−0.52,−0.33]). Manipulating empathy, we found that participants who recalled situations in which they felt strong empathy towards the offender rated higher forgiveness compared to participants recalling situations with low empathy or compared to control (d = 0.60–0.62). Overall, this was a successful replication of the findings by McCullough et al. (1997; 1998) with the empathy model of forgiveness receiving strong empirical support. Materials, data and code are available on: https://osf.io/fmuv2/. This Registered Report has been endorsed by Peer Community in Registered Reports: https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.rr.100444.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 8 November 2023 Revised 25 June 2024 Accepted 18 July 2024

## KEYWORDS

forgiveness; empathy; motivational change; registered report; replication

CONTACT Gilad Feldman gfeldman@hku.hk 627 Jockey Club Tower, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2024.2434156.

## Theory

## Background

Many theories and models have been suggested to explain forgiveness and its social roots and implications (e.g. Enright & Coyle, 1998; Strelan & Covic, 2006; Worthington & Scherer, 2004). McCullough et al. (1997)’s empathy model conceptualised forgiveness

as the motivation to inhibit relationship-destructive responses and behave constructively toward an offender. Their research demonstrated that (a) relation­ ship between receiving an apology from and forgiving one’s offender is a function of increased empathy for

Figure 1. Empathy model of forgiveness reconstructed from McCullough et al. (1997).

the offender and (b) forgiving is uniquely related to conciliatory behaviour and avoidance behaviour toward the offending partner. Their empathy model of forgiveness is summarised in Figure 1.
We report a close replication and extension Regis­ tered Report of McCullough et al. (1997) with two main goals. Our first goal was to conduct an indepen­ dent close replication of the associations among empathy, perceived apology, forgiving and various behavioural motivations. Our second goal was to extend the target article’s design to examine causality by manipulating empathy attributions and incorpor­ ating avoidance motivation and revenge motivation measures from a related follow-up study by McCul­ lough et al. (1998) (Study 1). Together, we aimed for a broader, causal, more extensive view on the associ­ ations and impact of empathy.
We begin by introducing the literature on forgive­ ness and the chosen article for replication. We discuss our motivation for the current replication study, the hypotheses and study design, with our adjustments and added extensions.
Interpersonal forgiveness
Despite different definitions across contexts and the­ ories, forgiveness is generally agreed by scholars to be an intentional and voluntary process (or the result of a process) that involves a change in emotion and attitude regarding an offender, driven by a deliberate decision to forgive (Enright & Fitzgib­ bons, 2000; Fincham et al., 2004; Worthington & Scherer, 2004). This process usually leads to decreased motivation to retaliate or maintain estrangement from an offender, and requires setting free of negative affects toward the offender (Macaskill, 2012; Webb & Toussaint, 2019).

Field et al. (2013) generalised forgiveness into four major components: Self-awareness, letting go, perspec­ tive-taking and moving on. Whether an apology and reconciliation are necessary for forgiveness remains con­ troversial among theorists (Fincham et al., 2004; Kelley et al., 2018; Strabbing, 2020). The main arguments against their necessity include the inapplicability of relationship restorations to self-forgiveness (Hall & Fincham, 2005) and the impossibility of receiving an apology from those who have passed away (Breitbart, 2018; Gassin & Lengel, 2014), and yet forgiveness is gen­ erally believed as sensible in both situations. Putting aside this unsolved debate, we mainly focus on McCul­ lough et al. (1997)’s interpersonal forgiveness in which apology and reconciliation are possible.
The benefits of interpersonal forgiveness have been widely studied, as – for example – forgiveness seems crucial for psychological healing in broken relationships (Menahem & Love, 2013). Lee and Enright (2019)’s meta-analysis indicated a positive association between forgiveness and physical health (e.g. lowering blood pressure and cortisol levels, improving the immune system), and there is evidence in support of a positive association with marital adjustment (Agu & Nwankwo, 2019; Fahimdanesh et al., 2020; McNulty, 2008), quality of friendships (Boon et al., 2022) and familial relationships (Gordon et al., 2009; Maio et al., 2008).
Empathy in forgiveness
McCullough et al. (1997) conceptualised empathy as a crucial facilitative condition for overcoming the ten­ dency toward destructive responding following an interpersonal offence, leading to forgiveness. Their hypothesis was based on the facilitating effect of empathy occurring in other prosocial phenomena, such as in corporations, altruism and the inhibition

of aggressions. (Batson et al., 1991; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990; Hoffman, 1981; Moore, 1990; Tangney, 1991; as cited in McCullough et al., 1997). More recent studies also further supported this argument, showing a close association between empathy and forgiveness, across genders (Mellor et al., 2012; Miller et al., 2008), and contributing to personal self-esteem (Turnage et al., 2012; Yao et al., 2017).
Empathy can be treated as either an affect (emotion) in response to stimuli or a dispositional (personality) trait of a person. We followed the target article to focus on the affective dimension of empathy, unless mentioned otherwise.
Revenge, avoidance and conciliation
McCullough et al. (1997) suggested the primacy of the behavioural tendencies toward revenge and avoidance in response to interpersonal offence is motivated by two key affective responses illustrated by Gottman’s (1994) research on a close relationship: righteous indig­ nation (e.g. anger, contempt) and hurt-perceived attack (e.g. internal whining, innocent victimhood). This was largely endorsed by recent research on revenge psychology (Jackson et al., 2019; McCullough et al., 2013; Sjöström & Gollwitzer, 2015).
Based on Batson’s Empathy-Altruism hypothesis (Batson et al., 1991; Batson & Charles, 2011), McCul­ lough et al. (1997) proposed the psychological simi­ larity between the relationship among empathy, forgiving and resulting behavioural responses and the sequence of events by which empathy leads to the motivation to care for others (i.e. altruism) and how that altruistic motivation can produce behavioural outcomes (e.g. helping, allocating resources in a social dilemma, cooperating). Therefore, McCullough et al. (1997) suggested empathy may counteract the motiv­ ation of relationship-destructive response of revenge and avoidance, in response to interpersonal offence, promoting conciliation through forgiveness.
Choice of study for replication
We chose McCullough et al. (1997)’s study based on two factors: impact, potential for further extensions examining causality and revenge, and the absence of direct replications.
The article has had an impact on scholarly research, especially in the domains of social and clinical psy­ chology. At the time of writing (January 2023), there were 2404 Google Scholar citations of the article

