| Original Full Text | FORGIVING A GOOD HEART: THE ROLE OF MOTIVES AND MIND PERCEPTION IN LAY UNDERSTANDINGS OF DIVINE FORGIVENESS Samantha Abrams A dissertation submitted to the Social Psychology faculty within The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience (Social Psychology). Chapel Hill 2024 Approved by: Kurt Gray Keith Payne Patty Van Cappellen Julian Rucker Paschal Sheeran ii © 2024 Samantha Abrams ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii ABSTRACT Samantha Abrams: Forgiving a Good Heart: The Role of Motives and Mind Perception in Lay Understandings of Divine Forgiveness (Under the direction of Kurt Gray) Forgiveness is vital for relational and social wellbeing. Yet we know very little about the causes and consequences of a crucial type of forgiveness for millions of Christians in the U.S.—divine forgiveness. God’s mind is different than humans’ in many ways that couldimpact how people expect Him to relate to one critical factor for forgiveness—the morality of an offenders’ motives. Participants viewed God as more forgiving of others (Studies 1 and 3) and themselves (Study 2) than humans, but only expected Him to be less forgiving whenothers had immoral motives (Studies 1 and 3). Manipulating someone’s loving nature and insight into an offender’s motives to make their mind more similar to God made them seem more forgiving but no less sensitive to offenders’ motives (Study 3). Participants anticipated that those with immoral motives would show more personal growth after receiving God’s forgiveness (Study 4), yet those admitting to immoral motives themselves showed less desire for self-improvement after seeking forgiveness from God (Study 5). While U.S. Christians expect God to be a loving but morally concerned forgiver to others, they see God only as unconditionally loving and forgiving in their own experiences. iv To my family, my loving partner Faisal, and my friends and colleagues in the Social Psychology program: Thank you for your humor, compassion, grace, and support. I couldn’t have done it without you. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge and express my immense gratitude to my research advisor Dr. Kurt Gray. Your guidance (and humor) pushed me to make this project the best it could be and laid the foundation of my skills and enthusiasm as a burgeoning researcher and scholar. I would also like to thank my committee for their insightful and constructive feedback, from which this paper has improved immensely. Finally, I’d like to thank my research assistants—Kenna Bradley, Ben Bramson, Musie Gebreegziabher, and Levin Low—for their curiosity, dedication, and hours upon hours of hard work, without which this research would not be possible. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. xi Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 Interpersonal Forgiveness ..................................................................................................... 4 Why Divine Forgiveness Is Distinct ..................................................................................... 7 Mind Perception and Motives ........................................................................................... 9 Current Research Approach and Methodology ................................................................... 16 Theoretical Contribution.................................................................................................. 17 Antecedents of Divine and Interpersonal Forgiveness ........................................................... 18 Study 1: Insight and Importance for Others ............................................................................ 19 Method ................................................................................................................................ 20 Sample ............................................................................................................................. 20 Manipulation .................................................................................................................... 20 Measures .......................................................................................................................... 21 Procedure ......................................................................................................................... 22 Results ................................................................................................................................. 22 Manipulation Checks ....................................................................................................... 22 Main Analyses ................................................................................................................. 23 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 26 Study 2: Importance and Introspection for the Self ................................................................ 27 vii Methods ............................................................................................................................... 28 Sample ............................................................................................................................. 28 Manipulation .................................................................................................................... 28 Measures .......................................................................................................................... 28 Procedure ......................................................................................................................... 31 Results ................................................................................................................................. 31 Forgiver Mind Perception ................................................................................................ 32 Forgiveness ...................................................................................................................... 32 Mediation Model ............................................................................................................. 34 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 35 Study 3 .................................................................................................................................... 36 Methods……………………………………………………………………………………37 Sample ............................................................................................................................. 37 Manipulation .................................................................................................................... 37 Measures .......................................................................................................................... 38 Procedure ......................................................................................................................... 38 Results ................................................................................................................................. 39 Manipulation Check ........................................................................................................ 39 Interpersonal Forgiveness ................................................................................................ 39 Divine Forgiveness .......................................................................................................... 41 Mind Perception and Forgiveness ................................................................................... 43 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 44 Consequences of Divine vs. Interpersonal Forgiveness ......................................................... 46 viii Study 4: Introspection for Others ............................................................................................ 46 Methods ............................................................................................................................... 47 Sample ............................................................................................................................. 47 Manipulation .................................................................................................................... 47 Procedure ......................................................................................................................... 48 Results ................................................................................................................................. 49 Manipulation Check ........................................................................................................ 49 Main Analyses ................................................................................................................. 49 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 52 Study 5: Introspection for the Self .......................................................................................... 52 Methods ............................................................................................................................... 53 Sample ............................................................................................................................. 53 Manipulation .................................................................................................................... 53 Measures .......................................................................................................................... 53 Procedure ......................................................................................................................... 55 Results ................................................................................................................................. 55 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 60 General Discussion ................................................................................................................. 61 APPENDIX 1.1: STUDY 1 SCENARIOS ............................................................................. 66 APPENDIX 2.1: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING FORGIVER INSIGHT................. 70 APPENDIX 2.2: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING LOVING VIEWS OF FORGIVER ......................................................................................................... 71 APPENDIX 2.3: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING FORGIVENESS .......................... 72 APPENDIX 2.4: TABLE OF RESULTS MODELING FORGIVENESS ............................. 73 ix APPENDIX 3.1: STUDY 3 SCENARIOS ............................................................................. 75 APPENDIX 3.2: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING FORGIVER INSIGHT................. 81 APPENDIX 3.3: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING LOVING VIEWS OF FORGIVER ......................................................................................................... 82 APPENDIX 3.4: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS ..... 83 APPENDIX 3.5: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING FORGIVER INSIGHT................. 84 APPENDIX 3.6: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING LOVING VIEWS OF FORGIVER ......................................................................................................... 85 APPENDIX 3.7: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS ..... 86 APPENDIX 3.8: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS ..... 87 APPENDIX 3.9: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS ..... 88 APPENDIX 3.10: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS ... 89 APPENDIX 4.1: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING INTROSPECTION ...................... 90 APPENDIX 4.2: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING MORAL CHARACTER CHANGE ....................................................................................................... 91 APPENDIX 4.3: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING LIKELIHOOD OF REOFFENSE .................................................................................................................... 92 APPENDIX 5.1: TABLE OF RESULTS MODELING FORGIVENESS ............................. 93 APPENDIX 5.2: TABLE OF RESULTS MODELING FORGIVENESS ............................. 95 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 98 x LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Summary of Multilevel Regression Model for Variables Predicting Forgiveness (Study 1) ........................................................................................... 25 Table 2: Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Experimental Conditions Predicting Forgiveness (Study 3) ......................................................................... 40 Table 3: Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Personal Growth Intentions (Study 5)..................................................................................... 59 xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Mean Ratings of Likelihood of Forgiveness by Condition (Study 1) ..................... 24 Figure 2: Effect of Recall Condition on Perceived Forgiveness (Study 2) ............................. 35 Figure 3: Mean Expectations of Forgiveness by Condition (Study 3).................................... 42 Figure 4: Perceived Insight on Mean Expectations of Forgiveness (Study 3) ........................ 44 Figure 5: Mean Expectations of Moral Character Change and Likelihood of Reoffense by Condition (Study 4) ...................................................................................... 51 Figure 6: Effect of Recall Condition on Personal Growth Intentions by Recall Condition (Study 5) ..................................................................................................... 58 1 Introduction Forgiveness is a critical component of successful relationships and personal wellbeing. Researchers have studied this topic in great depth, examining the processes, outcomes, and boundary conditions of interpersonal forgiveness. They have studied how perceptions of responsibility and intentionality influence decisions to forgive someone (Gollwitzer & Okimoto, 2021; Struthers et al., 2008); how admissions of guilt and apologies make us more forgiving (Nudelman & Nadler, 2017; Takaku et al., 2001); how relationship motivations influence forgiveness (Donovan & Priester, 2020; Green et al., 2008); and the potential benefits of giving and receiving forgiveness (Karremans et al., 2005; McCullough & Witvliet, 2002). Nearly a quarter-century of extensive research has mapped out who, what, why, and how we forgive. But this work excludes what many people believe to be the most important form of forgiveness—divine forgiveness. Religion still dominates the cultural landscape around the world, and some predict that the number of religious people will even increase over the next 50 years (Jenkins, 2011; Pew Research Center, 2015). But despite the present and growing number of religious people in the world, we know very little about divine forgiveness (i.e., how people see and experience forgiveness from a Supreme Being or higher power; Fincham, 2020; Fincham & May, 2021). Like several other aspects of moral cognition and behavior, many people view forgiveness of all kinds as deeply intertwined with religion (Cohen, 2015; McCullough & Worthington, 1999). But does this mean that people perceive forgiveness from God in the 2 same way they perceive forgiveness from other people? And if not, what makes them different? One potential reason that people may perceive differences between divine and interpersonal forgiveness is that they also perceive God’s and humans’ minds differently. Mind perception is foundational to people’s understanding of morality (Gray, Waytz, et al., 2012; Gray, Young, et al., 2012) and influences their perceptions of the agents in morally relevant situations (Gray & Wegner, 2009). This would suggest that seeing God’s mind as very different from other peoples’ minds might lead people to believe that God’s forgiveness works differently, too. In some ways, God’s people perceive God’s and humans’ minds very similarly. Christians explicitly anthropomorphize God’s mind—ascribing Him psychological properties like intentions, emotions, desires, and even perceptions like touch and smell (Shtulman & Lindeman, 2014, 2016). But there are also important ways that Christians view God’s mind as fundamentally different than the minds of other humans—He is an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving being outside the bounds of time and space. People may treat God’s mind as they would a human’s, just with extra abilities and characteristics added on top (Barlev et al., 2017; Gervais, 2013), but the content of those extra mental attributes can lead people to believe that God thinks and acts differently than humans. People are more likely to attribute anomalous events to God than other humans because of his omnipotent power (Gray & Wegner, 2010; Jackson & Gray, 2019) and believe his omniscient knowledge of their true selves makes Him less likely to punish them (Lee et al., 2023). Here, we focus on how differing perceptions of Gods’ and humans’ minds might impact the role of one key factor in forgiveness interactions—the motives behind an offense. 3 Motives are clearly important for forgiveness in general (Carlson et al., 2022; Darby & Schlenker, 1989; McCullough & Witvliet, 2002). It’s easier to forgive someone who does something “wrong” (an offense) if they did it for the “right” reasons (a morally good motive). Someone who steals bread to help feed their starving family is more easily forgiven than someone who steals bread to spite the baker. Conversely, people evaluate prosocial behaviors like helping someone with a task or referring someone for a job more negatively when done for ulterior motives like personal gain (Reeder et al., 2004; Verlegh et al., 2013). People also believe that the helpful or harmful side effects of one’s actions are more intentional if these unintended consequences are consistent with one’s good or bad motives (Hughes & Trafimow, 2012), which has downstream consequences for forgiveness (Struthers et al., 2008). But does God think about and treat motives the same way that people do? This depends on how people perceive God’s mind. Though there are many ways to conceive of God’s mind (Benson & Spilka, 1973; Johnson et al., 2014; Sharp et al., 2017; Wood et al., 2010), we detail two broad conceptions of God that might impact the perceived role of motives in divine forgiveness—an unconditionally loving God and a morally concerned God. Seeing God as an all-loving Father whose benevolence is unconditional could lead people to think that God is universally more forgiving than other people, and that one’s underlying motives don’t matter at all for divine forgiveness. On the other hand, seeing God as a moral arbiter with direct insight into people’s thoughts and intentions might lead one to believe that the morality of one’s motives is more important for God’s decision to forgive than it is for other peoples’. These conceptions of God could also help explain why people might anticipate or experience different outcomes from receiving divine and interpersonal forgiveness. Belief in a morally 4 concerned God—whose conditional forgiveness demands moral improvement—should motivate people to change their character and behavior for the better, which should in turn improve their overall wellbeing by reducing anxiety about their relationship with God and spiritual standing. On the other hand, belief in an unconditionally loving God—whose forgiveness is a foregone conclusion—might not incentivize as much moral improvement as interpersonal forgiveness. People can hold multiple conceptions of God at once, even when they seem to compete with one another (Johnson et al., 2014; Sharp et al., 2017), but one of these concepts—unconditionally loving or morally concerned—might take precedence over the other in the context of seeking God’s forgiveness. We predict that Christians should expect that the role of motives in forgiveness and its downstream consequences changes based on whether God or a person is doing the forgiving, and that one or both of these broad conceptions of God can explain why. Below, we outline some key theoretical differences between divine and interpersonal forgiveness that stem from the relationship between mind perception and motives. Interpersonal Forgiveness Factors that influence interpersonal forgiveness can broadly be split into three categories: cognitions, affect, and constraints (Fehr et al., 2010). Cognitions refer to the forgiver’s—who is often the victim—thoughts, perceptions, and attitudes about the offense and the offender’s role in it. This is a sensemaking process through which the forgiver determines the nature of the offense and how the offender should be viewed or treated (Weick, 1995). The