AUTHOR=Zhou Yangen , Zhao Lihua , Yang Yibo , Liu Xianmin 

TITLE=Influence of Ego Depletion on Individual Forgiveness in Different Interpersonal Offense Situations

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631466

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631466

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Forgiveness, as an important content in the field of morality, means that the offended person overcomes the negative emotion, cognition, and behavior towards the offender, and replaces it with positive emotion, cognition and behavior. Based on the theory of the limitation of psychological resources, ego depletion will lead to the weakening of self-regulation function, thus making some immoral behaviors, which is not conducive to individual forgiveness. In order to explore the influence of ego depletion on individual forgiveness in different interpersonal offense situations, this study used the Stroop task to manipulate the level of ego depletion and used imaginary situations to distinguish offending situations. We found that the level of forgiveness in a serious offense situation was significantly lower than that in a mild offense situation, p < 0.001, ηp2= 0.158. In different interpersonal offense situations, ego depletion has different effects on forgiveness. In the severe offense situation, the forgiveness level of high ego depletion individuals was significantly lower than that of low ego depletion individuals, p = 0.023, ηp2 = 0.144; in the mild offense situation, the forgiveness level of high ego depletion individuals was significantly higher than that of low ego depletion individuals, p = 0.029, ηp2 = 0.140. The results showed that different levels of ego depletion have no consistent effect on forgiveness in different interpersonal offense situations; high ego depletion hinders individual forgiveness in serious offense situations but can promote individual forgiveness in mild offense situations.