with important follow-up theoretical and empirical articles, such as Thompson et al. (2005) on the dispo­ sitional dimension of forgiveness and Raes et al. (2011) on the construction of the self-compassion scale. The influential 2-component motivational model of forgiveness proposed by McCullough et al. (1998) was also an extension built on this initial empathy model. The empathy-forgiveness link demonstrated by McCullough et al. (1997)’s research has been one of the most critical foundations of for­ giveness therapy which is nowadays widely adopted in clinical settings (Akhtar & Barlow, 2018; Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2015; Yu et al., 2021).
McCullough et al. (1997)’s study is considered one of the first theoretical and empirical bases to explore forgiveness, conceptualising forgiveness and its corre­ lated factors, providing a new framework to under­ stand forgiveness, transforming it from a sacred virtue or a remote moral standard into an explainable social phenomenon. This has led to further studies of the implications of forgiveness aiming to aid the public in improving social well-being and interperso­ nal relationships in their daily lives (Akhtar & Barlow, 2018; Worthington et al., 2007). McCullough et al. (1997)’s research offered a scientific framework for for­ giveness intervention and psychotherapy. The empathy-forgiving link was the theoretical foundation for several psychological treatments and therapies for a variety of life problems and mental illnesses in clini­ cal settings, ranging from spousal infidelity (Chi et al., 2019) or bereavement (Záhorcová et al., 2021), to bor­ derline personality disorder (Sandage et al., 2015) or post-traumatic stress disorder (Akhtar & Barlow, 2018; Currier et al., 2016).
The target article suggested what appears to be a causal model (see Figure 1), and yet the methods employed to test the mediation were based on corre­ lational designs. We saw potential in extending their design with modifications aiming to establish the causality of the impact of empathy on forgiveness.
To the best of our knowledge, there are currently no published independent direct replications of this article. McCullough et al. (1998) extended their model by adding other variables such as commit­ ment, impact of the offence and rumination, into pre­ dicting forgiveness, which we aimed to further integrate into our replication as an extension. Donovan and Priester (2020) conducted a related con­ ceptual replication of the Model of Motivated Inter­ personal Forgiveness, with different measurements and designs.

Following the recent growing recognition of the importance of reproducibility and replicability in psycho­ logical science (e.g. Brandt et al., 2014; Coles et al., 2018; Field et al., 2019; Moshontz et al., 2018; Open Science Collaboration, 2015; Nosek et al., 2022; Zwaan et al., 2018), we aimed to revisit the classic Empathy Model of Forgiveness with a well-powered close independent replication Registered Report of McCullough et al. (1997), integrating developments from McCullough et al. (1998) and aiming to test causality.
Original hypotheses and findings in the target article
McCullough et al. (1997) conceptualised interpersonal forgiving as the set of motivational changes whereby one becomes (a) less motivated to retaliate against an offending relationship partner, (b) less motivated to maintain estrangement from the offender and (c) more motivated towards conciliation and goodwill for the offender, despite the offender’s hurtful actions. Affective empathy was conceptualised as a crucial facilitative condition for overcoming the primary tendency toward destructive responses fol­ lowing a significant interpersonal offence. On the basis of these conceptual analyses, McCullough et al. (1997) proposed three core hypotheses. We sum­ marised the hypotheses of the target article in Table 1.
We mainly focused on Study 1 of the target article, examining the link between apology, forgiving and empathy for offending partners and whether forgiv­ ing is associated with increased conciliation and decreased avoidance motivation following the offence.
In the target article’s study, the authors recruited a sample of university undergraduates who were asked to think of a particular person who treated them unfairly and hurt them at some point in the past. After visualising and re-experiencing the situation again, participants described the interpersonal injury they had received and then completed the empathy, forgiving and behavioural self-report measures. We summarised the associations reported in the target article in Table 2, adopted from the target article.
Extension: examining causal link with empathy manipulation
We aimed to extend the replication study by manipu­ lating empathy. McCullough et al. (1997) indicated

### Table 1
*Summary of hypotheses of the target article.*

```
Hypothesis
Description
Empathy mediates relationships between dispositional
and environmental variables and their causal effects
on forgiving.
a There is a positive association between a wronged
person’s empathy for an offender and reported
forgiveness for the offender.
b Apology increases the likelihood of forgiving,
mediated by empathy.
Forgiving promotes constructive actions toward the
offender and inhibits destructive actions toward the
offender following an interpersonal offence.
a Forgiveness is positively associated with
conciliation motivation.
b Forgiveness is negatively associated with (i)
avoidance motivation and (ii) revenge
motivation.
c Forgiving is causally more proximal (and more
strongly related) to behavioural motivation (i.e.
conciliation, avoidance and revenge) than is
empathy.
3*
Clinical efforts to influence clients’ capacity to forgive
will succeed insofar as they induce empathy for the
offender.
```

Note: Hypothesis 3 is not included in the replication because it involves a clinical intervention.

that one of the major limitations of their Study 1 was the correlational study design, limiting causal claims implied in their model. We used the target’s Study 1 as our control condition, and added two additional conditions manipulating empathy in the recalled situation.
Our main focus was the replication, with the exten­ sion added as an exploratory direction. Therefore, in our extension we used the same recall method about the elicited past experience, and built on top of that. Our aim with the extension was to manipulate the elicitation of recalled situations in which empathy has been experienced so that the person can reflect and evaluate other factors in that situation. Therefore, the manipulation is of the recalled past experience and not the empathy that the participant is experien­ cing while taking part in the experiment. This is different from some of the research that tried to manipulate empathy through a perspective-taking approach for emotions experienced during the exper­ iment., in which participants were asked to remain objective (vs. emotionally-attached) to the main char­ acter when reading a scenario (Batson et al., 1997; Berenguer, 2007, 2010).
Our extension approach of manipulating elements of a recalled past event is therefore aligned with the replication and follows commonly used methods in social psychology that study evaluations of emotion

Note: Apology scores ranged from 2 to 10. Empathy scores ranged from 0 to 20. Forgiving Scale scores ranged from 5 to 25. Conciliatory behav­ iour scores ranged from 2 to 10. Avoidance behaviour scores ranged from 3 to 15. **p < .01. Adopted from McCullough et al. (1997), p. 325.

ladened situations. We previously implemented similar manipulations in recall tasks in various judg­ ment and decision-making replication projects (e.g. Chen et al., 2023; Yeung & Feldman, 2022), both based on classic articles in the literature that have pre­ viously employed a manipulation of factors in the recalled scenario (e.g. Carter et al., 2012; Gilovich & Medvec, 1994).
Pre-registration and open-science
We provided all materials, data and code on: https:// osf.io/fmuv2/.
This project received Peer Community in Registered Report Stage 1 in-principle acceptance (https://osf.io/ q78fs/; https://rr.peercommunityin.org/articles/rec?id = 380) after which we created a frozen pre-registration version of the entire Stage 1 packet (https://osf.io/ c7m3v/) and proceeded to data collection. All measures, manipulations, exclusions conducted for this investigation are reported, and data collection was completed before analyses.