prototypical factors in this category include perceptions of harm severity, responsibility, and intentionality. Greater perceptions of harm caused by the offense predict 5 less forgiveness (Fincham et al., 2005; Raj & Wiltermuth, 2016). The more responsible the offender seems to be (Aquino et al., 2006; Merolla et al., 2013), and the more it seems that the offense was committed on purpose (Adams & Inesi, 2016; Struthers et al., 2008), the less likely a victim is to forgive the offender. General evaluations of the offender’s character also come into play here. Apologies can mitigate negative perceptions of offenders (Merolla et al., 2013)— especially when the offense was unintentional (Struthers et al., 2008) and when the apology helps the victim understand the offender’s perspective (Exline et al., 2008; Takaku, 2001; Takaku et al., 2001)—making victims more willing to forgive. Affective influences include the many emotions and moods victims feel in the aftermath of the offense (McCullough et al., 2007). While cognitive correlates refer specifically to the sensemaking process described above, affective correlates relate more directly to the victim’s emotional experience. Negative feelings directed toward the offender like anger tend to reduce a victim’s likelihood of forgiveness, whereas positive feelings like empathy enhance motivations to forgive (Worthington, 2006). These affective states can obviously influence victims’ cognitive perceptions of the offender and their perspective, and vice versa. Finally, constraints refer to the relational and social factors beyond the offense at hand that can impact victims’ motivations to forgive. Relationship closeness is one such factor. The more embedded the victim and offender are in a relationship, the more the victim sacrifices when that relationship ends (Donovan & Priester, 2020; McCullough et al., 1998). This can motivate the victim to forgive the offender to maintain or restore the relationship (Merolla et al., 2013). Social and moral norms can also encourage people to forgive. People will risk harm to themselves to maintain a positive social and moral reputation (Vonasch et 6 al., 2018), so it is unsurprising that victims may be motivated to forgive their offenders to the extent that they believe it will reinforce their image as a good and moral person (Berry et al., 2005; Van Tongeren et al., 2012). Researchers have extensively studied how cognitions, affect, and constraints impact victims’ willingness to forgive. But important questions remain in interpersonal forgiveness research, many of which have important implications for emerging work on divine forgiveness. First, to our knowledge there is little to no research that examines how motives impact forgiveness decisions. The concept of offender motives seems very similar to that of intentionality—which has been studied in-depth—but the two have meaningful distinctions. Intentionality is the extent to which an offender committed the offense on purpose. Unintentional offenses are accidents, but intentional offenses are deliberate and goal-directed (Gollwitzer, 1999). While much research has assumed that intentionality implies malice, that is not necessarily the case (Reeder et al., 2004). Regardless of one’s intentions, an offender can have morally good or bad motives for committing their offense. Murder can be exacted for selfish revenge or to defend one’s family or country, and this difference likely influences people’s willingness to forgive the killer. Second, most interpersonal forgiveness research focuses on the factors that influence whether victims actually forgive offenders, not whether offenders expect to be forgiven. While offenders in most interpersonal forgiveness exchanges will receive direct feedback from their forgiver, there are important exceptions, such as when a forgiver loses touch with the offender or even passes away. Do the same cognitions, affective experiences, and constraints that impact victims’ willingness to forgive also matter for offenders’ expectations of whether they have been forgiven? The latter of the two involves a different kind of mind 7 perception by the offender—they must determine not just whether the offense and their part in it are worthy of forgiveness, but whether the forgiver judges the situation similarly. Some research shows us that third-party observers’ expectations of a victim’s likelihood of forgiving an offender do not mirror victims’ actual forgiveness decisions (Green et al., 2008; Hashimoto & Karasawa, 2011), suggesting that perceptions of forgiveness may vary depending on the perceiver’s role in the offense. These open questions of motive and mind perception are ripe for exploration within interpersonal forgiveness research, but they also may be the key to determining whether divine forgiveness is truly distinct. Below, we unpack the conceptual similarities and differences between divine and interpersonal forgiveness and argue that mind perception and motive play a pivotal role in differentiating forgiveness from God and other people. Why Divine Forgiveness Is Distinct It's reasonable to assume that some aspects of interpersonal forgiveness might extend to divine forgiveness. For one, both processes work the same way from the offender’s point of view. The process of seeking forgiveness from God is still perceived as dyadic as it is in interpersonal exchanges (Woodyatt et al., 2022), and is still fundamentally about moral repair for the offender (Wenzel et al., 2021). Just as the thought of damaging their moral reputation influences people to forgive, it undoubtedly influences offenders to ask for both divine and interpersonal forgiveness. Dispositional perceptions of both types of forgiveness are also positively correlated with one another (Fincham & May, 2022), suggesting that people may perceive the two processes similarly. However, there are several cognitions and constraints that at least conceptually distinguish divine forgiveness from interpersonal forgiveness. People seeking interpersonal 8 forgiveness are usually asking for forgiveness from the victim of the offense (but see Fincham et al., 2005; Watanabe, 2018), but this is not necessarily the case for divine forgiveness. Although many theological accounts suggest God is personally offended or wounded by human sin, most of these offenses do not directly target God in the same way that they target other people. God is also likely a far more objective third-party than other forgivers because His decisions to forgive are not impacted by relationship maintenance motivations like other people’s often are, and because He should be more likely to care about both the victim’s and offender’s wellbeing. These differences should change the mental calculations believers engage in when determining whether an offense is forgivable by God. Aspects of one’s religious background can also influence divine forgiveness in different ways than interpersonal forgiveness. For instance, whether or not divine forgiveness is seen as conditional or unconditional is likely informed by theological upbringing (Fincham & May, 2021). While most branches of Protestantism emphasize the unconditionality of God’s forgiveness, Catholicism has clear prescriptions for how one can become worthy of forgiveness, like confessing one’s sins and atoning at the direction of a priest. People from theological traditions that outline clear conditions for God’s forgiveness may be more likely to experience and perceive divine forgiveness for themselves, so long as they follow such prescriptions. Perhaps most importantly, though, is the fact that divine forgiveness exchanges are not reciprocal like interpersonal forgiveness exchanges are. While offenders seeking interpersonal forgiveness often have clear feedback or cues from the victim that indicate whether they have been forgiven, offenders seeking divine forgiveness do not. Most believers would agree that God does not directly speak to people, so offenders who ask God to forgive 9 them must infer whether He has done so based on their internal experience or “signs” in their environment. This also means that meaning and paths to redemption are not co-constructed by the offender and the victim as they are in interpersonal forgiveness exchanges (Wenzel et al., 2021), but by solely the offender (and in some cases a religious authority like a priest). Consequently, people’s perceptions and experiences of divine forgiveness likely hinge on how they understand the mind of God—His attitudes, abilities, and concerns. Mind Perception and Motives We suggest that whether people treat divine and interpersonal forgiveness differently ultimately comes down to mind perception. The “problem of other minds” means that the minds of others are opaque to us; we can never directly access the contents of someone else’s mind, and are therefore left to perceive the thoughts and intentions of others (Gray et al., 2012). We mentalize about God just as much as—if not more so than—about other humans (Norenzayan et al., 2012). But do we perceive the mind of God and the minds of other humans differently? Some research suggests that the answer is, “no.” Children and adults implicitly do not differentiate the mental abilities of God compared to other humans (Heiphetz et al., 2016), and children under the age of five attribute false beliefs and ignorance to God as they do to other humans, only seeming to reason about God’s omniscience and infallible knowledge once they start kindergarten (Giménez-Dasí et al., 2005; Kiessling & Perner, 2014; Lane et al., 2010, 2012). When tasked with memorizing a set of stories featuring God, adult Christians incorrectly remembered God as suffering from human limitations like being unable to hear over the sound of a jet engine or unable to see into a dense forest (Barrett & Keil, 1996). Similarly, fMRI studies suggest that praying directly to God activates regions of 10 the brain associated with interpersonal communication, indicating that adults implicitly treat appeals to God and other humans similarly (Schjoedt et al., 2009). Adults even explicitly anthropomorphize God, often ascribing Him psychological and emotional states like anger or love (Johnson et al., 2014). On the other hand, God’s mind explicitly differs from the minds of other humans in important ways, and so divine and interpersonal forgiveness may differ too. We highlight two broad conceptions of God that may differentiate perceptions of divine and interpersonal forgiveness in their own unique ways—focusing on how God’s mind understands and treats people’s motives under each. God as Morally Concerned. Past social psychology research shows that people view God as the ultimate “moral agent”—a steadfast arbiter of punishment and reward (Gray & Wegner, 2010) and the very basis for what counts as right or wrong (Piazza & Landy, 2013; Simpson et al., 2016). Some evidence suggests that this moralizing view of God served a cultural evolutionary purpose. Following the Neolithic Revolution, humans began living in larger numbers but lacked the secular infrastructure to monitor and enforce cooperation (Johnson, 2016; Norenzayan et al., 2016; Norenzayan & Shariff, 2008). These large-scale societies were most likely to develop beliefs in moralistic high Gods like the Christian God, who could monitor people’s thoughts and behavior and punish antisociality (Lightner et al., 2022), and ultimately helped them proliferate by encouraging cooperation (Watts et al., 2015). Today, believing in a God that monitors and polices human morality makes people less likely to cheat or break the law (Aveyard, 2014; Randolph-Seng & Nielsen, 2007; Shariff & Norenzayan, 2011; Shariff & Rhemtulla, 2012). Most people around the world 11 view God as deeply concerned with our moral affairs, believing that it is necessary to believe in God to be a good person (Pew Research Center, 2020). We know that a morally concerned God discourages moral transgressions, but how do people believe He forgives us when we do transgress? Since our actions are clearly immoral in this situation—otherwise there’d be no transgression to forgive—this may make the morality of our motives all the more important. In one study, U.S. and Canadian Christians believed God was only more likely to punish a perpetrator if their motives for offending were immoral, regardless of the harm caused by their offense (McNamara et al., 2021), suggesting that internal motivations for wrongdoing may be particularly salient in perceptions of divine forgiveness. God’s concern for motives over outcomes is reflected throughout Christian doctrine. One of the most famous passages in the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount, places a radical emphasis on an individual’s motive—regardless of external behavior. Consequently, Christians are more likely to view mental states like motives as morally relevant and negatively evaluate actors with immoral thoughts (Cohen & Rozin, 2001). Christianity’s emphasis on having “good thoughts” and following God’s objective moral values may therefore lead people to believe that the goodness of one’s motives is more important when seeking divine than interpersonal forgiveness. Another attribute of a morally concerned God that might make motives more critical for divine forgiveness is His ability to see people’s motives directly. When seeking interpersonal forgiveness, people spend time explaining their behavior to convince others that their motives were good (or at least justified). In contrast, the omniscient Christian God knows offenders’ true intentions instantly. There’s no concealing or lying about your motives to an all-knowing being who monitors the morality of people’s thoughts. Indeed, God is seen 12 as having far more agency and mental capacity (i.e., special abilities like omniscience) than humans (Gray et al., 2007), and people behave more prosocially when reminded of God and other supernatural forces—who see not only one’s actions but their underlying motivations (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012; Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007; White et al., 2019). We suggest that coupling this understanding of God’s insight with His deep moral concern could lead people to believe that the true morality of one’s motives is even more important to divine forgiveness. Believing in a morally concerned God might also lead to differences in the perceived downstream outcomes of divine and interpersonal forgiveness. Many Christians believe that God’s forgiveness is essential not only for eternal salvation, but for individual moral development in this life (Fincham, 2020); they may therefore expect that divine forgiveness is necessary for an offender to change for the better (and for good). The relationship between divine forgiveness and moral development may also work in the opposite direction: a morally concerned God’s forgiveness may be conditional on one demonstrating moral character growth, which incentivizes people to improve their character and behavior. Furthermore, people may anticipate and experience considerable stress and anxiety about the state of their relationship with God if they feel that He has not forgiven them (Granqvist & Kirkpatrick, 2008; Rowatt & Kirkpatrick, 2002), making the relief of His forgiveness all the more a boon to their wellbeing. Another mechanism by which divine forgiveness from a morally concerned God might lead to greater personal improvement is through encouraging more reflection on one’s motives. Transgressions against others often evoke other-oriented emotions like guilt, but transgressions against God may be more likely to evoke self-oriented emotions like shame 13 (Fincham & May, 2021; Tangney, 1995b, 1995a), which cause people to reflect on their motivations (Deonna et al., 2012; Tangney et al., 2007). People may also believe that reflection demonstrates one’s willingness and ability to improve their moral character, which is particularly important to a morally concerned God. Christians may therefore introspect more about their motivations when seeking divine forgiveness, and as self-reflection leads to increased wellbeing (Stein & Grant, 2014), this reflection may itself enhance wellbeing and personal growth. We suggest that if U.S. Christians view God primarily as a morally concerned figure in the context of divine forgiveness, the morality of an offender’s motives should be more important to God’s forgiveness than it is to humans because of His heightened concern for and insight into people’s motives. Receiving divine forgiveness should also lead to more psychological wellbeing and personal improvement than receiving interpersonal forgiveness. But how do these perceptions of divine forgiveness change under a different conception of God? God as Unconditionally Loving. Though a moralistic, punitive conception of God may have been important historically for our cultural and social development, a more loving and benevolent conception of God seems to be more prevalent today. Studies with U.S. Christians find that people consistently rate God as more benevolent than morally punitive (Johnson et al., 2013, 2014, 2016), and visualize the face of God as more loving, too (Jackson et al., 2018). This modern adoption of a less punitive, more loving conception of God in the U.S. might be explained by the types of threat most present in our environment. Human-made threats like war and intergroup violence (Caluori et al., 2020) and ecological threats like famine or catastrophic weather events (Jackson et al., 2021) lead people to 14 endorse a more punitive and moralistic representations of God as a way to instill order and cooperation amidst chaos. Conversely, the presence of social threats from within one’s group like poverty, inequality, or lack of healthcare are associated with more loving and benevolent representations of God (Caluori et al., 2020). The threats that are most prevalent on U.S. soil today tend to be of the social-welfare variety rather than ecological threats or foreign conflicts, potentially making conceptions of God as unconditionally loving more common. Because of the prevalence of this loving representation of God among U.S. Christians, God’s forgiveness may seem almost entirely unrestricted—as long as you have faith in God and are sincerely sorry for your sins, God will forgive you. Even among Catholics, for whom God’s forgiveness is explicitly conditional, those conditions on His forgiveness are more to do with one’s actions moving forward—penance in the form of prayer or service—than with one’s past motivations. People also tend to believe that God knows that they are good people deep down, and consequently think He is less likely to punish them than other people (Lee et al., 2023). Similarly, believing in a more loving, benevolent version of God makes one more likely to report seeking and receiving divine forgiveness (Fincham & Maranges, 2024), indicating that people may believe that God’s all-loving status all but ensures that He is all-forgiving, too. Together, this may suggest that people believe an unconditionally loving God grants forgiveness irrespective of the morality of one’s motives for an offense. Though an unconditionally loving God is still omniscient, the impact of His insight on forgiveness is likely different than it is for a morally concerned God. Instead of closely monitoring the morality people’s internal motives for offending, having direct insight into people’s motives might make an unconditionally loving God seem more understanding of the 15 motivations behind people’s offenses. Having more empathy for an offender’s motives leads people to be more forgiving of their offender (Ma & Jiang, 2020), and people may see God’s all-knowing insight as the ultimate form of empathic perspective-taking. Viewing God as unconditionally loving would therefore suggest that His heightened insight into people’s motives should beget even more divine forgiveness, regardless of the moral goodness of an offender’s motives. An all-loving, all-forgiving God is not all sunshine and roses, though; seeing God as unconditionally loving may produce some unintended downstream consequences for divine forgiveness. Because there are no prerequisites for God’s forgiveness, people may be less motivated to improve their moral character and behavior after their initial offense. While belief in a loving God generally corresponds with more cooperative behavior (Johnson et al., 2013, 2016; Shepperd et al., 2019), it can also license people to act selfishly because they believe God will forgive them no matter what (Abrams et al., 2020; Cohen et al., 2006). For example, belief in a less punitive, more loving God predicts higher rates of cheating in economic games (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2011). Seeing God as unconditionally loving also removes the incentive to reflect on one’s motives, since there’s no need to demonstrate moral improvement to receive God’s forgiveness. People may therefore be less likely to improve their character and behavior after receiving divine versus interpersonal forgiveness. We suggest that if U.S. Christians view God primarily as an unconditionally loving figure in the context of divine forgiveness, the morality of an offender’s motives should be not at all important to God’s forgiveness. God should always be seen as far more forgiving than other people—in part because of his heightened insight and understanding—regardless 16 of the moral goodness of offenders’ motives. Receiving divine forgiveness should also lead to less reflection and personal improvement than receiving interpersonal forgiveness. Current Research Approach and Methodology We suggest that mind perception and motives are both critical factors that influence perceptions of both divine and interpersonal forgiveness. How people represent the mind of God influences the role that people expect motives to play in divine forgiveness. A morally concerned God’s forgiveness should be more contingent on the goodness of people’s motives, and should inspire more personal growth and behavior change, than interpersonal forgiveness. Conversely, an unconditionally loving God’s forgiveness should be granted regardless of offenders’ motives, but should inspire less personal growth and behavior change than interpersonal forgiveness. Across five studies, we examine how perceptions of God’s mind and their relationship with His concern for one’s motives differentiate perceptions of divine and interpersonal forgiveness. First, we examined the conditions under which perceptions of divine and interpersonal forgiveness differ. Study 1 tests whether an offender's good motives matter more or less for expectations of divine than interpersonal forgiveness, and if disclosing one's motives impacts these differences. Study 2 tests if people are more likely to report being forgiven when recalling asking for divine vs. interpersonal forgiveness, and whether God’s heightened insight into people’s motives and loving nature can explain why. We also test if these effects are dependent on the self-reported moral goodness of one's motives. And in Study 3, we manipulate perceived insight into motives and benevolence directly to test whether these factors alone differentiate people’s expectations of divine and interpersonal forgiveness. 