中華心理學刊 民 86，39 卷，2 期，119-138
Chinese Journal of Psychology 1997, Vol.39, No.2, 119-138

Shih-Tseng Tina Huang（Department of Psychology, National Chung-Cheng University）

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine whether or not as a form of forgiveness, seeking restitution can be regarded as a socially conventional response in the Chinese society and hence an individual 's conception of convention may affect a restitutional forgiver's motives and the extent to which his or her negative emotions are released during the process of forgiving. Restitutional forgivers with recent experiences in interpersonal conflicts were selected as subjects from among 1275 Chinese college students; their understandings of social convention were also measured. Subjects were asked to describe the forgiving process they went through and and their current feelings for the conflicts, for which verbal and non verbal measures of emotional states were taken. Results showed that subjects at the affirmative phases of social convention understanding appear to harbor more anger and unresolved negative emotions than those at the negation phases. A further comparison between restitutional forgivers and Stage-6 forgivers supports the above finding in that restitutional forgivers at the negative phases showed no differences in measures of negative emotions from those Stage-6 forgivers, whereas those at the affirmative phases exhibited more negative emotions than the Stage6 forgivers. These results suggest that it may be necessary to take into account an individual's conception and understanding of social convention in order to clarify the meaning of restitution for restitutional forgivers.

Keywords：Forgiveness, Restitution, Social convention