## Method

Power analysis
We calculated effect sizes (ES) and power based on the statistics reported in the target article. Both the ES and power were computed using R studio (Version: 1.4.2) with packages “MBESS” and “pwr”. We focused on the intercorrelations between the vari­ ables, aiming for a power of 0.95 with an alpha 0.05. The largest minimum sample size required for the cor­ relational tests reported with significant results (i.e. apology vs. empathy) was 94 participants. The calcu­ lation was based on the effect size of r = .36, with a power of 0.95 and an alpha of 0.05.
To ensure we have enough power to detect all the effects in the target article, we decided that the sample size in our replication should not be lower

than the sample size in the target article’s study. Thus, we followed the target article’s sample size of 239 participants. We conducted a sensitivity analysis and found this sample is enough to detect corre­ lations of r = 0.21, which is weaker than the lower bound of the weakest effect in the target article (apology vs. empathy: r = 0.36, 95% Cl [0.24, 0.47]).
In our extension, we added two extra conditions by manipulating empathy, and therefore decided to mul­ tiply the sample by three to 717 participants. Account­ ing for possible exclusions of 0–10% based on our previous experience with the target sample, our inte­ grated design, and allowing for the potential of additional analyses, we aimed for a larger total sample of 800 participants. A sensitivity analysis indi­ cated that a sample of 717 (after exclusions) would allow the detection of f = 0.15 for a three-conditions ANOVA for our experimental design (95% power, alpha = 5%, one-tail) for our extension. Also, the sample would be sufficiently powered to detect con­ trasts of d = 0.33 (95% power, alpha = 5%, two-tail), which correspond to a medium effect in social psy­ chology research (Xiao et al., 2023). Based on our pre­ vious experience, recall tasks in judgment and decision-making tended to show medium to very strong effects (e.g. Chen et al., 2023; Feldman et al., 2016; Yeung & Feldman, 2022).
Participants
We recruited a total of 794 US American student par­ ticipants using Prolific (Mage = 28.8, SD = 12.2). We pro­ vided a comparison of the target article sample and our replication and extension sample in Table 3.
We first pretested survey duration with 30 partici­ pants to make sure our time run estimate was accu­ rate and adjusted pay as needed, the data of the 30 participants was not analysed other than to assess survey completion duration and needed pay adjust­ ments. These participants were included in the overall analyses.

Experimental design
We summarised the experimental design in Table 4, a between-subject experimental design with one inde­ pendent variable and three conditions. We manipu­ lated empathy towards the offender in the recalled situation (i.e. High empathy vs. Low empathy vs. Control) and compared the intercorrelations of the dependent variables (e.g. perceived apology, empathy and forgiving).

answer all the questions correctly before proceeding to the next page.
In the High Empathy condition, participants (n = 264) were asked to recall a hurting experience that they were “highly empathetic to the person who had hurt you”, whereas in the Low Empathy condition, they (n = 267) were asked to recall a hurting experi­ ence that they were “not empathetic to the person who had hurt you”. Participants then described the interpersonal injury they received and explained the reason why they were empathetic/unempathetic towards the offender, completing the self-report measures of perceived apology, empathy, forgiveness and behaviours.
The control condition was a replication of the target article and closely followed the study’s design. Participants (n = 263) were asked to think of a person whom they experienced as treating them unfairly and hurting them at some point in the past without any indication/ reference of empathy towards the offender. Then, participants described the interpersonal injury they received, completing the self-report measure as in the first two conditions.
At the end of the experiment, participants answered a number of funnelling questions and pro­ vided their demographic information. We provided a more comprehensive overview of the survey pro­ cedure in “Instructions and experimental material” in the supplementary.

Procedure

Manipulations

Participants completed the survey via the online survey system Qualtrics. We employed the Qualtrics fraud and spam prevention measures: reCAPTCHA, prevent multiple submissions, prevent ballotstuffing, bot detection, security scan monitor and relevantID.
Participants were randomly assigned into the experimental conditions: High Empathy condition, Low Empathy condition, control condition, which were counterbalanced using the randomiser “evenly present” function in Qualtrics.
We designed comprehension checks to ensure that participants fully understood their tasks before responding to our study measures. These comprehen­ sion check questions were as follows: “What type of behaviour done on you are you asked to recall”, “How many people are you asked to focus on”, and “What emotion towards the offender in the situation are you asked to recall”. Participants needed to

Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. We expected that partici­ pants in the High Empathy condition would rate higher empathy than those in the Low Empathy condition.
We provided additional details of the manipula­ tions, the differences between the three conditions, the experimental design, and complete scales used in the current replication in “Materials and scales used in the replication + extension experiment” in the Supplementary Materials.
Measures
Replication Offence-related information. Similarly to the target article, participants indicated their age, gender, relation­ ship with the person who had hurt them, the time since

### Table 4
*Replication and extension experimental design.*

```
Level of empathy (between-subject)
High empathy condition (Extension) “you were highly empathetic toward the person who had hurt you.”
Low empathy condition (Extension) “you were not empathetic toward the person who had hurt you”
Control condition (Replication) No indication of empathy towards the offender
Dependent variables (DV)
Comprehension checks (CC)
```

Offence-related information Questions include: “What was your relationship with the person who had hurt you” “How long has it been since the event occurred” “Please indicate the degree to which the offence had hurt you” (1 = Hurt very little to 5 = Hurt so much) “The person was not wrong in what he/ she did to me.” (0 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) (Source: McCullough et al., 1997)
Perceived apology “The offender has apologised?” “The offender has attempted to explain their hurtful behaviour?” (1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) (Source: McCullough et al., 1997)
Empathy “Please rate each adjective to indicate the degree to which you feel each of the following affects for the offender” Sympathetic, empathic, concerned, moved, compassionate, warm, softhearted and tender (0 = Not at all to 5 = Extremely) (Source: Batson et al., 1982) [Note: McCullough measured all 8 emotions, though only some analysed. We kept all 8.]
Forgiving “I wish him/her well”, “I disapprove of him/her”, “I think favourably of him/her” and “I condemn the person.” (0 = Not at all to 5 = Extremely) “I have forgiven the person.” (1 = I have not at all forgiven to 5 = I have completely forgiven) (Source: Wade, 1989)
Conciliatory motivation “I tried to make amends” “I took steps toward reconciliation: Wrote them, called them, expressed love, showed concern … ” (1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree)
Avoidance motivation “I keep as much distance between us as possible” “I live as if he/she doesn’t exist, isn’t around” “I don’t trust him/her” “I find it difficult to act warmly toward him/ her.” “I avoid him/her” “I cut off the relationship with him/her.” “I withdraw from them” (1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) (Source: McCullough et al., 1998)
Revenge motivation “I’ll make him/her pay” “I wish that something bad would happen to him/her” “I want him/her to get what he/she deserves” “I’m going to get even.” “I want to see him/her hurt and miserable.” (1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) (Source: McCullough et al., 1998) Questions include:
1. What type of behaviour are you asked to recall? (Someone treated me badly / Someone treated me nicely / Someone had an interaction with me)
2. How many people are you asked to focus on? (1 /2/ 3)

Note: CC questions were newly designed for this replication study but did not exist in the original article.

the offence occurred, and a brief description of the offence. Many of the offenders whom participants described were romantic partners (29.6%), relatives (18.0%), or friends of the same gender (14.5%).