17 Next, we tested how the perceived outcomes of divine and interpersonal forgiveness differ. Study 4 tests whether people expect offenders to exhibit more or less self-reflection and personal growth after seeking forgiveness from God versus another person. Finally, Study 5 examines whether recalling an experience of divine compared to interpersonal forgiveness predicts differences in self-reflection, personal growth, and psychological wellbeing in the aftermath of one’s offense. Our materials, data, and preregistered analyses for all studies can be found at https://shorturl.at/lLO23. Theoretical Contribution Divine forgiveness has long been overlooked in psychological research, but it is undoubtedly an integral part of many people’s lives. Here, we focus on the unique ways that people perceive god’s mind and how this can influence the role of motives in divine forgiveness. In doing so, we also examine how mind perception and motives impact expectations of interpersonal forgiveness, itself an important but understudied area of investigation. We believe that our research will help reveal the basic cognitive underpinnings that make perceiving God’s forgiveness possible and provide findings that will usher in an innovative line of research on the psychology of divine forgiveness. As with any complex interpersonal construct, divine forgiveness is likely understood differently depending upon who is doing the understanding, and relative to whom. Substantial research reveals that people think about concepts differently when they apply them to the self versus others (Hoorens, 1995; Horton, 2010; Perloff & Fetzer, 1986; Ross et al., 1977). One key distinction we explore throughout this program of research is: how do people perceive divine forgiveness working for other people in general, and how does this compare to how they perceive and experience divine forgiveness for themselves? We 18 therefore investigate how motives matter for perceptions divine forgiveness both when people are thinking about others’ transgressions and their own. Another distinction we explore in this research is how people's explicit beliefs and theology differ from their intuitions and implicit attitudes in predicting their experiences and expectations of divine forgiveness. As a team comprised primarily of social psychologists, it’s critical that we have added the disciplinary perspective of theologians and historians when designing and interpreting our studies. While it is often true that implicit attitudes reign supreme over explicit knowledge when it comes to predicting people’s judgments and behavior (Dienes & Perner, 1999; Nosek, 2007), one’s relationship with God is one realm in which explicit beliefs (obtained by exposure to theology) may precede or inform one’s intuitions. Research on “head knowledge” vs. “heart knowledge” in religion also shows that explicit and implicit beliefs differentially impact believers’ judgments and behaviors (Park & Carney, 2022). Consequently, we consider how believers’ stated, theological beliefs as well as their implicit attitudes and perceptions might impact their expectations and experiences of divine forgiveness. Antecedents of Divine and Interpersonal Forgiveness What are the conditions for receiving God’s forgiveness, and how do they differ from those necessary for receiving forgiveness from others? This set of studies investigates the role of motives in differentiating U.S. Christians’ perceptions of whether divine or interpersonal forgiveness has been or should be granted. Specifically, we examine whether the moral goodness of one’s motives is more or less important for expectations and experiences of divine and interpersonal forgiveness, exploring how these differences arise from unique representations of God’s mind. A morally concerned God’s forgiveness should be more contingent on the morality of offenders’ motives than interpersonal forgiveness. On 19 the other hand, an unconditionally loving God should be far more forgiving than other people, and the extent to which He forgives should not be impacted at all by an offender’s motives. Study 1: Insight and Importance for Others First, we tested whether and how perceptions of God’s insight into and concern for motives differentiate believers’ expectations of divine and interpersonal forgiveness for others in a mixed (within- and between-subjects) experiment. Participants responded to a series of scenarios in which we independently manipulated whether the offender 1) had a good or bad motive for their offense, and 2) disclosed their motive while asking for forgiveness from both God and another person. In one scenario, for example, participants read that Alex submitted a joint work project alone, earning all the credit and causing his coworker Jamie to be penalized for not contributing. Participants either read that Alex submitted the project alone to alleviate Jamie’s stress (good motive) or to show their boss that Jamie is a slacker (bad motive). When Alex later apologized to both God and Jamie, he either explained why he submitted the project alone (disclosure) or apologized without explaining his motives (no disclosure). How do motive goodness and disclosure impact people’s expectations of divine and interpersonal forgiveness? This depends on people’s perceptions of God’s mind. A morally concerned God should care more about offenders’ motives than other people do, granting more forgiveness for morally good motives and less forgiveness for immoral motives. But an unconditionally loving God’s forgiveness should not be impacted by motive goodness at all; He should instead be seen as consistently more forgiving than other people regardless of offenders’ motives. Finally, disclosing one’s motives should amplify the effect of motive 20 goodness on expectations of interpersonal forgiveness, but should not impact either conception of God’s forgiveness, since both have direct insight into people’s motives. Method Sample. We aimed to recruit a sample of 500 U.S. Christian participants via CloudResearch Connect for this within-subjects experiment, resulting in a scenario “trial”-level sample size of 10,000 that would provide adequate power to detect level-1 effects and interactions. We did not conduct a priori power analyses because doing so for MLMs without prior work to estimate effect sizes is extremely complex and can even lead to incorrect estimates and interpretations of effects (Raudenbush, 1997; Scherbaum & Ferreter, 2009), and we therefore chose our sample size conservatively. 501 participants took part in our study, but 5 were excluded from analyses because they failed more than 2 of the 10 scenario comprehension checks. This left us with a final sample size of 496 (Mage = 42.26, SDage = 14.07; 246 men, 248 women, 2 non-binary). 268 participants identified as broadly Christian, 138 as Catholic, and 73 as Protestant, and 17 as “Other” Christian (e.g., Baptist, Mormon/LDS, Jehovah’s Witness, etc.). Manipulation. This study used a 2 (forgiver: God, other person) X 2 (motive: good, bad) X 2 (disclosure: yes, no) mixed design. We created 10 scenarios depicting someone committing a minor offense (e.g., cancelling on a friend, taking credit for another’s work, harming an animal, etc.) and eventually seeking forgiveness. These scenarios represent a wide variety of moral offenses for which one would plausibly ask for either divine or interpersonal forgiveness, and that are not the subject of political or religious controversy (e.g., abortion, promiscuity, etc.). For each scenario, we created 4 different versions in which we independently manipulate whether the offender 1) has a morally good or bad motive for 21 committing their offense, and 2) does or does not disclose their motives to the forgiver. Across all 10 scenarios and their iterations, offenders were depicted as asking both God and another person in the scenario for forgiveness. Participants read and evaluated one randomly assigned iteration of each scenario. All scenarios and iterations are reported in Appendix 1.1. Measures. Our main outcome of interest was participants’ evaluation of how likely it is that the offender in each scenario would be forgiven. Participants responded to the question “How likely is it that [forgiver] will forgive [offender] for [offense]?” on a scale from 1 (not at all likely) to 7 (extremely likely) for both God and another person, consistent with past interpersonal forgiveness research (Darby & Schlenker, 1982; Orleans & Gurtman, 1984). Additionally, participants rated the morality of the offenders’ motives (1 extremely immoral – 7 extremely moral), the sincerity of the offenders’ apologies (1 not at all sincere – 7 extremely sincere), and whether the offender disclosed their motives in their apology (yes – no) so we could evaluate participants’ comprehension and the strength of our manipulations. Covariates. We also measured other relevant situation-level cognitions that influence victims’ likelihood of forgiving an offender—including harm severity, responsibility, and intentionality—(Fehr et al., 2010) and may similarly influence participants’ expectations of interpersonal and divine forgiveness. Participants evaluated how much harm the offense inflicted upon the victim, God, and someone else in three single-item measures on a scale from 1 (no harm at all) to 7 (a great deal of harm). Participants also rated how responsible the offender was for the offense, and how much the offender intended the offense, in two single-item measures on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). Finally, we assessed person-level constraints and affective perceptions that are associated with differences in interpersonal forgiveness—or theoretically related to 22 differences in divine forgiveness—including views of God as punitive or loving (Johnson et al., 2013, 2014), gender (Miller et al., 2008), and age (Carstensen et al., 2003; Heckhausen et al., 1989). Procedure. Participants read a randomly assigned version of all 10 scenarios in random order. After reading each scenario, participants first indicated whether the offender disclosed their motives in their apology. Then, they rated how likely they thought it was that God and another person in the scenario would forgive the offender, as well as how much harm the offense caused, how responsible the offender was, how intentional the offense was, how moral or immoral the offender’s motives were, and how sincere the offender’s apology was. At the end of the survey, participants completed person-level assessments including views of God, age, gender, and other demographics. Results Manipulation Checks First, we tested whether participants perceived the morally good and bad motives we created for each scenario as such with a random intercepts and slopes model predicting participant ratings of motive goodness. Ratings were nested within base scenarios, motive condition was entered as a fixed level-1 predictor, and the slope of motive condition was allowed to vary randomly across scenarios. Participants rated offenders’ motives in the good motive condition as significantly more morally good than those in the bad motive condition, b=3.49, β=.78, SE=.11, t(9.00)=32.00, p<.001. The slope of the relationship between motive condition and ratings of motive goodness only varied by -.11, demonstrating that across all scenarios, participants believed that the motives in the good condition were more moral than the motives in the bad condition. 23 Main Analyses To test our key predictions, we used a cross-classified random intercepts multi-level model (MLM), with ratings nested within forgiver type nested within participants and base scenarios. Forgiver type was entered as a fixed level-1 predictor, since participants rated likelihood of forgiveness for both God and the other person in each scenario. Goodness of motive and motive disclosure—as well as other scenario-level factors like ratings of harm, intention, and responsibility—were entered as fixed level-2 predictors. We also included a cross-level interaction between goodness of motive, motive disclosure, and forgiver type as a fixed predictor. Finally, participant-level factors like age, gender, and views of God as loving and punitive were entered as fixed level-3 predictors. As predicted, we found a significant three-way interaction between forgiver type, motive condition, and disclosure condition, b= -.68, β= -.14, SE=.09, t(9.36)= -7.50, p<.001. Probing this interaction further revealed that motive disclosure moderated the effect of motive condition differently for expectations of divine vs. interpersonal forgiveness (see Figure 1). Good motives predicted greater expectations of interpersonal forgiveness even when offenders kept their motives to themselves, b=.80, SE=.05, p<.001, but this effect was even greater when offenders did disclose their motives, b=1.40, SE=.05, p<.001. Interestingly, disclosing motives led to greater expectations of interpersonal forgiveness, regardless of whether an offender’s motives were morally good, b = .79, SE = .05, p < .001, or morally bad, b = .20, SE = .05, p < .001. 24 Figure 1. Mean ratings of likelihood of forgiveness by experimental conditions across participants and scenarios. Conversely, while good motives modestly predicted more expectations of forgiveness from God when offenders hid their motives, b = .18 SE = .05, p = < .001, there were no differences in expectations of divine forgiveness based on motive condition when offenders shared their motives during their apologies, b = .09, SE = .05, p = .06. Said differently, disclosing morally bad motives made God’s forgiveness seem more likely, b = .16, SE = .05, p < .001, but disclosing morally good motives to God didn’t impact expectations of forgiveness at all, b = .08, p = .10, SE = .05. These effects were robust to the inclusion of our situation- and participant-level covariates (see Table 1). 25 Table 1. Summary of Multilevel Regression Model for Variables Predicting Forgiveness. Note. Conditions are coded such that Divine Forgiver, Good Motives, and Disclosure are set to 1, and Human Forgiver, Bad Motives, and No Disclosure are set to 0. Expected Forgiveness b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 3.08 0.25 0.00 12.09 <0.001 Main Predictors Forgiver 1.95 0.05 0.43 42.53 <0.001 Motive 0.80 0.05 0.19 15.68 <0.001 Disclosure 0.20 0.05 0.09 4.21 <0.001 Forgiver * Motive -0.62 0.06 -0.15 -9.64 <0.001 Forgiver * Disclosure -0.04 0.06 -0.06 -0.57 0.568 Disclosure * Motive 0.60 0.07 0.04 9.09 <0.001 Forgiver * Motive * Disclosure -0.68 0.09 -0.05 -7.50 <0.001 Situation-Level Factors Harm to God -0.05 0.01 -0.05 -4.61 <0.001 Harm to Person -0.17 0.01 -0.21 -18.61 <0.001 Harm to Others -0.02 0.01 -0.02 -1.81 0.07 Responsibility -0.01 0.01 -0.01 -1.53 0.126 Intentionality -0.05 0.01 -0.07 -6.49 <0.001 Person-Level Factors Age 0.01 <.001 0.06 3.29 0.001 Gender (Female) -0.02 0.06 -0.01 -0.39 0.697 Loving Views of God 0.31 0.03 0.17 9.26 <0.001 Punitive Views of God 0.04 0.02 0.04 1.99 0.047 Random Effects Residual σ2 1.27 Between-Participant τ00 0.37 Between Scenario τ00 0.03 ICC 0.24 N participant 494 N scenario 10 Observations 9880 Marginal R2 / Conditional R2 0.402 / 0.545 26 Discussion Does God care about the moral goodness of one’s motives when granting forgiveness? Here, we show that people expect the morality of one’s motivations for committing an offense to matter more for interpersonal than divine forgiveness, consistent with an unconditionally loving God. But we also show that people still expect God to be more forgiving of offenders with morally good motives, consistent with a morally concerned God. Using our example scenario, God is more likely to forgive Alex for getting Jamie in trouble than Jamie is, regardless of Alex’s motives for submitting their project himself. However, God is still slightly more likely to forgive Alex if he submitted the project to alleviate Jamie’s stress than if he did so to get Jamie fired. While people believe God is generally much more forgiving than other people are, He is still at least somewhat concerned with the moral motivations behind people’s misdeeds, granting more forgiveness when people’s motives are morally good. We also demonstrate that whether an offender shares their motives in their apology can impact expectations of divine and interpersonal forgiveness differently. In general, disclosing motives mattered less for divine forgiveness than interpersonal forgiveness, suggesting that people believe God has greater insight into offenders’ motives than other people do. If an offender disclosed their motives—particularly if those motives were morally good—they were expected to receive more forgiveness from other people. On the other hand, sharing morally bad motives with God also slightly increased expectations for forgiveness. This might suggest that disclosing one’s bad motives is not about sharing motive information in divine forgiveness contexts, but rather about acknowledging the immorality of one’s motives and potentially demonstrating repentance. We see this as consistent with belief in a 27 morally concerned God who values moral development—of which true repentance is likely a critical component. Our findings suggest that U.S. Christians conceive of God as both morally concerned and unconditionally loving in the context of divine forgiveness—He is far more forgiving than other people, but the extent of His forgiveness is still contingent on the morality of offenders’ motives and their ability to demonstrate moral development in their apologies. Next, we test whether Christians report these same differences when recalling their own personal experiences asking for forgiveness from God and other people. Study 2: Importance and Introspection for the Self In Study 2, we examined whether differences in believers’ recollections of divine vs. interpersonal forgiveness could be explained by perceptions of their forgivers’ minds and the resulting impact of motives. Do people view God as more forgiving than other people in their own past experiences? Do they believe they received less forgiveness from God if their motives were immoral? Can these differences be explained by unique perceptions of God’s mind? Based on our findings from Study 1, we predicted that people who recalled an experience of seeking divine forgiveness would be more likely to report that they were ultimately forgiven, consistent with an unconditionally loving God. This effect should in part be explained by God’s more loving nature and greater perceived insight into people’s motives. Consistent with a morally concerned God and our prior findings, we also tested whether the link between perceived insight and forgiveness was moderated by participants’ perceptions of how moral their motives for offending were—such that greater insight leads to especially greater forgiveness when offenders’ motives are good. 28 Methods Sample. We recruited 512 U.S. Christian participants via CloudResearch Connect to participate in this study. Twenty-two participants failed to recall a time they asked either God or someone in their life for forgiveness, leaving us with a final sample of 490 (Mage = 41.76, SDage = 13.06; 174 men, 314 women, 2 non-binary). 