Then, participants indicated the degree to which the offence hurt them: “The person was not wrong in what he/she did to me” (0 = Strongly disagree; 5 = Strongly agree).

Perceived degree of apology. We measured the extent to which participants perceived that the offender apologised for the offence with a scale con­ sisting of two items (1 = Strongly disagree; 5 = Strongly agree; scores ranging from 2 to 10; Cronbach’s alpha (α) = .85, McDonald’s omega (ω) = .85).
Affective empathy. Participants rated the degree to which they felt toward their offender using the Batson’s eight-item empathy scale (Archer et al., 1981; Batson et al., 1986; Batson et al., 1983; Coke et al., 1978; Fultz et al., 1986; Toi & Batson, 1982), refined by McCullough et al. (1997) into four emotions (empathic, concerned, moved, softhearted) (0 = Not at all; 5 = Extremely; score ranging from 0 to 20; α = .90, ω = .91).
Forgiveness. We assessed the degree to which the respondent experienced a constructive disposition and the absence of a destructive disposition in light of the offending partner’s hurtful actions using the target’s five-item measure of forgiving: “I wish him/her well”, “I disapprove of him/her”, “I think favourably of him/her”, “I condemn the person” and “I have forgiven the person”. The first four items were on a 6-point scale (0 = Strongly dis­ agree; 5 = Strongly agree). The final forgiving item was on a 5-point scale (1 = I have not at all forgiven; 5 = I have completely forgiven). Scores ranged from 1 to 25 (α = 0.86, ω = 0.87).

“I avoid him/her”, “I cut off the relationship with him/ her”, or “I withdraw from him/her” (α = 0.94, ω = 0.94). The five revenge motivation items were: “I’ll make him/her pay”, “I wish that something bad would happen to him/her.”, “I want him/her to get what he/ she deserves.”, “I’m going to get even.”, “I want to see him/her hurt and miserable” (α = 0.89,, ω = 0.89). Both the avoidance motivation and revenge items from TRIM were on a 5-point scale (1 = Strongly dis­ agree; 5 = Strongly agree). Their overall scores ranged from 7 to 35 and 5 to 25 respectively.
Extension Offence-related information. Similar to the measures in replication condition detailed above, participants indicated their age, gender, relationship with the person who had hurt them, how much time passed since the offence occurred, as well as the degree of the offence. Yet, in the extension conditions, partici­ pants were also asked to explain why they were empathetic/ unempathetic to the offender according to their randomly-assigned condition.
Affective empathy. The empathy measure of Batson’s eight-item scale in the target article was used as a manipulation check of the empathy manipulation in the extension.
Deviations

Conciliatory motivation toward the offender. Two items measured engagement in two reconciliation behaviours: “I tried to make amends” and “I took steps toward reconciliation: Wrote them, called them, expressed love, showed concern, etc.”. (1 = Strongly disagree; 5 = Strongly agree; scores ranged from 2 to 10; α = 0.83, ω = 0.83).
Avoidance and revenge motivations toward the offender. This measure was derived from the transgres­ sion-related interpersonal motivations (TRIM) inventory developed by McCullough et al. (1998). TRIM aimed at evaluating respondents’ motivation to avoid personal and psychological contact with the offender (i.e. avoid­ ance) and the motivation to seek revenge or see harm come to the offender (i.e. revenge).
The seven avoidance motivation items were: “I keep as much distance between us as possible”, “I live as if he/she doesn’t exist, isn’t around”, “I don’t trust him/ her.”, “I find it difficult to act warmly toward him/her”,

We made minor adjustments to the target article in several aspects, summarised in Table 5.

## Evaluation

criteria for replication findings
McCullough et al. (1997) conducted 10 correlation tests in the target article as shown in Table 2. We aimed to compare the replication’s control con­ dition effects with those in the target article using the criteria set by LeBel et al. (2019) (see subsection “Replication evaluation” in the Supplementary Materials).
Replication closeness evaluation
We provided details on the classification of the repli­ cations using the criteria by LeBel et al. (2018) criteria in Table 6 (see section “replication closeness evalu­ ation” in the supplementary). We did not set out to replicate the nested structural equation models (SEMs) in the original article due to its limitation in

Table 5. Comparison of target article versus replication.

Target article

Replication

Study design
Sample characteristics
Procedure
Statistical analysis

Participants completed the studies with pen and paper in the laboratories.

### Table 5
*Comparison of target article versus replication.*

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th></th>
      <th>C. F. CHAN AND G. FELDMAN<br>Target article</th>
      <th>Replication</th>
      <th>Reason for  change</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Study design</td>
      <td>Participants  completed  the<br>studies  with  pen  and  paper  in<br>the  laboratories.</td>
      <td>Participants  completed the<br>studies on an online survey.</td>
      <td>Lower  cost  and  higher efficiency.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Sample</td>
      <td>N = 239</td>
      <td>N = 794</td>
      <td>Two extra conditions in extension; Generalisability of</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>characteristics</td>
      <td>Sample  origin:<br>University  undergraduate</td>
      <td>US  American  Prolific<br>students</td>
      <td>results by including a wider variety of participants.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Procedure</td>
      <td>Items  of  all  dependent  variables<br>(DV)  were  not  randomised<br>Three  items  for  the measure  of<br>Avoidance  motivation<br>No  comprehension check</td>
      <td>Items  of  all  DV  were<br>randomised<br>Extended  to  seven  items<br>Comprehension  checks  exist</td>
      <td>Addressing potential  order  effects.<br>McCullough  et al.  (1998)  modified their  measure  of<br>avoidance  motivation  with  the  TRIM  inventory<br>Ensuring participants read and understood the task.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Statistical</td>
      <td>Pearson’s  R;</td>
      <td>Pearson’s  R</td>
      <td>The  SEM  used  in  the  original  article were  based  on</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>analysis</td>
      <td>Nested  structural  equation<br>models  (SEM)</td>
      <td></td>
      <td>correlations.  Our  extension  changed to  testing<br>causality. We  toned down  the  importance of  the<br>causal  chain,  and  changed  mediation  to  an<br>exploratory analysis.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Conditions</td>
      <td>1  condition</td>
      <td>1  conditions<br>identical  to  the  target<br>(Control)  with  2  extension</td>
      <td>To  examine the  causal  relationship  between<br>empathy and  forgiveness  in  Extension</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

### Table 6
*Classification of the replication, based on LeBel et al. (2018).*

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>IV  construct<br>DV construct<br>IV</th>
      <th>Same<br>Same<br>Same</th>
      <th></th>
      <th>associations  between  the  six  measures  of interest:<br>perceived apology, affective empathy, forgiving,</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>operationalisation</td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td>conciliatory  motivation, avoidance and revenge</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>DV</td>
      <td>Similar</td>
      <td>The  transgression-related</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>operationalisation</td>
      <td></td>
      <td>interpersonal  motivations</td>
      <td>motivation.</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