313 participants identified as broadly Christian, 104 as Catholic, 63 as Protestant, and 10 as “Other” Christian (e.g., Baptist, Mormon/LDS, Jehovah’s Witness, etc.). Manipulation. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (118<n<131) in a 2(forgiver: divine, interpersonal) X 2(motive: good, bad) between-subjects design. We manipulate motive goodness here to ensure a wider distribution of motives for our analyses. Participants will be asked to recall a time that they did something immoral for either a morally bad or good reason and then sought forgiveness from either God or some person in their life. They will then describe this experience and the offense in as much or little detail as they choose. Participants in the interpersonal condition will also provide the first name of the person they sought forgiveness from. This name will be piped into question and item stems to make the questions more immersive and relevant to participants. Measures. Our key outcome measure assessed the extent to which participants perceive that they have been forgiven by the forgiver (i.e., God or another person in their life, depending on their condition). We measured this with an adapted version of the state forgiveness measure developed in (Brown & Phillips, 2005). This is a 7-item measure typically used to assess how much a participant forgives another person for a specific offense on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Here, we adapt this measure to assess how much participants believe that either God or the person they named in the recall 29 task actually forgave them for their offense. We also dropped two of the items in this scale inspired by McCullough et al.'s (1998) Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations (TRIM) scale, because they did not make sense when the participant is the offender, and particularly not when God is the forgiver (“[God/person name] hopes that I get what’s coming to me for what I did to them I,” “If [God/person name] saw me again, they would try to avoid interacting with I(R)”). This left us with a 5-item scale (“[God/person name] has forgiven me for what I did,” “[God/person name] feels angry towards me for what Iid (R),” “Despite my actions, [God/person name] does not feel ill-will toward me,” “[God/person] dislikes me because of whII did (R),” “[God/person name] feels warmly toward me in spite of what I did”). Ratings for each item were averaged together into one composite measure of perceived forgiveness for an offense (α = .87). Motive Goodness. To assess participants’ perceptions of the goodness of their motives for the offense that they recalled in the manipulation task, participants will rate their agreement with a series of statements assessing how morally good they believe their underlying motives to be (e.g., “I acted as I did for morally good reasons,” “My reasons for acting as I did were selfish I,” “I had good intentions for acting as I did,” etc.) on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Item ratings will be averaged into one composite score of perceived motive goodness (α = .88). Forgiver Mind Perception. Participants will also rate their agreement with a series of statements assessing how much their forgiver had insight into their true motives (e.g., “[God/person name] knew my true reasons for acting as I did without me having to tell them,” “If I didn’t tell [God/person name] why I did what I did, they would never truly know (R),” “[God/person name] has a deep understanding of the intentions that motivated my 30 behavior,” etc.) on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Item ratings will be averaged into one composite score of perceived insight into motives (α = .86). We also assessed the extent to which participants believed their forgiver was authoritative and punitive (α = .96) or loving and compassionate (α = .90) with the views of God measure we used as a covariate in Study 1 (Johnson et al., 2013, 2014) adapted to reference each participant’s forgiver (i.e., either God or the person they named). Covariates. We used all of the same situation- and person-level variables in Study 1 to use as potential covariates—including harm severity, intentionality, and responsibility, as well as participant age and gender—but we also added some other unique covariates to explore for the recall paradigm, including relationship closeness to the forgiver, perceptions that one’s forgiver believes their true self is good, and perceptions that one adequately repented and showed remorse to their forgiver. We assess participants’ perceived closeness to the forgiver using an adapted version of the Unidimensional Relationship Closeness Scale (URCS; Dibble et al., 2011), The URCS is an 11-item measure of general relationship closeness that we will adapt to include items such as “My relationship with [God/person name] is close,” “[God/person name] is a priority in my life,” and “[God/person name] and I have a strong connection.” We also dropped two of the items in this scale inspired by McCullough et al.'s (1998) Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations (TRIM) scale, because they did not make sense when God is the target close other (“When we’re apart, I miss God a great deal,” “God and I do a lot of things together”). Participants respond to all items on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and all ratings are averaged into one composite score for relationship closeness (α = .97). 31 Participants also rated the extent to which they believe their forgiver knows their true self is good with three items (“Deep down, [God/person name] knows that I'm a good person,” “Even though I may make mistakes, [God/person name] knows that my true self is good,” “[God/person name] knows that at my core, I am morally good”) on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Items were averaged together into one composite score representing participants’ true self “meta-perceptions” (α = .98). Finally, we assessed the extent to which participants believed that they had repented for their offense with three items (“I sincerely apologized to [God/person name] for what I did,” “I expressed to [God/person name] how much I regret what I did,” “I showed genuine remorse to [God/person name] for my actions,”) rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Items were averaged together into one composite score of perceived repentance (α = .98). Procedure. Participants will be randomly assigned to a recall task condition. After completing the recall task, participants completed the measures assessing perceived goodness of motives, perceived forgiver insight, perceived forgiveness, and all covariate measures. At the end of the survey, participants completed person-level assessments including age, gender, and other demographics. Results Do mind perception and motives differentiate people’s personal experiences of divine and interpersonal forgiveness? We conducted a series of regressions culminating in a mediation path model with conditional indirect effect estimates to test our key predictions. 32 Forgiver Mind Perception First, we tested whether people in the divine forgiveness condition (n = 254) believed that their forgiver (i.e., God) was more loving and had more insight into the true motives behind their offense than people in the interpersonal forgiveness condition (n = 236). In this and all analyses moving forward, forgiver condition was coded as a binary predictor, with the divine condition assigned a value of 1 and the interpersonal condition a value of 0. As predicted, simple linear regressions revealed that being in the divine forgiveness condition led to significantly greater perceptions of forgiver insight, b=2.27, β=.65, SE=.12, t(488)=18.81, p<.001, and loving views of forgiver, b=1.49, β=.53, SE=.11, t(488)=13.65, p<.001, than being in the interpersonal forgiveness condition. These effects remained when we controlled for our person- and situation-level covariates in a follow-up multiple regression (see full results in Appendices 2.1 and 2.2). Forgiveness Next, we tested whether people in the divine condition were more likely to perceive that they were forgiven than people in the interpersonal condition in a series of regression models. In line with our prior findings and consistent with an unconditionally loving God, recalling an experience asking God for forgiveness led to greater perceptions of being forgiven than recalling asking for forgiveness from another person, b=.97, β=.38, SE=.11, t(488)=9.18, p < .001. However, the effect of forgiver condition did not hold, b= -.09, β=-.04, SE=.12, t(486)=-.76, p =.45, when controlling for both perceived insight, b=.16, β=.22, SE=.03, t(486)=4.69, p<.001, and loving views of forgiver, b=.47, β=.53, SE=.04, t(486)=12.50, p<.001, suggesting that these perceptions of Gods mind may fully mediate the effect of condition on forgiveness. 33 We then tested whether the effect of perceived insight on forgiveness was qualified by an interaction with motive goodness in another multiple regression, consistent with a morally concerned God. While the effect of forgiver condition remained nonsignificant, b= -.04, β= -.02, SE=.12, t(484)= -.34, p=.74, there were significant main effects for perceived insight, b=.14, β=.20, SE=.03, t(484)=4.20, p<.001, motive goodness, b=.09, β=.13, SE=.02, t(484)=3.67, p<.001, and loving views of forgiver, b=.48, β=.53, SE=.04, t(484)=12.74, p<.001. However, there was no interaction between perceived insight and motive goodness as we had predicted, b=-.01, β=-.02, SE=.01, t(484)=-.60, p=.55. These effects held when controlling for our person- and situation-level covariates in a follow-up multiple regression (see full results of this model in Appendix 2.3). These results suggest that the more someone believes their forgiver—God or human—had clear knowledge of their motives for committing an offense, the more likely they are to believe that they have been forgiven regardless of how moral or immoral their motives were. This might reflect that people perceive a wholly unconditionally loving God in their own experiences of divine forgiveness. God’s insight leads to more forgiveness regardless of an offender’s motives because His insight makes him more empathetic and understanding of offenders (Ma & Jiang, 2020). But why would insight into an offender’s selfish, immoral motives lead even other people to be just as forgiving as knowledge of one’s morally good motives does? A more practical explanation for why motives don’t moderate the effect of perceived insight on forgiveness is that the distribution of perceived insight of one’s forgiver varies a lot depending on who one’s forgiver is. Participants in the interpersonal forgiver condition reported relatively low perceived forgiver insight on average (M = 3.88, SD = 1.61), whereas 34 those in the divine forgiver condition (M = 6.15, SD = 1.01) showed a strong skew towards high perceived forgiver insight. This means that our results largely reflect that God’s heightened insight predicts more forgiveness regardless of motive goodness, but not necessarily that this would extend to other people if they were perceived to be as insightful as God. We discuss this limitation more in depth in the discussion and in Study 3. Mediation Model Finally, we used path analysis to test whether the perceived insight and loving views of forgiver jointly mediate the effect of forgiver condition on forgiveness. We did not test for conditional indirect effects estimates based on motive goodness since our regression models yielded no evidence of moderation, but we did include motive goodness and our other person- and situation-level covariates as exogenous variables. We allowed loving views of forgiver and perceived insight into motives to covary with one another, and all pathways were fully saturated. The full results of this model are reported in Appendix 2.4. Consistent with our predictions, there was a significant indirect effect of forgiver condition on forgiveness through perceived insight, b=.28, β=.11, SE=.07, 95% CI’s[.15, .41], and loving views of forgiver, b=.40, β=.16, SE=.06, 95% CI’s[.27, .52]. The direct effect of forgiver condition on forgiveness was not significant, b=.19, β=.07, SE=.12, 95% CI’s[-.06, .43], indicating full mediation (see Figure 2). Together, perceived insight and loving views of forgiver explained 78.50% of the total effect of forgiver condition on perceived forgiveness. This suggests that people may only view God as more forgiving in their personal experiences to the extent that he is more loving and knowledgeable of their motives than other people. 35 Figure 2. Path model of the effect of forgiver recall condition on perceived forgiveness through perceived insight into motives and loving views of forgiver, controlling for all situation- and person-level covariates as exogenous variables. Discussion Our results suggest that Christians see God as more forgiving than other people, and that this is most likely explained by His more loving nature and heightened insight into people’s motives for offending—consistent with an unconditionally loving God. People who recalled a time they asked God for forgiveness reported experiencing greater forgiveness than those who recalled a time they asked another person in their life for forgiveness. This effect was fully explained by people’s perceptions that God has more insight into their motives and is more benevolent and compassionate than other human forgivers. However, the goodness of one’s motives did not impact these results at all, suggesting that greater insight into one’s motives leads to more forgiveness regardless of how selfish or selfless those motives are. There are a few potential explanations for these findings. For one, participants near universally believed that God had direct insight into their motives, but seldom perceived the other forgivers to be as insightful as God. This means that while motives might not impact perceptions of God’s forgiveness, they may impact perceptions of interpersonal forgiveness 36 if people perceived these other forgivers as having the same knowledge and access to people’s motives as God does. On the other side of the coin, most participants believed that their interpersonal forgivers had relatively little insight into their motives. Simply said, the goodness of one’s motives cannot impact someone’s decision to forgive if they have no knowledge of those motives. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family or to spite the baker you hate makes no difference to the baker’s decision to forgive you if he does not know why you stole his bread. Together, these factors might have masked the importance of motive goodness to people’s perceptions of whether they have been forgiven. We address these factors directly in the next experimental study. Our findings from Study 2 suggest that when recalling their own experiences asking God for forgiveness, Christians conceive of God as entirely unconditionally loving and not at all morally concerned. In Study 3, we test the causal mechanism of perceived insight and loving nature to examine whether these perceptions of mind impact divine and interpersonal forgiveness differently. Study 3 Do U.S. Christians expect other people to be as forgiving as God when we make their minds more God-like? Here, we reconcile conflicting findings from Studies 1 and 2 about the role of motives in an experiment using our example scenario from Study 1 about Alex, an employee who gets his coworker Jamie in trouble with their boss. We test whether manipulating two key aspects of God’s mind that are important for perceptions of divine forgiveness—insight into motive and loving nature—changes expectations of Jamie’s forgiveness, too. We predicted that making Jamie more loving and compassionate and giving him direct insight into Alex’s motives would make people believe that Jamie is just as likely 37 to forgive Alex as God. We also tested whether Alex’s motives still impacted expectations of Jamie’s forgiveness when Jamie is as all-knowing and -loving as God. Method Sample. An a priori power analysis revealed that we would need at least 1,145 participants to achieve 95% power to detect a small effect (f2 = .02). We were able to recruit 1,093 U.S. Christians via CloudResearch Connect to take part in our study (Mage = 41.03, SDage = 13.83; 420 men, 672 women, 1 non-binary). 630 participants identified as broadly Christian, 287 as Catholic, and 131 as Protestant, and 45 as “Other” Christian (e.g., Baptist, Mormon/LDS, Jehovah’s Witness, etc.). Manipulation. This study used a between subjects design with a total of 10 independent conditions (107 < n’s < 111) in a [2 (person, insight: high, low) X 2 (person, IF love: high, low) + 1(God)] X 2 (motive: good, bad). Across all conditions, participants read a scenario pulled from the set of 10 we developed for Study 1, in which an employee—Alex—submits a joint project alone, earning all the credit and causing another employee he collaborated with—Jamie—to be penalized for not contributing. In half of the conditions, Alex had a morally good motive for submitting the project alone—to alleviate Jamie’s stress—and in the other half, he had an immoral motive for doing so—to show their boss that Jamie is a slacker. Participants in two of the conditions evaluated how much they anticipated God would forgive Alex, while those in the other 8 conditions received additional information about Jamie before evaluating how much they expected Jamie would forgive Alex. Depending on the insight and love conditions, participants read that Jamie was generally either very kind and compassionate or very spiteful and easy to anger, and could 38 either read people’s minds or has difficulty knowing what people are thinking. All versions of this scenario are reported in Appendix 3.1. Measures. Our main outcome of interest was the extent to which participants expected that the offending employee would be forgiven by the forgiver (i.e., either God or the other employee). We measured this with an adapted version of the 5-item state forgiveness measure we used in Study 2 (e.g., “[God/Jamie] will forgive Alex for what I did,” “[God/Jamie] will still feel angry towards Alex for what he did I,” “Despite his actions, [God/Jamie] will not feel ill-will toward Alex,” etc.). Ratings for each item were averaged together into one composite measure of perceived forgiveness for an offense (α = .95). We also adapted the measures of perceived motive goodness (α = .97), perceived forgiver insight into motives (α = .94), and loving (α = .97) and punitive (α = .92) views of forgiver that we used in Study 2 to reference the forgiver and offender in the scenario. Finally, we used all the same situation- and person-level covariates from Study 1—including harm severity, intentionality, sincerity, responsibility, as well as participant age and gender. Procedure. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the 10 scenario conditions. After reading the scenario and completing a comprehension check, participants reported their perceptions of forgiver insight, motive goodness, punitive and loving views of forgiver, expectations of forgiveness, and all covariate measures. At the end of the survey, participants completed person-level assessments including age, gender, and other demographics. 39 Results Manipulation Check First, we tested whether our interpersonal forgiver manipulations successfully altered perceived forgiver insight and loving views of forgiver with a series of multiple regressions, wherein insight condition, loving condition, motive condition, and the interactions between the three were all predictors. Participants who read that Jamie could read minds thought he had significantly more insight into Alex’s motives than participants who read that Jamie has difficulty knowing what people are thinking, b=3.87, β=.86, SE=.15, t(868)=26.04, p<.001. None of the other manipulations or interactions between them predicted perceptions of forgiver insight. Also as expected, participants who read that Jamie was generally kind and compassionate viewed him as significantly more loving than participants who read that Jamie was generally spiteful and quick to anger, b=2.24, β=.63, SE=.17, t(868)=13.076, p<.001. However, there was also a significant interaction between insight condition and motive condition, b=.64, β=.16, SE=.24, t(868)=2.66, p=.01, such that being able to read the offender’s mind predicted significantly higher loving views of forgiver when the offender had morally good motives, b=.62, SE=.12, p<.001, but not when the offender had immoral motives, b= -.05, SE=.12, p=.66. These results suggest that while our interpersonal forgiver manipulations were generally successful, they may have had some unintended effects on perceptions they were not designed to manipulate. The full results of these models can be found in Appendices 3.2 and 3.3. Interpersonal Forgiveness We then tested how these interpersonal forgiver manipulations impacted expectations of forgiveness using the same multiple regression model format (see Table 2). Participants in 40 the high loving condition expected that Jamie would be more likely to forgive Alex than participants in the low loving condition, b=1.35, β=.44, SE=.17, t(868)=8.12, p<.001. There was also a significant interaction between insight condition and motive condition, b=1.14, β=.32, SE=.23, t(868)=4.88, p<.001. This effect was similar to that in the model predicting loving views of forgiver, such that participants who read that Jamie could read people’s minds expected Jamie to be more likely to forgive Alex when his motives were morally good, b=1.16, SE=.12, p<.001, but not when his motives were morally bad, b= -.22, SE=.12, p=.06. Jamie was therefore expected to be the most forgiving in the high insight/high love/good motives condition. These effects were robust to the inclusion of our covariates (see Appendix 3.4). Table 2. Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Experimental Conditions Predicting Forgiveness. Expected Forgiveness b SE β t-value p (Intercept) 3.04 0.12 0 25.98 <0.001 Insight Condition -0.25 0.17 0.15 -1.5 0.134 Loving Condition 1.35 0.17 0.49 8.12 <0.001 Motive Condition 0.02 0.16 0.24 0.15 0.882 Insight Condition * Loving Condition 0.06 0.23 0.05 0.26 0.796 Insight Condition * Motive Condition 1.14 0.23 0.22 4.88 <0.001 Loving Condition * Motive Condition 0.05 0.23 0.05 0.2 0.844 Insight Condition * Loving Condition * Motive Condition 0.48 0.33 0.04 1.45 0.148 Observations 876 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.381 / 0.376 Note. Conditions are coded such that high insight, high loving, and good motives are set to 1, and low insight, low loving, and bad motives are set to 0. 41 Divine Forgiveness But how do these perceptions of the interpersonal forgiver compare to perceptions of God? We compared loving views of forgiver, perceived forgiver insight, and expectations of forgiveness between the divine and interpersonal forgiveness conditions with a series of multiple regressions. Motive condition, dummy-coded variables for the four interpersonal forgiver conditions, and the interaction between them were entered as predictors. Here, we focus primarily on how the God conditions compare to the high insight/high loving conditions, since these comparisons were of most theoretical interest for our hypotheses, but the full results of these models are reported in Appendices 3.5-A3.8. Participants perceived God as having significantly more insight into Alex’s motives than the loving, mind-reading version of Jamie, b= -.36, β= -.06, SE=.15, t(1083)= -2.38, p=.02, and this effect was not moderated by motive condition, b=.13, β=.02, SE=.21, t(1083)=.64, p=.52. God was also seen as more loving than this version of Jamie, b= -1.27, β= -.27, SE=.17, t(1083)= -7.70, p<.001, but unsurprisingly given our previous analyses, this was qualified by a significant interaction with motive condition, b=.60, β=.10, SE=.23, t(1083)=2.57, p=.01. Participants thought God was more loving than Jamie even when Alex’s motives were morally good, b=.67, SE=.17, p<.001, but especially so when Alex’s motives were immoral, b=1.27, SE=.17, p<.001. While our insight and loving manipulations increased participants’ perceptions of Jamie’s insight into Alex’s motives and loving nature, they did not make Jamie as insightful or loving as God. Participants expected the loving, mind-reading Jamie to be significantly less forgiving of Alex than God, b= -1.67, β= -.40, SE=.16, t(1083)= -10.51, p<.001, but this effect was moderated by motive condition, b=1.25, β=.22, SE=.23, t(1083)=5.53, p<.001 (see Figure 3). 42 The expected gap between God’s and Jamie’s forgiveness was much smaller when Alex’s motives were morally good, b=.43, SE=.16, p=.05, compared to when his motives were immoral, b=1.67, SE=.16, p<.001. Interestingly, people also expected God to be less forgiving when Alex’s motives were bad, b= -.44, SE=.16, p=.04, echoing our findings in Study 1 suggesting that while motives matter less to God’s forgiveness than to other people’s, they can still impact His decisions to forgive. Participants also expected Jamie to be just as forgiving when Alex’s motives were morally good as God was when his motives were immoral, b= -.02, SE=.16, p=1.00. These effects were robust to the inclusion of our covariates (see Appendix 3.8). Figure 3. Mean expectations of forgiveness by experimental conditions. 43 Mind Perception and Forgiveness Finally, we also tested whether participants’ perceptions of forgiver insight, motive goodness, loving views of forgiver, and the interactions between the three predicted expectations of forgiveness above and beyond whether the forgiver was God or a human in another multiple regression. This reflected a more direct test of our hypothesis and was particularly important given that even in the high insight/high loving condition. The full results of this model are presented in Appendix 3.9. There was a significant three-way interaction, b= -.01, β= -.001, SE=.002, t(1083)= -2.16, p=.03 (see Figure 4). When participants believed that Alex’s motives were morally good (+1SD), perceived forgiver insight predicted greater expectations of forgiveness, regardless of whether the forgiver was seen as relatively loving (+1SD), b=.12, SE=.03, p<.001, or unloving, b=.18, SE=.03, p<.001. But perceived insight had no impact on expectations of forgiveness when participants believed that Alex’s motives were immoral (-1SD), regardless of whether they thought the forgiver was loving (+1SD), b=.01, SE=.03, p=.64, or unloving, b=-.04, SE=.03, p=.12. Even when accounting for these effects, participants in the God conditions still expected more forgiveness than participants in the other conditions, b=.70, β=.17, SE=.10, t(1083)=7.04, p<.001, which suggests that there is another factor besides perceived insight and loving nature that explains why God is seen as more forgiving than people. These effects hold when controlling for our key covariates (see Appendix 3.10). 44 Figure 4. The relationship between perceived forgiver insight (mean centered) and expectations of forgiveness for participants whose scores on loving views of forgiver and motive goodness were either 1 standard deviation above or below the mean. Discussion Is God seen as more forgiving simply because He is more loving and has more insight into people’s motives than humans? Here, we replicate our findings on divine forgiveness from Study 1. God is consistently seen as very forgiving regardless of an offender’s motives—in line with an unconditionally loving God—but He is still slightly more forgiving when an offender has morally good motives—consistent with a morally concerned God. This indicates that people consistently apply both concepts of God to their expectations of divine forgiveness for other people. Our findings also suggest that even when humans are given the same insight into motives and loving nature as God, they are not seen as all-forgiving. People expected that a 45 mind-reading, loving Jamie would still care about the morality of an offender’s motives—forgiving less when their motives are immoral—to a greater extent than God does. Only when an offender’s motives are morally good did people expect a human forgiver with supernatural insight and loving character to be as forgiving as God. However, insight into motives and loving nature still increase expectations of interpersonal forgiveness in interesting ways. Consistent with our findings in Study 1, people expect that having more insight into an offender’s motives only impacts forgiveness when an offender’s motives are good. This suggests that offenders only stand to gain from sharing their motives, as people expect others are no less likely to forgive when they know someone’s immoral motivations, but are much more likely to forgive when they know someone’s moral motivations. We also find that people are more likely to expect someone to be forgiving when they are loving and kind regardless of an offender’s motives, consistent with our results from Study 2. Across Studies 1-3, we show that differences in mind perception and their impact on forgivers’ perceived concern for offenders’ motives differentiate U.S. Christians’ perceptions of divine and interpersonal forgiveness. When evaluating the likelihood that others will receive forgiveness, people respond in a way that is consistent with both unconditionally loving and morally concerned concepts of God’s mind. People expect that God is far more likely to forgive than other people irrespective of offenders’ motives, but also expect that he rewards morally good motives with even more forgiveness. On the other hand, people seem to only endorse an unconditionally loving conception of God when recalling their own experiences of divine forgiveness, believing that God granted them forgiveness unconditionally because of His all-loving, all-knowing nature. In the next set of studies, we 46 shift gears and examine whether people expect and experience different outcomes after receiving divine and interpersonal forgiveness. Consequences of Divine vs. Interpersonal Forgiveness How do the perceived outcomes of divine and interpersonal forgiveness differ? This set of studies examines whether U.S. Christians expect and experience greater moral development and psychological wellbeing after receiving forgiveness from God or from other people, and whether these differences depend on the moral goodness of one’s motives. We argue that different representations of God’s mind can explain whether people perceive that divine forgiveness leads to more or less positive outcomes for offenders than interpersonal forgiveness. A morally concerned God should encourage more reflection and moral development than human forgivers, particularly when an offender’s motives are immoral. But an unconditionally loving God who forgives no matter what should incentivize less reflection and moral development than human forgivers. Study 4: Introspection for Others Here, we investigated whether U.S. Christians expect others to reflect and grow more when seeking divine or interpersonal forgiveness. Participants read a similar set of scenarios to those in Study 1 and evaluated 1) how much the offender would reflect on their motives in the process of seeking forgiveness, and 2) how much their character and behavior would improve if they received forgiveness. If people view God as a morally concerned forgiver, they should perceive offenders as more reflective and more likely to exhibit positive behavioral and character change when receiving divine forgiveness compared to interpersonal forgiveness—particularly when their motives are immoral. But if people view God as an unconditionally loving forgiver, they should perceive offenders as less reflective 47 and less likely to change their behavior and moral character for the better when receiving divine versus interpersonal forgiveness. Methods Sample. We recruited 504 U.S. Christian participants via CloudResearch Connect for the same rationale as Study 1. We excluded 4 participants who failed more than 2 of our 10 scenario comprehension checks, resulting in a final sample of 500 (Mage = 39.67, SDage = 13.29; 226 men, 273 women, 1 non-binary). 297 participants identified as broadly Christian, 130 as Catholic, and 57 as Protestant, and 16 as “Other” Christian (e.g., Baptist, Mormon/LDS, Jehovah’s Witness, etc.). Manipulation. We use the same 10 scenarios as in Study 1, this time leveraging a 2 (forgiver: God, person) X 2 (motive: good, bad) design resulting in 4 versions of each scenario. Participants still read that the offender wanted to apologize to both God and the other person in the scenario, but we focused our target questions about growth and reflection on only one randomly selected forgiver. We removed the motive disclosure conditions for this study because the forgiver’s perceived insight into the offender’s motives should only impact their decision to forgive, not perceptions of the offender’s reflection and growth during the process of obtaining forgiveness. However, we opted to keep the goodness of motive conditions because we suspect that they may impact perceptions of how much growth and reflection people are capable of. Using our example scenario from Studies 1 and 3, participants still read that Alex submitted a project he worked on with Jamie himself either to show their boss that Jamie is a slacker (bad motive) or to alleviate Jamie’s stress (good motive). Later, Alex felt guilty for getting Jamie in trouble and planned to apologize to both God and Jamie. However, 48 participants only rated the extent to which they believed Alex would reflect, improve their moral character, and commit the same offense again in the process of seeking forgiveness from one of these figures—either God or Jamie. Measures. Our key outcomes were participants’ perceptions of 1) how much offenders would reflect on their motives for their offense in the process of seeking forgiveness, and 2) how much offenders’ character and behavior would improve after receiving forgiveness. To measure perceived introspection, we asked participants how much they thought the offender would reflect on their motives before asking for forgiveness on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (a great deal). To measure anticipated change in behavior, we asked participants how likely it is that the offender would commit the same offense again after receiving forgiveness on a scale from 1 (not at all likely) to 7 (extremely likely), such that lower scores exhibit more positive behavior change. We measured anticipated character growth using an adapted version of the perceived moral character measure in Gamez et al. (2020), in which participants evaluated how much they thought each offender’s character would change after receiving forgiveness on 5 morally relevant traits—honesty, fairness, courage, generosity, and humility—on a scale from -3 (much less) to +3 (much more) with a midpoint at 0 (no change). Character ratings were averaged into one composite measure of moral character change (α = .91). Finally, we also measured the same situation- and person-level variables as in Study 1 to use as potential covariates, including harm severity, intentionality, and responsibility, as well as participant age, gender, and views of God as punitive (α = .90) or loving (α = .94). Procedure. Participants read a randomly assigned version of all 10 scenarios in random order. Each scenario first described the offense and explained that the offender 49 wished to apologize and seek forgiveness from both God and their victim. Participants then reported their perceptions of harm severity, intentionality, and responsibility. Then, participants were told to focus on one of the forgivers—either God or the victim—and evaluate how much they expected the offender to reflect on their motives before receiving forgiveness, as well as how much the offender’s behavior and character would improve after being forgiven. At the end of the survey, participants will complete person-level assessments including views of God, age, gender, and other demographics. Results Manipulation Check First, we re-assessed whether participants in this study perceived the morally good and bad motives we created for each scenario as such with a random intercepts and slopes model predicting participant ratings of motive goodness. Ratings were nested within base scenarios, motive condition was entered as a fixed level-1 predictor, and the slope of motive condition was allowed to vary randomly across scenarios. Once again, participants rated offenders’ motives in the good motive condition as significantly more moral than those in the bad motive condition, b=3.22, β=.74, SE=0.15, t(9.00)=21.70, p<.001. The slope of the relationship between motive condition and ratings of motive goodness only varied by .20, demonstrating that across all scenarios, participants believed that the motives in the good condition were more moral than the motives in the bad condition. Main Analyses We used a set of cross-classified, random intercepts and slopes MLMs to test our key predictions, with ratings nested within participants and base scenarios. Each model focused on one of our key outcomes: introspection, behavior change, or character change. Forgiver 50 type, goodness of motive, and the interaction between the two—as well as scenario ratings of harm, intention, and responsibility—were entered as fixed level-1 predictors. Participant-level factors like age, gender, and views of God as loving and punitive were entered as fixed level-2 predictors. We predicted that people would expect offenders to introspect and grow more in the process of seeking divine compared to interpersonal forgiveness, and that these effects would be amplified when the offender had morally bad motives for their offense. Counter to our predictions, there were no differences in expectations of reflection based on whether the offender asked God or another person for forgiveness, b= -.10, β= -.03, SE=.05, t(4640.20)= -1.84, p=.07. There was also no significant interaction between forgiver type and motive condition, b=.10, β=.03, SE=.07, t(4637.40)=1.41, p=.16. However, there was a significant main effect of motive condition, b= -.51, β= -.16, SE=.05, t(4639.84) = -9.82, p<.001, such that participants anticipated that offenders with morally good motives would be less likely to reflect on their motives than offenders with morally bad motives. But these effects changed drastically when we controlled for our key covariates. While motive condition no longer predicted reflection expectations, b= -.04, β= -.01, SE=.06, t(4782)= -.65, p=.51, people expected offenders to reflect significantly less after asking God for forgiveness compared to another person, b= -.10, β= -.03, SE=.05, t(4636)= -1.96, p=.05, consistent with an unconditionally loving representation of God’s mind. The full results of this model are displayed in Appendix 4.1. Expectations of behavioral and character change also differed by forgiver and motive goodness. As predicted, we found a significant interaction between forgiver type and motive goodness on both moral character change, b= -.13, β= -.05, SE=.04, t(4605.40)= -2.81, p=.005, and likelihood of reoffense, b=.16, β=.04, SE=.08, t(4647.22)=1.93, p=.05. When an 51 offender had a morally good motive for their offense, there were no differences in their expected moral character change, b= -.02, SE=.03, p=.49, or likelihood of reoffense, b= -.04, SE=.06, p=.54, based on forgiver type. But when an offender’s motives were morally bad, people expected them to become more moral, b=.10, SE=.03, p<.001, and less likely to commit their offense again, b= -.19, SE=.06, p<.001, after receiving divine rather than interpersonal forgiveness, consistent with a morally concerned representation of God’s mind (see Figure 5). These results were robust to the inclusion of our key covariates as well as the effects of expected reflection (see Appendices 4.2-4.3). Figure 5. Mean expectations of moral character change (panel A) and likelihood of reoffense (panel B) by experimental conditions across scenarios and participants. 52 Discussion Our results suggest that Christians apply a combination of both unconditionally loving and morally concerned conceptions of God when evaluating the outcomes of divine forgiveness for other people. Participants expected offenders to reflect on the motives behind their offense less when asking God for forgiveness than when asking a person for forgiveness, in line with an unconditionally loving God that forgives all regardless of one’s motives. However, participants also anticipated that offenders would exhibit more positive change in their moral character and behavior after asking God for forgiveness, particularly when offenders’ motives were immoral. This suggest that people still expect God to be a morally concerned forgiver that incentivizes offenders with immoral motives to become better people. While people expect others to reflect on their reasons for wrongdoing less when seeking God’s forgiveness, they also expect that God’s forgiveness will inspire greater moral development. But do people still view God as both unconditionally loving and morally concerned in their personal experiences seeking His forgiveness? We test this in the next study. Study 5: Introspection for the Self In the previous study, we showed that U.S. Christians expect others to reflect less on their motives—but show more positive character and behavior change—when asking God for forgiveness than when asking a person. Here, we test whether people report these same differences in the consequences of divine and interpersonal forgiveness when recalling their own experiences. Participants engaged in the same recall task as in Study 2, but instead of assessing perceived forgiveness as our main outcome, we assessed the extent to which participants reflected on their motives for their past offense, engaged in opportunities for self-improvement, and experienced psychological wellbeing. If people view God as an 53 unconditionally loving forgiver, then those who sought divine forgiveness should show less introspection on their motives and engagement in personal growth than those who sought forgiveness from other people. On the other hand, people who asked God for forgiveness should demonstrate greater introspection, which in turn begets greater psychological wellbeing and intentions for personal growth, than those who asked people for forgiveness—particularly when they believe their motives for offending were immoral. Methods Sample. We recruited 500 U.S. Christian participants via CloudResearch’s Connect to participate in this study. Ten participants failed to recall a time they asked wither God or someone in their life for forgiveness, resulting in a final sample of 490 (Mage = 41.79, SDage = 14.21; 226 men, 263 women, 1 non-binary). 