We did not replicate the full three nested struc­ tural equation models (SEM) used in the target article in our study. There are limitations in the target article’s attempt to establish a causal mediation relationship using SEM (Rohrer et al., 2022), and requires more careful designs and much larger samples than originally employed. Instead, our extensions aimed to manipulate empathy to test causality directly, and flagged the target’s mediation analysis in the control condition as an exploratory analysis, and not core to assessing the target’s claims or replicability.
We employed Diedenhofen and Musch (2015)’s “cocor” R package for correlation comparisons. The “cocor” R package is powerful and comprehensive since it compares overlapping correlations from dependent groups with up to 10 commonly used approaches (i.e. Dunn & Clark, 1969; Hendrickson et al., 1970; Hittner et al., 2003; Hotelling, 1940; Meng, 1992; Olkin, 1967; Pearson & Filon, 1898; Steiger, 1980; Williams, 1959; Zou, 2007). These would be conducted as exploratory analyses for addressing Hypothesis 2c.

Extension: the impact of empathy on forgiveness We conducted two between-subjects ANOVAs to examine how apology and forgiveness differ across the three conditions (high empathy vs. low empathy vs. control). We conducted post-hoc tests contrasting condition pairs. We chose post-hoc Scheffe tests because they are the most conservative post-hoc pairwise comparison method, generating the widest confidence intervals of group means difference.

affective empathy as well as affective empathy and forgiveness in Figures 2 and 3.
We found support for hypotheses 2a and 2b that forgiveness is positively correlated to conciliation motivation, r(261) = 0.45, 95% CI [0.35, 0.54], p < .001, and negatively correlated to avoidance motiv­ ation, r(261) = −0.73, 95% CI [−0.78, −0.67], p < .001. We also found support for forgiveness as negatively associated with revenge motivation, r(261) = −0.43, 95% CI [−0.52, −0.33], p < .001. We provided the summary scatterplots in Figures 4–6.

Outliers and exclusions In this study, we did not classify outliers. We included all the data collected in our analysis. See section “Exclusion criteria” in the supplementary for more details.

Exploratory analysis: correlations robustness checks The variables violated assumptions of normality, and we therefore added Spearman’s rho to Table 2 which were very similar to Pearson’s correlations and supported the robustness of the associations.

## Results

We summarised descriptive statistics in Table 7, corre­ lations in Table 8 and the statistical test results with interpretation in Table 9. We conducted the analyses with R (Version: 4.1.2).
Replication
We conducted 15 Pearson’s correlation tests to examine the associations between variables in the control (replication) condition, summarised in Table 8.
First, we found support for hypotheses 1a and 1b that empathy is positively associated with perceived apology, r(261) = 0.45, 95% CI [0.35, 0.55], p < .001, and forgiveness, r(261) = 0.64, 95% CI [0.56, 0.70], p < .001. We provided the summary scatterplots for the relationship between perceived apology and

Exploratory analysis: correlations comparisons We conducted correlation comparisons with the “cocor” R package and found partial support for Hypothesis 2c that forgiveness is more strongly associated with behavioural motivations (i.e. concilia­ tion, avoidance and revenge) than empathy. We found support for empathy being positively corre­ lated to conciliation motivation, r(261) = 0.51, 95% CI [0.41, 0.59], p < .001, avoidance motivation, r(261) = −0.51, 95% CI [−0.60, −0.42], p < .001, but did not find support for empathy as associated with revenge motivation, r(261) = −0.11, 95% CI [−0.23, 0.01], p = .08. All of the 10 correlation comparison approaches indicated that forgiveness is more strongly associated with avoidance and revenge than empathy, yet none of the 10 comparison approaches indicated that for­ giveness is more strongly associated with conciliation

Table 7. Descriptive statistics for all conditions.

High empathy (Extension)

Low empathy (Extension)

Perceived apology Empathy Forgiveness Conciliatory motivation Avoidance motivation Revenge motivation

### Table 7
*Descriptive statistics for all conditions.*

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Conciliatory  motivation<br>5.58  [2.68]4.3  [2.53]4.52  [2.54]</th>
      <th></th>
      <th>4.8  [2.64]</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Avoidance  motivation<br>20.47  [9.31]24.15  [9.19]24.37  [9,2]</td>
      <td></td>
      <td>23  [9.39]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Revenge  motivation<br>8.01  [4.34]9.05  [4.82]9.06  [4.73]</td>
      <td></td>
      <td>8.71  [4.66]</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Note: Format: Mean [standard deviation]. Perceived apology ranged from 2 to 10. Empathy ranged from 0 to 20. Forgiveness ranged from 1 to 25. Conciliatory motivation ranged from 2 to 10. Avoidance motivation ranged from 7 to 35. Revenge motivation ranged from 5 to 25.

Note: Correlations in the control condition for the replication (n = 263). Format: Pearson’s correlations [confidence interval] (Spearman’s rho). * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

### Table 9
*Summary of statistical tests and their interpretation.*

```
Hypothesis
Target article
p
Effect size
CI
Replication
p
Effect size
CI
Interpretation
1a
<.001
```

### Table 8
*Control condition (Replication): Intercorrelations with confidence intervals.*

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Hypothesis</th>
      <th>p</th>
      <th>Target article<br>Effect  size</th>
      <th>CI</th>
      <th>p</th>
      <th>Replication<br>Effect  size</th>
      <th>CI</th>
      <th>Interpretation</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th>1a</th>
      <th>&lt;.001</th>
      <th>r = .67</th>
      <th>[0.59,</th>
      <th>&lt;.001</th>
      <th>r = .63</th>
      <th>[0.56,  0.70]</th>
      <th>Signal,  consistent</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td>0.73]</td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>1b</td>
      <td>&lt;.001</td>
      <td>r = .36</td>
      <td>[0.24,</td>
      <td>&lt;.001</td>
      <td>r = .45</td>
      <td>[0.35,  0.55]</td>
      <td>Signal,  consistent</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td>0.47]</td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>2a</td>
      <td>&lt;.001</td>
      <td>r = .70</td>
      <td>[0.73,</td>
      <td>&lt;.001</td>
      <td>r = .45</td>
      <td>[0.34,  0.54]</td>
      <td>Signal,  inconsistent,  smaller</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td>0.76]</td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>2bi</td>
      <td>&lt;.001</td>
      <td>r = -.73</td>
      <td>[−0.78,</td>
      <td>&lt;.001</td>
      <td>r = -.73</td>
      <td>[−0.78,  –  0.67]</td>
      <td>Signal,  consistent</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td>−0.66]</td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>2bii</td>
      <td>/</td>
      <td>/</td>
      <td>/</td>
      <td>&lt;.001</td>
      <td>r = -.43</td>
      <td>[−0.52,  0.33]</td>
      <td>Signal</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Note: Effects are Pearson’s correlations. CI = 95% confidence intervals. The interpretations of the outcomes are based on LeBel et al. (2019).