270 participants identified as broadly Christian, 123 as Catholic, 79 as Protestant, and 18 as “Other” Christian (e.g., Baptist, Mormon/LDS, Jehovah’s Witness, etc.). Manipulation. Participants were randomly assigned to the same recall conditions from Study 2 (i.e., 2(forgiver: divine, interpersonal) X 2(motive: good, bad)). The recall task is identical to that of Study 2. Measures. Our main outcomes of interest were introspection, personal growth intentions, and psychological wellbeing. We measured introspection in two ways: behaviorally and through self-report. For the behavioral measure of introspection, participants were asked to explain the reasons why they committed their offense in as much or as little detail as they wished in a free-response question. We reminded them that their responses were confidential and could not be linked back to their identity. We used the word count of each participant’s response to approximate introspection, such that more words 54 demonstrated more reflection on their motives—either in that moment or at the time of their offense. For the self-report measure of introspection, participants completed an adapted version of the Self-Reflection subscale of the Short Form Self-Reflection and Insight Scale (SRIS; Silvia, 2022). This subscale consisted of 6 items evaluated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). We adapted this scale so that participants were prompted to evaluate these items in reference to when they sought forgiveness for their offense (e.g., “Please rate your agreement with the following statements. Before asking [God/person name] for forgiveness…”) and so that items were phrased in the past tense (e.g., “I frequently examined my feelings about what I did,” “I often thought about why I did what I did,” “It was very important to me to understand what my reasons were for doing what I did,” etc.). All item ratings were averaged into one composite score for self-report introspection (α = .94). We assessed participants’ personal growth intentions after the recall manipulation with an adapted version of the Intentional Behavior Subscale of the revised Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS-II; Robitschek et al., 2022). This subscale consists of 4 items (“I take every opportunity to grow as it comes up,” “I actively work to improve myself,” “I am constantly trying to grow as a person,” “I look for opportunities to grow as a person”) evaluated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). We adapted this measure so that participants were prompted to think about these statements in reference to their offense (e.g., “Please rate your agreement with the following statements. After asking for [God/person name]’s forgiveness…”) All item ratings were averaged into one composite score for personal growth intentions (α = .94). 55 We measured psychological wellbeing using an adapted version of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS; Tennant et al., 2007). This is a 14-item measure (e.g., “I’ve been feeling optimistic about the future,” “I’ve been feeling good about myself,” “I’ve been feeling confident,” etc.) evaluated on a scale from 1 (none of the time) to 5 (all of the time). We adapted this measure so that participants evaluated these statements in reference to their offense (e.g., “Please rate your agreement with the following statements. After asking for [God/person name]’s forgiveness…”). Item ratings were summed together into one composite score for psychological wellbeing ranging from 14 to 70. Finally, we included all situation- and person-level covariates and our measures of perceived motive goodness and perceived forgiveness from Studies 2 and 3. Procedure. Participants were randomly assigned to a recall task condition. After completing the recall task, they were prompted to write about their underlying motivations for committing their offense. Next, they reported their self-reflection, personal growth intentions, psychological well-being, and perceived goodness of motives, as well as all situation-level covariates. At the end of the survey, participants completed person-level assessments including views of their forgiver as loving (α = .96) and punitive (α = .90), age, gender, and other demographics. Results We tested whether self-report and behavioral introspection simultaneously mediated the effect of recall condition on personal growth intentions and psychological wellbeing with a series of fully saturated path models with conditional indirect effects estimates. If people viewed God as a morally concerned figured, we predicted that those who recalled a time they asked God for forgiveness would report greater personal growth intentions and psychological 56 wellbeing than those in the interpersonal recall conditions, at least in part because they report and demonstrate more reflection on the motives underlying their original offense. This should be especially true for people who self-reported immoral motives for their offense. But if people viewed God as an unconditionally loving forgiver, than those recalling divine forgiveness should show weaker intentions for personal growth and less reflection on their motives for offending. Contrary to both of our predictions, participants showed no differences in self-reported introspection, b=.20, β=.07, SE=.12, t(486)=1.60, p=.11, or behavioral introspection, b= -.14, β= -.07, SE=.09, t(486)= -1.52, p=.11, based on forgiver condition. Surprisingly, both our measures of introspection were unrelated to psychological wellbeing, b’s<.24, β’s<.03, p’s>.49, and only self-reported introspection predicted positive growth intentions, b=.44, β=.51, SE=.03, t(484)=13.33, p<.001. Regardless of whether participants reported morally good or bad motives, there was no evidence that either measure of introspection explained differences in psychological wellbeing or personal growth intentions between forgiver conditions. These effects remained nonsignificant when we included our key covariates (see the full results of these models in Appendices 5.1-5.2). Though there were no differences in introspection between forgiver conditions, we did find some other important differences in the downstream consequences of divine and interpersonal forgiveness. Conditional direct effect estimates in the previous model suggested that when participants believed their motives for their offense were morally good (i.e., +1SD above the mean), they reported marginally greater personal growth intentions after asking God rather than a person for forgiveness, b=.21, β=.13, SE=.11, p=.06, consistent with a morally concerned representation of God’s mind. Conversely, participants reported 57 significantly less personal growth intentions after seeking divine versus interpersonal forgiveness when they believed their motives were morally bad (i.e., -1SD below the mean), b= -.27, β= -.15, SE=.11, p=.02, consistent with an unconditionally loving conception of God. In the expanded model that included our key covariates, only the direct effect for morally bad motives remained significant (see the full results of this model in Table A5.2). We explored these effects further in a multiple regression model, with forgiver condition, self-reported motive goodness, and the interaction between the two as our main predictors of personal growth intentions, controlling for our measures of introspection and key covariates (full results in Table 3). As the conditional direct effects in the previous model suggested, there was a significant interaction between forgiver condition and motive goodness, b=.12, β=.51, SE=.03, t(484)=13.33, p<.001 (see Figure 6). Again, participants reported weaker intentions to grow from their offense in the divine recall condition compared to the interpersonal recall condition, but only when they believed their motives were more immoral than average, b= -.41, SE=.16, p=.01. There were no differences in personal growth intentions between forgiver conditions when participants believed their motives were average, b= -.17, SE=.12, p=.16, or more moral than average, b=.07, SE=.14, p=.61. 58 Figure 6. The relationship between recall forgiver condition and personal growth intentions for participants whose self-reported motive goodness scores were above (+1 SD), at, or below (-1 SD) the mean. We also find that while there are no differences by motive goodness within the interpersonal recall condition, b= -.05, SE=.03, p=.10, participants in the divine recall condition reported marginally weaker personal growth intentions the less they believed their motives for their offense were morally good, b= .07, SE=.03, p=.05. Even though people generally reported relatively strong intentions to grow from their offenses regardless of their motive goodness and forgiver condition (M = 5.53, SD = 1.17), our findings suggest that people who offended for immoral reasons—arguably the group who would benefit the most from personal growth—are actually less likely to want to initiate personal growth after seeking forgiveness from God. Mirroring our findings from Study 2, this suggests that people 59 see God as unconditionally loving—but not morally concerned—in their own experiences seeking divine forgiveness. Table 3. Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Personal Growth Intentions. Personal Growth Intentions b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 2.57 0.43 -0.01 5.96 <0.001 Main Predictors Motive Goodness (self-report) -0.05 0.03 0.01 -1.63 0.104 Forgiver -0.62 0.22 -0.07 -2.81 0.005 Motive Goodness * Forgiver 0.12 0.05 0.10 2.62 0.009 Situation-Level Factors Introspection (self-report) 0.40 0.04 0.47 11.3 <0.001 Introspection (behavioral) <.001 <.001 <.001 0.05 0.962 Harm to Others 0.04 0.03 0.07 1.37 0.17 Harm to Self 0.04 0.03 0.07 1.29 0.196 Harm to Forgiver 0.03 0.03 0.05 1.14 0.254 Responsibility 0.05 0.03 0.07 1.93 0.054 Intentionality -0.01 0.03 -0.02 -0.53 0.598 Forgiveness 0.03 0.05 0.03 0.57 0.569 Relationship Closeness 0.02 0.04 0.03 0.57 0.567 Loving Views of Forgiver 0.10 0.05 0.11 1.94 0.053 Punitive Views of Forgiver -0.06 0.03 -0.07 -1.64 0.103 Person-Level Factors Age 0 0 -0.01 -0.31 0.757 Gender (Female) -0.08 0.09 -0.03 -0.84 0.401 Observations 489 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.347 / 0.325 Note. Forgiver condition is coded such that God is set to 1, and human forgiver is set to 0. 60 Discussion Do U.S. Christians experience different downstream consequences for seeking divine and interpersonal forgiveness? People did not self-report or behaviorally demonstrate differences in how much they reflected on their motives when recalling a time they asked God vs. another person in their life for forgiveness. We also did not see any differences in self-reports of psychological wellbeing by recall condition. However, contrary to people’s expectations of the outcomes of divine forgiveness for others in Study 4, people were less likely to want to improve and grow from their offense after asking God for forgiveness, but only when they believed that their motives for misbehaving were morally wrong. This suggests that people view God only as an unconditionally loving forgiver—whose total forgiveness disincentivizes moral development—in their personal experiences seeking divine forgiveness. A complementary explanation for these effects might be that people are more motivated to grow and improve when seeking forgiveness from others to demonstrate to the wronged party that they have changed for the better. People may be more motivated to improve themselves when their relationship with a close other depends on it, but less so when they know an unconditionally loving God will be there for them no matter what. Feeling that God has forgiven you even when you were selfishly motivated may therefore backfire by taking away a penalty for not improving yourself. Knowing you have God’s forgiveness even when your intentions were morally wrong may provide license for believers to be less concerned with improving themselves after their offense. While people may expect God’s forgiveness to improve peoples’ character and behavior, these findings suggest that it is actually less helpful for personal improvement than interpersonal forgiveness. 61 General Discussion Divine forgiveness is not just an esoteric concept—it’s a powerful, transformative process that many religious people experience (Fincham, 2020). People have close, personal relationships with God, and when that relationship is strained, it causes just as much (if not more) stress and upset as when interpersonal relationships are fraught (Granqvist & Kirkpatrick, 2008). Some people may regard their relationship with God as more vital than their relationships with other people, making it even more important that we understand how people experience divine forgiveness. We suggest that one reason people may perceive divine and interpersonal forgiveness differently comes down to their conceptions of God’s mind. Is God an all-loving Father who grants unconditional forgiveness? Or is He an all-seeing monitor of human morality invested in our internal moral development? Which representation of God’s mind is most salient to people impacts their expectations and experiences of divine forgiveness by changing how important the moral goodness of one’s motives is to receive God’s forgiveness. This research demonstrates the importance of mind perception and motive for distinguishing U.S. Christians’ perceptions of divine and interpersonal forgiveness. Specifically, we show that U.S. Christians differentially apply unconditionally loving and morally concerned representations of God’s mind to their perceptions of divine forgiveness for others and for themselves. Our findings suggest that people view God as both unconditionally loving and morally concerned when forgiving others for their offenses. Participants expected God to be more forgiving of offenders than other people no matter what—demonstrating His unconditional love—but still believed the extent of His forgiveness was dependent on the morality of offenders’ motives (Studies 1 and 3)—demonstrating His concern for human 62 morality. And while disclosing one’s motives benefitted expectations of interpersonal forgiveness when it gave people insight into one’s moral motivations, sharing one’s immoral motives with God also increased expectations of divine forgiveness (Study 1), presumably because this demonstrates that one is acknowledging their wrongdoing on the road to moral improvement. But contrary to their expectations of divine forgiveness for others, people seem to represent God as solely an unconditionally loving forgiver in their own personal experiences. People remembered God to be more forgiving than other people to the extent that they believed He was more loving and had more insight into their motives for offending (Study 2). They also believed that God’s forgiveness was not contingent on the moral goodness of their motives. These findings suggest that U.S. Christians tend to view God as an unconditionally loving forgiver in their own lives, granting them forgiveness regardless of their motivations for offending. We also show that mind perception and motives similarly distinguish U.S. Christians’ expectations and experiences of the positive outcomes that receiving God’s forgiveness might bring. When evaluating forgiveness for others, people saw God as both unconditionally loving and morally concerned. Participants anticipated that offenders would be less likely to reflect on their motives when asking God for forgiveness—consistent with an unconditionally loving God—but that those with immoral motives would show more positive change in their character and behavior after receiving God’s forgiveness (Study 4)—consistent with a morally concerned God. On the other hand, people only saw God as unconditionally loving in their personal experiences asking for forgiveness. Those who recalled having immoral motives for an offense themselves expressed less desire for self- 63 improvement after seeking forgiveness from God rather than another person (Study 5). While U.S. Christians expect God’s forgiveness to be more unconditional and transformative than interpersonal forgiveness, divine forgiveness does not always inspire the same impetus for personal growth as forgiveness from other people does. Our findings highlight important areas for future research to further disentangle divine and interpersonal forgiveness. For instance, what factors can explain God’s relative ambivalence towards motives? The fact that we saw smaller differences in perceptions of divine forgiveness between offenders with moral versus immoral motives could just be due to ceiling effects, since our participants viewed God as extremely forgiving across the board. One way we could ameliorate this issue in the future is to see whether this weaker concern for motive morality holds in situations where God may generally be seen as less forgiving. Does God still not care much about offenders’ motives when deciding whether to grant someone of a different (or no) religion forgiveness? Another potential explanation for God’s insensitivity to motives is the different roles that God and other people occupy in forgiveness interactions. Human forgivers are most often the victim of the offense for which someone is seeking forgiveness, whereas God is almost always a third party to the offense. Though we tried to account for this difference by measuring perceptions of harm to these parties across all our studies, future research might benefit from manipulating these roles directly for both divine and interpersonal forgiveness. While some evidence suggests that outside observers are less forgiving (Green et al., 2008) and more sensitive to offenders’ intentions (Hashimoto & Karasawa, 2011), perhaps people expect third parties to care less about the moral goodness of the offender’s motives and consequently be more likely to forgive. Similarly, people might believe that God cares more 64 about an offender’s motives when He is the direct victim of their offense—like when one questions God’s authority or holds onto anger against God (Exline et al., 2012). Another avenue for future study is examining why we see such dramatic differences in believers’ expectations versus experiences of the downstream consequences of receiving divine forgiveness. Why is forgiveness from God not as transformative and restorative for personal growth as people expect? One explanation is that people are more motivated to enact positive change in their character and behavior after seeking forgiveness from others because they believe demonstrating such a change is necessary to maintain their relationships with those people moving forward—particularly when their motives for initially offending were selfish and immoral. On the other hand, people may believe that demonstrating this change is less important for maintaining one’s relationship with an unconditionally loving God, who knows they are good people deep down no matter their motives (Lee et al., 2023). People may be more motivated to improve themselves after seeking divine forgiveness when they are less secure in their relationship with God (Granqvist & Kirkpatrick, 2008; Rowatt & Kirkpatrick, 2002) and believe change is necessary to be in God’s good favor again. Finally, it’s important that we examine how the factors that characterize perceptions of God’s forgiveness might change across different religious traditions and cultures. Our hypotheses and methods were specific to U.S. Christians by design. A clear understanding of Christianity’s perspective on forgiveness and of the unique cultural attitudes of U.S. Christians was necessary for us to develop our predictions, and it turned out that this explicit theological “head knowledge” (Park & Carney, 2022) informed people’s perceptions and experiences of God’s forgiveness. Though mind perception and motives likely play a role in many people’s perceptions of divine forgiveness, we shouldn’t expect the same pattern of 65 results that we found among Christians in the U.S. to occur across other religious and cultural demographics. For example, Jews are less likely than Christians to believe that mental states like motives have any moral import, focusing primarily on the outcome of one’s actions (Cohen & Rozin, 2001). Instead of assuming that all religious people think about divine forgiveness in the same way, we need thoughtful research that incorporates the theological perspectives of the people under study into their theoretical and empirical approaches. We show that mind perception and the morality of one’s motives are crucial for understanding how people perceive and experience both divine and interpersonal forgiveness. Our beliefs about those we seek forgiveness from—their emotional states, mental abilities, and concern for our moral motivations—impact whether we feel we have been (or should be) forgiven, and how we might learn and grow as people moving forward. 66 APPENDIX 1.1: STUDY 1 SCENARIOS Scenario 1 Chris and Alex are good friends. Alex is moving to a new apartment and asks Chris if he would help him move next week. Chris promises that he will be there to help Alex move, but when the day arrives, Chris cancels at the last minute [MOTIVE: to help a relative who suddenly fell ill/to go see a movie with his other friends]. Later, Chris feels terrible about breaking his promise to Alex. He confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and Alex. Chris [DISCLOSURE: explains why he cancelled at the last minute and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he cancelled at the last minute, but simply asks for forgiveness]. Scenario 2 Amber and Jessica are hiking through the woods. Not far off the trail, Amber sees a large stag staring at them, but Jessica is distracted and does not see it. Amber picks up a rock and throws it at the stag because [MOTIVE: it starts charging toward Jessica and she wants to protect her friend/she thinks it will be funny to scare the stag away]. The stag yelps in pain and runs away, but Jessica does not notice. After they’ve finished hiking, Amber feels guilty for hurting the stag. She confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and Jessica. Amber [DISCLOSURE: explains why she threw the rock at the stag and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why she threw the rock at the stag, but simply asks for forgiveness]. Scenario 3 Thomas and Frank are neighbors. One afternoon, they are both walking their dogs in the park and stop to chat with one another. Suddenly, Thomas slaps Frank in the face [MOTIVE: while trying to swat a large wasp away from Frank/because he is annoyed with Frank]. Frank recoils in pain and runs away from Thomas. Later, Thomas feels guilty about 67 slapping Frank. He confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and Frank. Thomas [DISCLOSURE: explains why he slapped Frank and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he slapped Frank, but simply asks for forgiveness]. Scenario 4 Richard’s childhood friend, Alice, is a professional ballerina. She asks Richard to come see her next performance and tells him how important him being there would be for her. Richard promises Alice that he will be there to watch. The day of the recital, Richard doesn’t show up because [MOTIVE: he stopped to help a pedestrian who was injured in a car accident/he went to dinner with his other friends instead]. After the performance ends, Richard feels terrible about missing it. He confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and Alice. Richard [DISCLOSURE: explains why he missed the recital and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he missed the recital, but simply asks for forgiveness]. Scenario 5 Steve is in charge of inspecting the rollercoaster rides at an amusement park to make sure they are safe to ride. One morning, Steve was late to work because [MOTIVE: he rushed his pregnant wife to the ER after she tripped and fell down the stairs/he lost track of time playing video games], and he did not have time to inspect all the rides before the park opened. Later, one of the rides had a mechanical issue and a rider was injured. Later, Steve feels awful about what he did, so he confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and the injured rider. Steve [DISCLOSURE: explains why he missed the inspection and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he missed the inspection, but simply asks for forgiveness]. 68 Scenario 6 Cate and Logan have been friends for a long time. Cate is going through a tough time at work and with family, and asks Logan for his support. Logan promises to set aside time to spend with Cate this weekend, but cancels at the last minute because [MOTIVE: he has to pick up an extra shift at work to support his family/he thinks hanging out with Cate is boring and depressing]. Later that night Logan thinks about all the times that Cate has been there for him throughout their friendship. He feels terrible, so he confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and Cate. Logan [DISCLOSURE: explains why he canceled and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he canceled, but simply asks for forgiveness]. Scenario 7 Alex and Jamie have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because [MOTIVE: he wants to alleviate Jamie’s stress/he wants their boss to see that Jamie is a slacker]. Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and Jamie. Alex [DISCLOSURE: explains why he completed and submitted the project alone and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he completed and submitted the project alone, but simply asks for forgiveness]. Scenario 8 Maya and Owen are good friends. Maya tells Owen that she recently lost her job but asks him to keep it a secret. Later, Owen decides to share Maya’s secret [MOTIVE: with a trusted friend whose company is hiring to set Maya up with a new job/to make fun of Maya 69 behind her back]. Later, Owen feels guilty about sharing Maya’s secret. He confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and Maya. Owen [DISCLOSURE: explains why he shared her secret and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he shared her secret, but simply asks for forgiveness]. Scenario 9 Mia lends money to her cousin, Lucas, who is facing financial difficulties. Lucas initially promises to repay the loan in a month. However, when the due date arrives, Lucas doesn’t repay Mia and instead spends his money [MOTIVE: on an emergency, lifesaving treatment for his young son, who suddenly developed a brain tumor/on a luxury vacation]. Later, Lucas feels guilty for not repaying the loan, so he confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and Mia. Lucas [DISCLOSURE: explains why he didn’t repay the loan and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he didn’t repay the loan, but simply asks for forgiveness]. Scenario 10 Jonathan is riding on the subway when he notices a man pickpocket money from another passenger’s bag. Jonathan thinks about speaking but decides not to because [MOTIVE: he notices the pickpocket has a gun and does not want to risk everyone’s safety by confronting him]. After the thief gets off the train, Jonathan feels guilty about not alerting the victim. He confesses and sincerely apologizes to both God and the victim. Jonathan [DISCLOSURE: explains why he didn’t speak up and asks for forgiveness/does not explain why he didn’t speak up, but simply asks for forgiveness]. 70 APPENDIX 2.1: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING FORGIVER INSIGHT Table A2.1 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Perceived Forgiver Insight Perceived Forgiver Insight b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 4.12 0.12 <.001 33.21 <0.001 Main Predictors Forgiver 1.82 0.15 0.52 12.53 <0.001 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.11 0.03 0.11 3.27 0.001 Situation-Level Factors Loving Views of Forgiver 0.16 0.06 0.13 2.73 0.006 Punitive Views of Forgiver 0.09 0.05 0.08 2.00 0.045 Forgiver True Self Beliefs 0.10 0.05 0.08 2.08 0.038 Repentance 0.08 0.03 0.10 2.49 0.013 Relationship Closeness 0.09 0.04 0.09 2.08 0.038 Person-Level Factors Age <.001 <.001 -0.02 -0.62 0.538 Gender (Female) <.001 0.12 <.001 0.02 0.987 Observations 487 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.496 / 0.487 Note. Conditions are coded such that Divine Forgiver is set to 1 and Human Forgiver is 0. 71 APPENDIX 2.2: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING LOVING VIEWS OF FORGIVER Table A2.2 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Loving Views of Forgiver Loving Views of Forgiver b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 5.08 0.09 <.001 53.59 <0.001 Main Predictors Forgiver 1.12 0.12 0.39 9.7 <0.001 Motive Goodness (self-report) -0.06 0.02 -0.08 -2.57 0.01 Situation-Level Factors Perceived Forgiver Insight 0.09 0.03 0.12 2.73 0.006 Punitive Views of Forgiver -0.25 0.03 -0.26 -7.63 <0.001 Forgiver True Self Beliefs 0.05 0.03 0.05 1.3 0.192 Repentance -0.02 0.02 -0.03 -0.97 0.332 Relationship Closeness 0.34 0.03 0.42 11.62 <0.001 Person-Level Factors Age 0.01 <.001 0.05 1.71 0.087 Gender (Female) 0.05 0.09 0.02 0.5 0.617 Observations 487 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.566 / 0.558 Note. Conditions are coded such that Divine Forgiver is set to 1 and Human Forgiver is 0. 72 APPENDIX 2.3: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING FORGIVENESS Table A2.3 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Forgiveness Perceived Forgiveness b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 5.4 0.1 <.001 56.49 <0.001 Main Predictors Forgiver 0.21 0.12 0.08 1.7 0.089 Perceived Forgiver Insight 0.12 0.03 0.16 3.57 <0.001 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.06 0.02 0.09 2.53 0.011 Loving Views of Forgiver 0.3 0.04 0.33 6.75 <0.001 Perceived Forgiver Insight * Motive Goodness <.001 0.01 -0.01 -0.28 0.776 Situation-Level Factors Punitive Views of Forgiver -0.13 0.03 -0.15 -3.91 <0.001 Forgiver True Self Beliefs 0.13 0.03 0.15 3.93 <0.001 Repentance <.001 0.02 <.001 0.06 0.955 Relationship Closeness 0.11 0.03 0.15 3.39 0.001 Person-Level Factors Age <.001 <.001 -0.01 -0.28 0.783 Gender (Female) 0.02 0.09 0.01 0.28 0.783 Observations 487 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.498 / 0.486 Note. Conditions are coded such that Divine Forgiver is set to 1 and Human Forgiver is 0. 73 APPENDIX 2.4: TABLE OF RESULTS MODELING FORGIVENESS Table A2.4 Summary of Path Analysis for Variables Predicting Perceived Forgiveness Main Effects b SE β z-value p Perceived Forgiver Insight Forgiver 2.04 0.13 1.16 15.52 <.001 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.11 0.03 0.06 3.42 0.001 Harm to Self 0.06 0.04 0.03 1.6 0.11 Harm to Others -0.01 0.03 -0.01 -0.42 0.678 Harm to Forgiver 0.04 0.04 0.03 1.25 0.212 Repentance 0.06 0.03 0.03 1.76 0.078 Relationship Closeness 0.14 0.04 0.08 3.73 <.001 Forgiver True Self Beliefs 0.12 0.05 0.07 2.52 0.012 Punitive Views of Forgiver 0.04 0.04 0.02 0.94 0.345 Responsibility <.001 0.04 <.001 -0.07 0.944 Intentionality 0.06 0.04 0.03 1.53 0.125 Age <.001 <.001 <.001 -0.72 0.47 Gender (Female) 0.02 0.12 0.01 0.15 0.881 Loving Views of Forgiver Forgiver 1.34 0.1 0.95 13.55 <.001 Motive Goodness (self-report) -0.05 0.03 -0.04 -1.98 0.047 Harm to Self -0.01 0.03 <.001 -0.24 0.807 Harm to Others -0.02 0.03 -0.01 -0.71 0.48 Harm to Forgiver 0.03 0.03 0.02 1.12 0.263 Repentance -0.02 0.03 -0.02 -0.86 0.392 Relationship Closeness 0.36 0.03 0.25 12.23 <.001 Forgiver True Self Beliefs 0.06 0.03 0.04 1.78 0.075 Punitive Views of Forgiver -0.25 0.03 -0.18 -7.52 <.001 Responsibility 0.06 0.03 0.04 1.8 0.071 Intentionality -0.02 0.03 -0.01 -0.57 0.569 Age 0.01 <.001 <.001 1.61 0.106 Gender (Female) 0.03 0.09 0.02 0.31 0.753 Perceived Forgiveness Forgiver 0.18 0.12 0.15 1.51 0.131 Perceived Forgiver Insight 0.14 0.03 0.19 4.25 <.001 Loving Views of Forgiver 0.3 0.04 0.33 7.01 <.001 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.81 0.419 Harm to Self -0.06 0.03 -0.05 -2.49 0.013 74 Harm to Others -0.02 0.02 -0.02 -0.84 0.399 Harm to Forgiver -0.08 0.03 -0.06 -3.25 0.001 Repentance 0.04 0.02 0.03 1.79 0.074 Relationship Closeness 0.11 0.03 0.09 3.67 <.001 Forgiver True Self Beliefs 0.11 0.03 0.09 3.44 0.001 Punitive Views of Forgiver -0.11 0.03 -0.08 -3.29 0.001 Responsibility 0.04 0.03 0.03 1.36 0.174 Intentionality <.001 0.03 <.001 0.16 0.875 Age <.001 <.001 <.001 0.06 0.949 Gender (Female) 0.04 0.08 0.03 0.41 0.678 Indirect Effects b SE β z-value p Forgiver → Perceived Forgiveness (via Perceived Forgiver Insight) 0.28 0.07 0.22 4.1 <.001 Forgiver → Perceived Forgiveness (via Loving Views of Forgiver) 0.4 0.06 0.31 6.23 <.001 Forgiver → Perceived Forgiveness (direct) 0.18 0.12 0.15 1.51 0.131 Forgiver → Perceived Forgiveness (total) 0.86 0.1 0.68 8.71 <.001 Residual Variances b SE β z-value p Forgiver 0.25 0.02 1 15.6 <.001 Motive Goodness 3.6 0.23 1 15.6 <.001 Perceived Forgiver Insight 1.54 0.1 0.5 15.6 <.001 Loving Views of Forgiver 0.88 0.06 0.44 15.6 <.001 Perceived Forgiveness 0.75 0.05 0.47 15.6 <.001 Residual Covariances b SE β z-value p Forgiver ↔ Motive Goodness 0.14 0.05 0.06 2.69 0.007 Perceived Forgiver Insight ↔ Loving Views of Forgiver -0.05 0.04 -0.05 -1.2 0.23 Note. Conditions are coded such that Divine Forgiver is set to 1 and Human Forgiver is 0. 75 APPENDIX 3.1: STUDY 3 SCENARIOS Low Insight/Low Love/Bad Motives Jamie is an employee at an insurance company. Jamie's friends and coworkers all agree that he is extremely selfish, insensitive, and spiteful. Something different about Jamie is that ever since he was a little kid, he has found it difficult to know what other people are thinking. Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants their boss to see that Jamie is a slacker. Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to Jamie and asks for his forgiveness. Because he has a hard time knowing what people are thinking, Jamie still doesn't understand why Alex decided to complete the project without him. Low Insight/Low Love/Good Motives Jamie is an employee at an insurance company. Jamie's friends and coworkers all agree that he is extremely selfish, insensitive, and spiteful. Something different about Jamie is that ever since he was a little kid, he has found it difficult to know what other people are thinking. Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants to alleviate Jamie's stress. Later, when 76 Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to Jamie and asks for his forgiveness. Because he has a hard time knowing what people are thinking, Jamie still doesn't understand why Alex decided to complete the project without him. Low Insight/High Love/Bad Motives Jamie is an employee at an insurance company. Jamie's friends and coworkers all agree that he is extremely kind, compassionate, and generous. Something different about Jamie is that ever since he was a little kid, he has found it difficult to know what other people are thinking. Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants their boss to see that Jamie is a slacker. Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to Jamie and asks for his forgiveness. Because he has a hard time knowing what people are thinking, Jamie still doesn't understand why Alex decided to complete the project without him. Low Insight/High Love/Good Motives Jamie is an employee at an insurance company. Jamie's friends and coworkers all agree that he is extremely kind, compassionate, and generous. Something different about Jamie is that ever since he was a little kid, he has found it difficult to know what other people are thinking. 77 Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants to alleviate Jamie's stress. Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to Jamie and asks for his forgiveness. Because he has a hard time knowing what people are thinking, Jamie still doesn't understand why Alex decided to complete the project without him. High Insight/Low Love/Bad Motives Jamie is an employee at an insurance company. Jamie's friends and coworkers all agree that he is extremely selfish, insensitive, and spiteful. Something different about Jamie is that ever since he was a little kid, he could read people's minds and know exactly what they are thinking. Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants their boss to see that Jamie is a slacker. Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to Jamie and asks for his forgiveness. Because he can read people's minds, Jamie knows exactly why Alex decided to complete the project without him. 78 High Insight/Low Love/Good Motives Jamie is an employee at an insurance company. Jamie's friends and coworkers all agree that he is extremely selfish, insensitive, and spiteful. Something different about Jamie is that ever since he was a little kid, he could read people's minds and know exactly what they are thinking. Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants to alleviate Jamie's stress. Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to Jamie and asks for his forgiveness. Because he can read people's minds, Jamie knows exactly why Alex decided to complete the project without him. High Insight/High Love/Bad Motives Jamie is an employee at an insurance company. Jamie's friends and coworkers all agree that he is extremely kind, compassionate, and generous. Something different about Jamie is that ever since he was a little kid, he could read people's minds and know exactly what they are thinking. Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants their boss to see that Jamie is a slacker. 79 Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to Jamie and asks for his forgiveness. Because he can read people's minds, Jamie knows exactly why Alex decided to complete the project without him. High Insight/High Love/Good Motives Jamie is an employee at an insurance company. Jamie's friends and coworkers all agree that he is extremely kind, compassionate, and generous. Something different about Jamie is that ever since he was a little kid, he could read people's minds and know exactly what they are thinking. Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants to alleviate Jamie's stress. Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to Jamie and asks for his forgiveness. Because he can read people's minds, Jamie knows exactly why Alex decided to complete the project without him. God/Bad Motives Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants their boss to see that Jamie is a slacker. 80 Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to God and asks for His forgiveness. God/Good Motives Alex and Jamie are coworkers at the same insurance company and have been working together on a project for months. One day, Alex notices that Jamie is overwhelmed due to personal issues and the workload. Alex decides to take the initiative and complete the project during the weekend and submit it because he wants to alleviate Jamie's stress. Later, when Jamie gets in trouble for not having contributed to the project, Alex feels terrible. He sincerely apologizes to God and asks for His forgiveness. 81 APPENDIX 3.2: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING FORGIVER INSIGHT Table A3.2 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Perceived Forgiver Insight Perceived Forgiver Insight b SE β t-value p (Intercept) 1.99 0.11 <.001 18.89 <0.001 Insight Condition 3.87 0.15 0.87 26.04 <0.001 Loving Condition 0.01 0.15 0.02 0.06 0.951 Motive Condition 0.04 0.15 0.01 0.24 0.807 Insight Condition * Loving Condition 0.04 0.21 0.02 0.2 0.844 Insight Condition * Motive Condition -0.1 0.21 <.001 -0.46 0.648 Loving Condition * Motive Condition -0.04 0.21 0.01 -0.17 0.863 Insight Condition * Loving Condition * Motive Condition 0.24 0.3 0.01 0.82 0.411 Observations 876 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.761 / 0.759 Note. Conditions are coded such that high insight, high loving, and good motives are set to 1, and low insight, low loving, and bad motives are set to 0. 82 APPENDIX 3.3: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING LOVING VIEWS OF FORGIVER Table A3.3 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Loving Views of Forgiver Loving Views of Forgiver b SE β t-value p (Intercept) 2.2 0.12 <.001 18.21 <0.001 Insight Condition -0.22 0.17 0.08 -1.32 0.187 Loving Condition 2.24 0.17 0.69 13.08 <0.001 Motive Condition -0.23 0.17 0.03 -1.34 0.182 Insight Condition * Loving Condition 0.34 0.24 0.05 1.41 0.157 Insight Condition * Motive Condition 0.64 0.24 0.1 2.66 0.008 Loving Condition * Motive Condition 0.01 0.24 0.01 0.04 0.971 Insight Condition * Loving Condition * Motive Condition 0.06 0.34 <.001 0.18 0.858 Observations 876 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.494 / 0.490 Note. Conditions are coded such that high insight, high loving, and good motives are set to 1, and low insight, low loving, and bad motives are set to 0. 