than empathy. We provided full analyses and results for the comparisons in the “Additional analyses and results” section in the supplementary.
Comparing replication to original findings We replicated all of the supported findings of the target article. We summarised the replication results and their interpretations based on LeBel et al. (2019) in Table 9.
Exploratory analysis: mediation analyses
We conducted an exploratory mediation (bootstrap­ ping) test to examine the meditation effects of empathy between apology and forgiveness in the control condition. We summarised the effects in Figure 10.
We found support for the effect of perceived apology on forgiveness as being mediated via

affective empathy. Examining the regression coeffi­ cients, we found an association between perceived apology and forgiveness (β = 0.83, t(261) = 5.82, p < .001), between empathy and forgiveness (β = 0.74, t(260) = 11.32, p < .001) and between apology and empathy (β = 0.91, t(261) = 8.24, p < .001). The average direct effect was 0.15, 95% CI [−0.13 to 00.45], p = .3, whereas the bootstrapped unstandar­ dised indirect effect (Average Causal Mediation Effect, ACME) was 0.67, 95% CI [0.47–0.89], p < .001. Therefore, we found support for an indirect effect of affective empathy.

## Discussion

We conducted a replication and extensions Regis­ tered Report of the empathy model of forgiveness. Our results are consistent with the findings reported in the target article (see Table 9 for a summary).

Figure 2. Replication (Control) condition: Association between perceived apology and affective empathy.

Extensions: empathy manipulation
Manipulation checks We conducted independent samples Welch’s t-tests (two-tailed) and found that affective empathy in the high empathy condition (n = 264; M = 9.56, SD = 5.68) was stronger than in the low empathy condition (n = 267; M = 3.85, SD = 4.72; Md = 4.84; t (509.74) = 12.58, p < .001; d = 1.09, 95% CI [0.91, 1.27]), and the control condition (n = 263; M = 4.69, SD = 5.24; Md = 4.87; t (521.84) = 10.23, p < .001; d = 0.89, 95% CI [0.71, 1.07]), indicating a successful manipulation (see Figure 7).
The differences in affective empathy between the low empathy condition and the control condition were weaker (t(520.72) = −1.93, p = .050; d = 0.17, 95% CI [−0.00, 0.34]), suggesting that for this recall task, when no instructions are given, people are more likely to recall low empathy situations.
Forgiveness and apology We conducted a one-way ANOVA and found support for empathy affecting forgiveness and differences in

forgiveness across the three empathy conditions (F (2, 791) = 32.8, p < .001; ηp2 = 0.08, 90% CI [0.05, 0.11]; See Figure 8).
We conducted post-hoc Scheffe tests and found that forgiveness in the high empathy condition (n = 264; M = 14.9, SD = 6.22) was higher than in the low empathy condition (n = 267; M = 11.1, SD = 6.4; Md = 3.80, 95% CI [2.46, 5.15], p < .001; d = 0.60, 95% CI [0.43, 0.77]), and higher than in the control condition (n = 263; M = 10.98, SD = 6.38; Md = 3.92, 95% CI [2.57, 5.28, ], p < .001; d = 0.62, 95% CI [0.45, 0.79]). Yet, we did not find support for differ­ ences in forgiveness between the low empathy condition and the control condition (Md = 0.12, 95% CI [−1.23, 1.47], p = .97; d = −0.02, 95% CI [−0.19, 0.15]).
We found support for differences in apology between the three empathy conditions (F(2, 791) = 8.18, p < .001; η2p = .02, 90% CI [0.01, 0.04]; see Figure 9).
We conducted post-hoc Scheffe tests and found that perceived apology in the high empathy condition (M = 5.18, SD = 2.94) was higher than in the low empathy condition (M = 4.39, SD = 2.7; Md = −0.78,

Figure 3. Replication (Control) condition: Association between affective empathy and forgiveness.

95% CI [−1.37, −0.20], p = .005; d = 0.28, 95% CI [0.11, 0.46]), and higher than in control condition (M = 4.29, SD = 2.61; Md = 0.89, 95% CI [0.30, 1.47], p = .001; d = 0.32, 95% CI [0.15, 0.49]). We found no support for differences in perceived apology between the low empathy condition and the control condition (Md = 0.10, 95% CI [−0.48, 0.68], p = .916; d = −0.04, 95% CI [−0.21, 0.13]).
Replication
Overall, we found that: (1) affective empathy toward the offender is positively associated with forgiveness, (2) perceived apology is positively associated with empathy, (3) forgiveness is positively associated with conciliatory motivation and negatively associated with avoidance and revenge motivation and (4) for­ giveness is more strongly associated with behavioural motivation (i.e. conciliation, avoidance and revenge) than is empathy.

These results are consistent with McCullough et al. (1997)’s conceptualisation of forgiveness as empathyfacilitated motivational changes that promote relationship-constructive actions (i.e. conciliation) and inhibit relationship-destructive actions (i.e. avoid­ ance and revenge) toward the offending person.
More than two decades after the original research was first published, the effect sizes are also remark­ ably similar and comparable to those in the target article, indicating the robustness and replicability of McCullough et al. (1997)’s model of forgiveness. Only two of the correlations from the hypotheses showed minor deviations from the target article’s reported findings, with slightly stronger association between perceived apology and affective empathy (Original: r = .36; Replication: r = .45), and a weaker association between forgiveness and conciliatory motivation (Original: r = .70; Replication: r = .45).
Some often question the value of replication studies by stating that highly cited studies are self-

Figure 4. Replication (Control) condition: Association between forgiveness and conciliatory motivation.

evidently reliable and replicable. We believe these reactions often reflect a hindsight bias (a.k.a., knewit-all-along phenomenon) that many, even the researchers, may hold towards replication studies. We previously demonstrated an ironic display of hind­ sight bias over the replicability of a classic experiment on hindsight bias (Study 3; Chen et al., 2021). To try and address hindsight bias over the replicability of our target article, we conducted a prediction poll on Twitter on 26 March 2023 (Feldman, 2023), and found that 21 out of 30 (70%) of the researchers in the community predicted an unsuccessful replication of McCullough et al. (1997)’s Study 1, lower than pre­ dictions for other targets included in the same Twitter poll. These predictions stand in strong contrast to the very successful replication we reported here, and further highlights the importance of testing intuitions and the possible misperceptions that some may hold towards the importance of comprehensive indepen­ dent Registered Reports of direct replication.