83 APPENDIX 3.4: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS Table A3.4 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Expectations of Forgiveness. Expected Forgiveness b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 3.36 0.12 <.001 27.34 <0.001 Main Predictors Insight Condition 0.05 0.15 0.17 0.34 0.736 Loving Condition 0.87 0.16 0.28 5.53 <0.001 Motive Condition -0.08 0.16 0.15 -0.48 0.63 Insight Condition * Loving Condition -0.18 0.21 0.01 -0.84 0.402 Insight Condition * Motive Condition 0.88 0.21 0.18 4.13 <0.001 Loving Condition * Motive Condition -0.05 0.21 0.03 -0.26 0.795 Insight Condition * Loving Condition * Motive Condition 0.52 0.3 0.04 1.74 0.082 Situation-Level Factors Punitive Views of God -0.41 0.03 -0.39 -13.22 <0.001 Harm to Others 0.05 0.03 0.05 2.08 0.037 Harm to God 0.04 0.02 0.05 1.64 0.101 Harm to Person -0.07 0.03 -0.07 -2.64 0.008 Sincerity 0.09 0.03 0.1 3.45 0.001 Intentionality -0.02 0.02 -0.03 -1.1 0.271 Responsibility -0.04 0.03 -0.03 -1.25 0.21 Person-Level Factors Age <.001 <.001 -0.02 -0.79 0.431 Gender (Female) -0.05 0.08 -0.02 -0.7 0.483 Observations 874 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.502 / 0.493 Note. Conditions are coded such that high insight, high loving, and good motives are set to 1, and low insight, low loving, and bad motives are set to 0. 84 APPENDIX 3.5: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING FORGIVER INSIGHT Table A3.5 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Perceived Forgiver Insight Perceived Forgiver Insight b SE β t-value p (Intercept) 6.27 0.11 0.82 59.48 <0.001 High Insight/High Love -0.36 0.15 -0.13 -2.38 0.017 High Insight/Low Love -0.41 0.15 -0.2 -2.72 0.006 Low Insight/High Love -4.27 0.15 -1.89 -28.51 <0.001 Low Insight/Low Love -4.28 0.15 -1.88 -28.64 <0.001 Motive Condition 0.01 0.15 <.001 0.09 0.927 High Insight/High Love * Motive Condition 0.13 0.21 0.03 0.64 0.524 High Insight/Low Love * Motive Condition -0.07 0.21 -0.02 -0.35 0.729 Low Insight/High Love * Motive Condition -0.01 0.21 <.001 -0.07 0.948 Low Insight/Low Love * Motive Condition 0.02 0.21 <.001 0.11 0.916 Observations 1093 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.764 / 0.762 Note. Insight/Loving Conditions are dummy coded with God as the reference group. Motive Condition is coded such that good motives are set to 1 and bad motives are set to 0. 85 APPENDIX 3.6: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING LOVING VIEWS OF FORGIVER Table A3.6 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Loving Views of Forgiver. Loving Views of Forgiver b SE β t-value p (Intercept) 5.83 0.12 1.01 49.96 <0.001 High Insight/High Love -1.27 0.17 -0.51 -7.70 <0.001 High Insight/Low Love -3.85 0.16 -1.88 -23.36 <0.001 Low Insight/High Love -1.39 0.17 -0.75 -8.39 <0.001 Low Insight/Low Love -3.63 0.17 -1.93 -21.95 <0.001 Motive Condition -0.12 0.17 -0.03 -0.71 0.479 High Insight/High Love * Motive Condition 0.60 0.23 0.16 2.57 0.01 High Insight/Low Love * Motive Condition 0.53 0.23 0.14 2.26 0.024 Low Insight/High Love * Motive Condition -0.10 0.23 -0.03 -0.43 0.668 Low Insight/Low Love * Motive Condition -0.11 0.23 -0.03 -0.47 0.64 Observations 1093 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.594 / 0.590 Note. Insight/Loving Conditions are dummy coded with God as the reference group. Motive Condition is coded such that good motives are set to 1 and bad motives are set to 0. 86 APPENDIX 3.7: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS Table A3.7 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Expectations of Forgiveness. Expected Forgiveness b SE β t-value p (Intercept) 5.88 0.11 1.01 52.29 <0.001 High Insight/High Love -1.67 0.16 -0.62 -10.51 <0.001 High Insight/Low Love -3.08 0.16 -1.62 -19.4 <0.001 Low Insight/High Love -1.49 0.16 -0.99 -9.31 <0.001 Low Insight/Low Love -2.84 0.16 -1.81 -17.8 <0.001 Motive Condition 0.44 0.16 0.13 2.76 0.006 High Insight/High Love * Motive Condition 1.25 0.23 0.37 5.53 <0.001 High Insight/Low Love * Motive Condition 0.72 0.23 0.22 3.2 0.001 Low Insight/High Love * Motive Condition -0.37 0.23 -0.11 -1.64 0.101 Low Insight/Low Love * Motive Condition -0.42 0.23 -0.12 -1.85 0.065 Observations 1093 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.514 / 0.510 Note. Insight/Loving Conditions are dummy coded with God as the reference group. Motive Condition is coded such that good motives are set to 1 and bad motives are set to 0. 87 APPENDIX 3.8: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS Table A3.8 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Expectations of Forgiveness. Expected Forgiveness b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 6.00 0.12 1.04 50.84 <0.001 Main Predictors High Insight/High Love -1.86 0.15 -0.82 -12.66 <0.001 High Insight/Low Love -2.72 0.15 -1.46 -17.86 <0.001 Low Insight/High Love -1.71 0.15 -1.16 -11.59 <0.001 Low Insight/Low Love -2.71 0.15 -1.73 -18.32 <0.001 Motive Condition 0.3 0.16 0.09 1.85 0.064 High Insight/High Love * Motive Condition 0.98 0.21 0.29 4.65 <0.001 High Insight/Low Love * Motive Condition 0.52 0.21 0.15 2.48 0.013 Low Insight/High Love * Motive Condition -0.47 0.21 -0.14 -2.25 0.024 Low Insight/Low Love * Motive Condition -0.4 0.21 -0.12 -1.92 0.055 Situation-Level Factors Punitive Views of God -0.32 0.03 -0.29 -12.68 <0.001 Harm to Others 0.04 0.02 0.03 1.59 0.112 Harm to God 0.04 0.02 0.05 2.09 0.037 Harm to Person -0.06 0.02 -0.06 -2.65 0.008 Sincerity 0.11 0.02 0.12 5.18 <0.001 Intentionality -0.02 0.02 -0.03 -1.07 0.284 Responsibility -0.02 0.02 -0.02 -0.99 0.324 Person-Level Factors Age <.001 <.001 -0.01 -0.52 0.603 Gender (Female) <.001 0.07 <.001 -0.04 0.97 Observations 1091 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.594 / 0.587 Note. Insight/Loving Conditions are dummy coded with God as the reference group. Motive Condition is coded such that good motives are set to 1 and bad motives are set to 0. 88 APPENDIX 3.9: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS Table A3.9 Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Expectations of Forgiveness. Expected Forgiveness b SE β t-value p (Intercept) 4.26 0.04 <.001 118.01 <0.001 Loving Views of Forgiver 0.55 0.02 0.63 29.49 <0.001 Perceived Forgiver Insight 0.07 0.02 0.09 4.37 <0.001 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.15 0.01 0.22 11.34 <0.001 Forgiver 0.7 0.1 0.17 7.04 <0.001 Loving Views of Forgiver * Perceived Forgiver Insight <.001 0.01 <.001 -0.03 0.978 Loving Views of Forgiver * Motive Goodness 0.01 0.01 0.03 1.69 0.092 Perceived Forgiver Insight * Motive Goodness 0.03 0.01 0.11 6.02 <0.001 Loving Views of Forgiver * Perceived Forgiver Insight * Motive Goodness -0.01 <.001 -0.04 -2.16 0.031 Observations 1093 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.642 / 0.639 Note. Forgiver Condition is coded such that God is set to 1 and human forgiver is set to 0. All other variables were mean-centered before analysis. 89 APPENDIX 3.10: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING EXPECTED FORGIVENESS Table A3.10. Summary of Multiple Regression Model for Variables Predicting Expectations of Forgiveness. Expected Forgiveness b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 4.22 0.05 <.001 82.52 <0.001 Main Predictors Loving Views of Forgiver 0.44 0.02 0.5 19.38 <0.001 Perceived Forgiver Insight 0.09 0.02 0.12 5.84 <0.001 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.11 0.02 0.16 5.81 <0.001 Forgiver 0.94 0.10 0.22 9.39 <0.001 Loving Views of Forgiver * Perceived Forgiver Insight <.001 0.01 -0.01 -0.48 0.628 Loving Views of Forgiver * Motive Goodness 0.01 0.01 0.03 1.72 0.086 Perceived Forgiver Insight * Motive Goodness 0.03 0.01 0.11 6.00 <0.001 Loving Views of Forgiver * Perceived Forgiver Insight * Motive Goodness -0.01 <.001 -0.04 -2.31 0.021 Situation-Level Factors Punitive Views of God -0.20 0.02 -0.18 -8.17 <0.001 Harm to Others 0.02 0.02 0.02 1.08 0.278 Harm to God 0.02 0.02 0.03 1.26 0.209 Harm to Person -0.06 0.02 -0.05 -2.56 0.011 Sincerity 0.06 0.02 0.06 2.82 0.005 Intentionality -0.02 0.02 -0.02 -1.10 0.272 Responsibility 0.01 0.02 <.001 0.24 0.811 Person-Level Factors Age <.001 <.001 -0.02 -1.22 0.223 Gender (Female) <.001 0.06 <.001 0.07 0.941 Observations 1091 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.669 / 0.664 Note. Forgiver Condition is coded such that God is set to 1 and human forgiver is set to 0. All other variables were mean-centered before analysis. 90 APPENDIX 4.1: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING INTROSPECTION Table A4.1. Summary of Multilevel Model for Variables Predicting Expectations of Introspection. Expected Introspection b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 3.08 0.34 0 8.93 <0.001 Main Predictors Motive Condition -0.04 0.06 0 -0.6 0.55 Forgiver -0.1 0.05 -0.02 -1.97 0.049 Motive Condition * Forgiver 0.10 0.07 0.02 1.43 0.154 Situation-Level Factors Harm to God 0.10 0.01 0.12 6.64 <0.001 Harm to Person 0.10 0.01 0.13 7.32 <0.001 Harm to Others 0.04 0.01 0.04 2.78 0.005 Responsibility 0.03 0.01 0.04 2.47 0.013 Intentionality 0.05 0.01 0.08 4.45 <0.001 Person-Level Factors Age -0.01 0 -0.06 -2.41 0.016 Gender (Female) 0.08 0.08 0.02 0.96 0.339 Loving Views og God 0.02 0.04 0.01 0.4 0.69 Punitive Views of God 0.01 0.03 0.01 0.36 0.716 Random Effects σ2 1.53 τ00 workerID 0.68 τ00 scenario 0.05 ICC 0.32 N workerID 498 N scenario 10 Observations 4980 Marginal R2 / Conditional R2 0.083 / 0.380 Note. Conditions are coded such that God and good motives are set to 1 and human forgiver and bad motives are set to 0. 91 APPENDIX 4.2: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING MORAL CHARACTER CHANGE Table A4.2. Summary of Multilevel Model for Variables Predicting Moral Character Change. Moral Character Change b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) -0.44 0.23 <.001 -1.93 0.054 Main Predictors Motive 0.23 0.04 0.08 6.29 <0.001 Forgiver 0.12 0.03 0.02 3.81 <0.001 Motive × Forgiver -0.14 0.04 -0.04 -3.20 0.001 Expected Introspection 0.15 0.01 0.24 17.81 <0.001 Situation-Level Factors Harm to God <.001 0.01 -0.01 -0.4 0.686 Harm to Person -0.03 0.01 -0.06 -3.53 <0.001 Harm to Others <.001 0.01 <.001 -0.05 0.96 Responsibility -0.01 0.01 -0.01 -0.70 0.487 Intentionality -0.03 0.01 -0.06 -3.87 <0.001 Person-Level Factors Age -0.01 <.001 -0.09 -3.09 0.002 Gender (Female) 0.06 0.06 0.03 1.02 0.31 Loving Views og God 0.13 0.03 0.13 4.40 <0.001 Punitive Views of God 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.74 0.459 Random Effects σ2 0.54 τ00 workerID 0.33 τ00 scenario <.001 ICC 0.38 N workerID 498 N scenario 10 Observations 4979 Marginal R2 / Conditional R2 0.096 / 0.443 Note. Conditions are coded such that God and good motives are set to 1 and human forgiver and bad motives are set to 0. 92 APPENDIX 4.3: TABLE OF RESULTS PREDICTING LIKELIHOOD OF REOFFENSE Table A4.3. Summary of Multilevel Model for Variables Predicting Likelihood of Reoffense. Likelihood of Reoffense b SE β t-value p Fixed Effects (Intercept) 3.79 0.39 <.001 9.74 <0.001 Main Predictors Motive -0.06 0.07 0.01 -0.82 0.412 Forgiver -0.21 0.06 -0.04 -3.77 <0.001 Motive × Forgiver 0.17 0.08 0.02 2.17 0.03 introspect -0.15 0.02 -0.14 -9.87 <0.001 Situation-Level Factors Harm to God 0.05 0.02 0.06 3.13 0.002 Harm to Person 0.04 0.02 0.04 2.33 0.02 Harm to Others 0.03 0.02 0.03 1.84 0.067 Responsibility 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.67 0.506 Intentionality 0.15 0.01 0.21 11.99 <0.001 Person-Level Factors Age 0.01 <.001 0.04 1.51 0.132 Gender (Female) -0.02 0.09 -0.01 -0.28 0.783 Loving Views of God -0.19 0.05 -0.10 -4.03 <0.001 Punitive Views of God 0.12 0.03 0.11 4.22 <0.001 Random Effects σ2 1.8 τ00 workerID 0.79 τ00 scenario 0.16 ICC 0.35 N workerID 498 N scenario 10 Observations 4979 Marginal R2 / Conditional R2 0.096 / 0.409 Note. Conditions are coded such that God and good motives are set to 1 and human forgiver and bad motives are set to 0. 93 APPENDIX 5.1: TABLE OF RESULTS MODELING FORGIVENESS Table A5.1. Summary of Path Analysis for Variables Predicting Perceived Forgiveness. Main Effects b SE β z-value p Introspection (self-report) Forgiver 0.2 0.12 0.07 1.6 0.11 Motive Goodness (self-report) -0.13 0.03 -0.19 -4.31 <.001 Forgiver * Motive Goodness 0.05 0.04 0.05 1.06 0.289 Introspection (behavioral) Forgiver -0.14 0.09 -0.07 -1.52 0.129 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.08 0.02 0.15 3.38 0.001 Forgiver * Motive Goodness -0.08 0.03 -0.11 -2.54 0.011 Psychological Wellbeing Forgiver 0.19 0.87 0.01 0.22 0.828 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.96 0.22 0.2 4.32 <.001 Forgiver * Motive Goodness 0.17 0.31 0.02 0.54 0.592 Introspection (self-report) 0.22 0.32 0.03 0.69 0.493 Introspection (behavioral) 0.24 0.44 0.02 0.54 0.587 Personal Growth Intentions Forgiver -0.03 0.09 -0.01 -0.36 0.722 Motive Goodness (self-report) -0.09 0.02 -0.15 -3.76 <.001 Forgiver * Motive Goodness 0.12 0.03 0.14 3.77 <.001 Introspection (self-report) 0.44 0.03 0.52 13.33 <.001 Introspection (behavioral) 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.53 0.597 Conditional Effects b SE β z-value p Motive Goodness -1SD Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (via self-report introspection) 0.02 0.05 <.001 0.48 0.632 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (via behavioral introspection) 0.01 0.03 <.001 0.22 0.826 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (direct) -0.15 1.08 -0.01 -0.14 0.892 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (total) -0.12 1.08 -0.01 -0.11 0.914 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (via self-report introspection) 0.05 0.07 0.01 0.67 0.503 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (via behavioral introspection) <.001 <.001 <.001 0.22 0.827 94 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (direct) -0.27 0.11 -0.16 -2.44 0.015 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (total) -0.23 0.13 -0.14 -1.73 0.083 Motive Goodness +1SD Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (via self-report introspection) 0.06 0.1 <.001 0.65 0.518 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (via behavioral introspection) -0.07 0.13 <.001 -0.53 0.594 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (direct) 0.52 1.05 0.03 0.49 0.621 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (total) 0.51 1.04 0.03 0.49 0.622 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (via self-report introspection) 0.13 0.07 0.06 1.93 0.054 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (via behavioral introspection) -0.01 0.01 <.001 -0.52 0.604 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (direct) 0.21 0.11 0.13 1.92 0.055 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (total) 0.33 0.13 0.19 2.61 0.009 Residual Variances b SE β z-value p Motive Goodness (self-report) 3.98 0.25 1 15.65 <.001 Introspection (self-report) 1.85 0.12 0.97 15.65 <.001 Introspection (behavioral) 0.98 0.06 0.98 15.65 <.001 Psychological Wellbeing 90.5 5.78 0.95 15.65 <.001 Personal Growth Intentions 0.96 0.06 0.7 15.65 <.001 Forgiver 0.25 0.02 1 15.65 <.001 Residual Covariances b SE β z-value p Introspection (self-report) ↔ Introspection (behavioral) 0.21 0.06 0.16 3.48 <.001 Psychological Wellbeing ↔ Personal Growth Intentions 2.66 0.44 0.29 6.07 <.001 Forgiver ↔ Motive Goodness 0.05 0.05 0.05 1.14 0.253 95 APPENDIX 5.2: TABLE OF RESULTS MODELING FORGIVENESS Table A5.2. Summary of Path Analysis for Variables Predicting Perceived Forgiveness. Main Effects b SE β z-value p Introspection (self-report) Forgiver 0.15 0.11 0.05 1.33 0.184 Motive Goodness (self-report) -0.03 0.03 -0.05 -1.14 0.256 Forgiver * Motive Goodness 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.7 0.486 Harm to Others 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.83 0.406 Harm to Self 0.19 0.04 0.27 5.18 <.001 Harm to Forgiver 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.85 0.396 Responsibility 0.06 0.03 0.07 1.62 0.105 Intentionality 0.02 0.04 0.03 0.61 0.54 Perceived Forgiveness -0.15 0.06 -0.14 -2.52 0.012 Relationship Closeness 0.19 0.05 0.22 3.93 <.001 Age -0.01 <.001 -0.08 -1.92 0.055 Gender (Female) 0.12 0.12 0.04 1.05 0.292 Loving Views of God <.001 0.06 <.001 0.01 0.993 Punitive Views of God 0.01 0.04 0.01 0.21 0.833 Introspection (behavioral) Forgiver -0.23 0.09 -0.11 -2.55 0.011 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.09 0.02 0.19 4.21 <.001 Forgiver * Motive Goodness -0.06 0.03 -0.08 -1.77 0.077 Harm to Others 0.08 0.03 0.17 3.02 0.003 Harm to Self -0.01 0.03 -0.01 -0.18 0.856 Harm to Forgiver 0.02 0.03 0.05 0.86 0.391 Responsibility 0.04 0.03 0.07 1.59 0.112 Intentionality 0.03 0.03 0.05 1.07 0.286 Perceived Forgiveness -0.02 0.05 -0.02 -0.38 0.702 Relationship Closeness 0.05 0.04 0.08 1.29 0.199 Age <.001 <.001 -0.03 -0.62 0.533 Gender (Female) <.001 0.09 <.001 0.04 0.972 Loving Views of God -0.02 0.05 -0.03 -0.45 0.654 Punitive Views of God -0.01 0.03 -0.02 -0.33 0.739 Psychological Wellbeing Forgiver -1.6 0.76 -0.08 -2.1 0.036 Motive Goodness (self-report) 0.83 0.19 0.17 4.29 <.001 Forgiver * Motive Goodness -0.11 0.29 -0.02 -0.37 0.713 96 Introspection (self-report) 0.45 0.31 0.06 1.47 0.14 Introspection (behavioral) 0.29 0.39 0.03 0.75 0.456 Harm to Others -0.6 0.23 -0.12 -2.58 0.01 Harm to Self -0.22 0.25 -0.04 -0.86 0.389 Harm to Forgiver 0.26 0.23 0.05 1.14 0.256 Responsibility 0.28 0.23 0.05 1.2 0.23 Intentionality 0.16 0.24 0.03 0.68 0.499 Perceived Forgiveness 2.48 0.41 0.32 6.08 <.001 Relationship Closeness 0.09 0.33 0.01 0.27 0.791 Age 0.01 0.03 0.02 0.47 0.637 Gender (Female) -1.31 0.78 -0.07 -1.67 0.095 Loving Views of God 1.33 0.42 0.17 3.18 0.001 Punitive Views of God -0.28 0.27 -0.04 -1.03 0.304 Personal Growth Intentions Forgiver -0.17 0.09 -0.07 -1.95 0.052 Motive Goodness (self-report) -0.05 0.02 -0.09 -2.47 0.014 Forgiver * Motive Goodness 0.12 0.03 0.14 3.64 <.001 Introspection (self-report) 0.4 0.03 0.47 11.51 <.001 Introspection (behavioral) <.001 0.04 <.001 0.05 0.961 Harm to Others 0.04 0.03 0.07 1.51 0.13 Harm to Self 0.04 0.03 0.07 1.34 0.179 Harm to Forgiver 0.03 0.03 0.05 1.2 0.232 Responsibility 0.05 0.03 0.07 1.98 0.048 Intentionality -0.01 0.03 -0.02 -0.55 0.585 Perceived Forgiveness 0.03 0.05 0.03 0.58 0.561 Relationship Closeness 0.02 0.04 0.03 0.59 0.555 Age <.001 <.001 -0.01 -0.32 0.753 Gender (Female) -0.08 0.09 -0.03 -0.86 0.39 Loving Views of God 0.1 0.05 0.11 2.22 0.027 Punitive Views of God -0.06 0.03 -0.07 -1.81 0.07 Conditional Effects b SE β z-value p Motive Goodness -1SD Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (via self-report introspection) 0.04 0.07 <.001 0.58 0.562 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (via behavioral introspection) -0.03 0.05 <.001 -0.59 0.557 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (direct) -1.39 0.95 -0.07 -1.46 0.145 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (total) -1.38 0.96 -0.07 -1.45 0.148 97 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (via self-report introspection) 0.04 0.06 0.01 0.63 0.529 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (via behavioral introspection) <.001 <.001 <.001 0.05 0.961 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (direct) -0.41 0.11 -0.21 -3.75 <.001 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (total) -0.37 0.12 -0.2 -3.02 0.003 Motive Goodness +1SD Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (via self-report introspection) 0.09 0.09 0.01 1.04 0.297 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (via behavioral introspection) -0.1 0.14 -0.01 -0.72 0.469 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (direct) -1.82 0.97 -0.1 -1.88 0.06 Forgiver → Psychological Wellbeing (total) -1.82 0.96 -0.1 -1.91 0.057 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (via self-report introspection) -0.14 0.05 -0.09 -2.99 0.003 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (via behavioral introspection) <.001 0.02 <.001 -0.05 0.961 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (direct) 0.07 0.11 0.07 0.66 0.511 Forgiver → Personal Growth Intentions (total) -0.07 0.12 -0.02 -0.55 0.582 Residual Variances b SE β z-value p Motive Goodness (self-report) 3.97 0.25 1 15.64 <.001 Introspection (self-report) 1.55 0.1 0.81 15.64 <.001 Introspection (behavioral) 0.95 0.06 0.95 15.64 <.001 Psychological Wellbeing 69.74 4.46 0.73 15.64 <.001 Personal Growth Intentions 0.89 0.06 0.65 15.64 <.001 Forgiver 0.25 0.02 1 15.64 <.001 Residual Covariances b SE β z-value p Introspection (self-report) ↔ Introspection (behavioral) 0.14 0.06 0.1 2.61 0.009 Psychological Wellbeing ↔ Personal Growth Intentions 2.00 0.37 0.17 5.43 <.001 Forgiver ↔ Motive Goodness 0.05 0.05 0.05 1.2 0.23 98 REFERENCES Abrams, S., Jackson, J. 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