Extensions: causality
We ran extensions examining the causal link of empathy on forgiveness and perceived apology. Our findings showed that: (1) affective empathy experienced by the wronged person contributes to interpersonal forgive­ ness, and (2) wronged persons who are empathetic towards the offender tend to perceive the offender as more apologetic. Overall, we found empirical support for our hypothesis that affective empathy is causally linked to forgiveness and perceived apology.
Although the causal link between empathy and for­ giveness was proposed by the target article and is experimentally supported in our extension, the demon­ strated impact of empathy on perceived apology is a new addition. Rather than a simple one-way causeand-effect influence of perceived apology on affective empathy proposed in the original model, our results indicated that their relationship may be more complex. Affective empathy may also simultaneously

Figure 5. Replication (Control) condition: Association between forgiveness and avoidance motivation.

influence the perceived apology in those situations. More research is needed to better understand the inter­ play between empathy and perceived apology and how it impacts the apology-forgiveness link.
As an exploratory analysis, we examined the mediat­ ing effect of empathy on the apology-forgiveness link. McCullough et al. (1997) hypothesized that affective empathy mediates the relationship between disposition on environmental variables and their causal effect on for­ giveness. They tried to illustrate the mediational effect with structural equation modelling, whereas we explored its mediating effect with a bootstrapping test. Our findings in general supported the mediating effect of empathy on the apology-forgiveness relationship.
Implications, limitations and directions for future research
We note several limitations. First, we followed the target article’s methods and did not correct for

multiple analyses and comparisons, which may poten­ tially hamper the reliability of our results. We con­ ducted many correlational tests and multiple ANOVAs with two dependent variables and pairwise comparisons, with some of the variables being not normally distributed, which may have heightened Type I error rate. Yet, we do not believe these have impacted our interpretation, as most of the effects were very large and the findings met a criteria of very low alpha (p < .001).
Second, we followed the target article’s methods and did not employ any outlier handling strategies. As a close replication research study, we tried to ground our study on the original methodology as closely as possible to test replicability on the same grounds that the target article had to meet. Neverthe­ less, parametric tests, such as the Pearson corre­ lations, may be sensitive to outliers (Knief & Forstmeier, 2021), and so we see room for discussion on whether replications should closely follow or aim

Figure 6. Replication (Control) condition: Association between forgiveness and revenge motivation.

to improve on the target’s methods, even if not up to the best practices. We do not believe this had any impact on the results, as the highly similar effects of the target and the replication suggest.
Third, we note that our empathy manipulation in the extension was a manipulation of recalled past empathetic (vs. unempathetic) offending experience, but not the emotion that the participants experienced while participating in the experiment. This design is meant to align our extension with the methods used in the replication. There are important differ­ ences between manipulating the recalled past situ­ ation rather than the actual affect that participants experience. Future research may aim to supplement our methods and adopt more direct other empathy manipulation techniques such as Batson et al. (1991)’s perspective-taking approach, contrasting objective versus emotional perspective towards the offenders.

We took the first step in manipulating empathy, and see promise for future research in also manipulat­ ing apology. Our extension revealed that affective empathy impacted perceived apology, yet it remains to be determined how perceived apology exactly affects and interacts with empathy, forgiveness and other behavioural motivations. The link between per­ ceived apology and forgiveness has been widely studied in the last decades (e.g. Hareli & Eisikovits, 2006; Schumann, 2012; Struthers et al., 2008), but few studies have investigated the link between per­ ceived apology and empathy.
Following a successful replication of McCullough et al. (1997), we suggest future replications of impor­ tant seminal follow-ups such as McCullough et al. (1998). McCullough et al. (1998)’s study, which was grounded and extended on our target article, has been an influential research paper contributing to our understanding of interpersonal forgiveness, and

Figure 7. Empathy (manipulation check): Comparison of empathy conditions. Note: Affective empathy scale is from 0 to 20, higher values indicate a stronger affective empathy towards the offender.

Figure 8. Forgiveness: Comparison of empathy conditions. Note: Forgiveness scale is from 1 to 25, higher values indicate a stronger tendency to forgive the offender.

Figure 9. Perceived apology: Comparison of empathy conditions. Note: Perceived apology scale is from 2 to 10, higher values indicate a stronger perceived apology from the offender.

Figure 10. Exploratory mediation analyses in the control condition. Note: a b and c are regression coefficients between variables. ***p < .001. (Average direct effect).

examining rumination, closeness and revenge, which were incorporated into their original forgiveness model. At the time of writing (April 2023), there were 2603 Google Scholar citations of the research, with critical follow-up theoretical and empirical papers. We took initial steps to partially replicate some of the work by McCullough et al. (1998) by including the revenge measure in our replication, yet we see the value in a more comprehensive revisit­ ing of their study. Importantly, as far as we know,

there are no direct replications for the extended model of forgiveness.

## Conclusion

Our replication of McCullough et al. (1997)’s Study 1 was successful. We found support for the empathy model of forgiveness, with affective empathy posi­ tively associated with perceived apology and forgive­ ness, forgiveness positively associated with

conciliation and negatively associated with avoidance and revenge. In our extension, we demonstrated a direct causal link between empathy and forgiveness, and between empathy and perceived apology. Our exploratory extensions revealed an indirect media­ tional effect of affective empathy on the apology-for­ giveness relationship.

## Disclosure

statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Continued.
Role

## Methodology

Project administration Resources Software Supervision Validation Visualisation Writing-original draft Writing-review and editing

Chi-Fung Chan X
X
X X

Gilad Feldman
X X
X X
X

## Funding

The project is supported by the University of Hong Kong Teach­ ing Development Grant.

ORCID
Chi Fung Chan Gilad Feldman

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7425-8421 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2812-6599

Authorship declaration
Chi-Fung CHAN conducted the replication as part of his thesis in psychology.
Gilad Feldman guided the project, supervised each step in the project, ran data collection and edited the manuscript for submission.

Rights
CC BY or equivalent licence is applied to the AAM arising from this submission. (clarification).
Recommended for publication by Peer Community in Regis­ tered Reports on August 7, 2023. See recommendation and open peer-review on: https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.rr.100444

Citation of the target research article
McCullough, M. E., Worthington, E. L., & Rachal, K. C. (1997). Interpersonal Forgiving in Close Relationships. Journal of Per­ sonality and Social Psychology, 73(2), 321–336. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/0022-3514.73.2.321.

Contributor roles taxonomy

Role
Conceptualisation Pre-registration Data curation Formal analysis Funding acquisition Investigation Pre-registration peer review /
verification Data analysis peer review /
verification

Chi-Fung Chan X X
X
X

Gilad Feldman
X X X
X
X
X
(Continued )

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## Figures

*Figure 1. Empathy model of forgiveness reconstructed from McCullough et al. (1997).*

*Figure 2. Replication (Control) condition: Association between perceived apology and affective empathy.*

*Figure 3. Replication (Control) condition: Association between affective empathy and forgiveness.*

*Figure 4. Replication (Control) condition: Association between forgiveness and conciliatory motivation.*

*Figure 5. Replication (Control) condition: Association between forgiveness and avoidance motivation.*

*Figure 6. Replication (Control) condition: Association between forgiveness and revenge motivation.*

*Figure 7. Empathy (manipulation check): Comparison of empathy conditions. Note: Affective empathy scale is from 0 to 20, higher values indicate a stronger affective empathy towards the offender.*

*Figure 8. Forgiveness: Comparison of empathy conditions. Note: Forgiveness scale is from 1 to 25, higher values indicate a stronger tendency to forgive the offender.*

*Figure 10. Exploratory mediation analyses in the control condition. Note: a b and c are regression coefficients between variables. ***p < .001. (Average direct effect).*

*Figure 9. Perceived apology: Comparison of empathy conditions. Note: Perceived apology scale is from 2 to 10, higher values indicate a stronger perceived apology from the offender.*

## Tables (unlocated in body)

### Table 2
*Target article: Means, standard deviations, internal consistency reliabilities and intercorrelations.*

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>1232 C. F. CHAN AND G. FELDMAN</th>
      <th></th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Variables<br>MSDα</td>
      <td>12345</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>1.  Degree  of  apology<br>5.632.84.79</td>
      <td>_</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>2.  Empathy<br>13.225.95.88</td>
      <td>.36**_</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3.  Forgiving<br>16.826.73.87</td>
      <td>.43**.67**_</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.  Conciliatory  behaviour<br>6.742.50.74</td>
      <td>.44**.63**.70**_</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.  Avoidance  behaviour<br>10.113.89.90</td>
      <td>-.47**-.58**-.73**-.56**_</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

### Table 3
*Difference and similarities between target article and replication.*

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Table  3.  Difference  and  similarities  between  target  article  and</th>
      <th>answer  all  the  questions  correctly  before  proceeding</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th>replication.</th>
      <th>to the next page.</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>McCullough et  al.</td>
      <td>In  the  High  Empathy  condition,  participants  (n =</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>(1997) US  Prolific</td>
      <td>264)  were  asked  to  recall  a  hurting  experience  that</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Sample  size 239 794</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Geographic origin University  US  American  students</td>
      <td>they  were  “highly  empathetic  to  the  person  who  had</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>undergraduate<br>1</td>
      <td>hurt  you”,  whereas  in  the  Low  Empathy  condition,</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Gender 108  males,  131  385  males,  381</td>
      <td>they  (n = 267)  were  asked  to  recall  a  hurting  experi-</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>females females,  28  other/did</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>not  disclose</td>
      <td>ence  that  they  were  “not  empathetic  to  the  person</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Ethnic  group 83%  White,  14%  N.A.</td>
      <td>who  had  hurt  you”.  Participants  then  described  the</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Black, 3%  other</td>
      <td>interpersonal  injury  they  received  and  explained  the</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Median  age  (years) Unreported 24.0</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Average  age  19 28.8</td>
      <td>reason  why  they  were  empathetic/unempathetic</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>(years)</td>
      <td>towards  the  offender,  completing  the  self-report</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Standard deviation  Unreported 12.2</td>
      <td>measures of perceived apology, empathy, forgiveness</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>age  (years)</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Medium  (location) Unreported Computer  (online)</td>
      <td>and behaviours.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Compensation Extra  course  credit Nominal  payment</td>
      <td>The  control  condition  was  a  replication  of  the</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Year 1997 2023</td>
      <td>target  article  and  closely  followed  the  study’s</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Note:  1  Origin  was  not  explicitly  mentioned  in  the  target  article,</td>
      <td>design.  Participants  (n = 263)  were  asked  to  think</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>though  we  suspect  it  was  US  American,  given  the  authors’  affilia-</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>tion  at the  time.</td>
      <td>of  a  person  whom  they  experienced  as  treating<br>them  unfairly  and  hurting  them  at  some  point  in<br>the  past  without  any  indication/  reference  of<br>empathy  towards  the  offender.  Then,  participants</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Experimental  design</td>
      <td>described  the  interpersonal  injury  they  received,</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>We summarised the experimental design in Table 4, a</td>
      <td>completing  the  self-report  measure  as  in  the  first</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>between-subject experimental design with one inde-</td>
      <td>two conditions.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>pendent  variable  and  three  conditions.  We  manipu-</td>
      <td>At  the  end  of  the  experiment,  participants</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>lated  empathy  towards  the  offender  in  the  recalled</td>
      <td>answered a number of funnelling questions and pro-</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>situation  (i.e.  High  empathy  vs.  Low  empathy  vs.</td>
      <td>vided their demographic information. We provided a</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Control)  and  compared  the  intercorrelations  of  the</td>
      <td>more  comprehensive  overview  of  the  survey  pro-</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>dependent  variables  (e.g.  perceived  apology,</td>
      <td>cedure in  “Instructions and experimental  material” in</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>empathy and forgiving).</td>
      <td>the supplementary.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Procedure</td>
      <td>Manipulations</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Participants  completed  the  survey  via  the  online</td>
      <td>Participants  were  randomly  assigned  to  one  of</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>survey  system  Qualtrics.  We  employed  the  Qualtrics</td>
      <td>the  three  conditions.  We  expected  that  partici-</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>fraud  and  spam  prevention  measures:  reCAPTCHA,</td>
      <td>pants  in  the  High  Empathy  condition  would  rate</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>prevent  multiple  submissions,  prevent  ballotstuffing,</td>
      <td>higher  empathy  than  those  in  the  Low  Empathy</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>bot detection, security scan monitor and relevant<br>ID.</td>
      <td>condition.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Participants  were  randomly  assigned  into  the</td>
      <td>We  provided  additional  details  of  the  manipula-</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>experimental  conditions:  High  Empathy  condition,</td>
      <td>tions,  the  differences  between  the  three  conditions,</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Low  Empathy  condition,  control  condition,  which</td>
      <td>the  experimental  design,  and  complete  scales  used</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>were  counterbalanced  using  the  randomiser  “evenly</td>
      <td>in  the  current  replication  in  “Materials  and  scales</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>present” function in Qualtrics.</td>
      <td>used  in  the  replication + extension  experiment”  in</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>We designed comprehension checks to ensure that</td>
      <td>the Supplementary Materials.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>participants  fully  understood  their  tasks  before</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>responding to our study measures. These comprehen-</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td></td>
      <td>Measures</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>sion  check  questions  were  as  follows:  “What  type  of</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>behaviour  done  on  you  are  you  asked  to  recall”,</td>
      <td>Replication</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>“How  many  people  are  you  asked  to  focus  on”,  and</td>
      <td>Offence-related  information. Similarly  to  the  target</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>“What  emotion  towards  the  offender in  the  situation</td>
      <td>article, participants indicated their age, gender, relation-</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>are  you  asked  to  recall”.  Participants  needed  to</td>
      <td>ship with the person who had hurt them, the time since</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

