Faces of forgiveness : The impact of emotional facial expressions on the willingness to forgive

Kurzfassung/Abstract

This study explored how facial emotional expressions influence the willingness to forgive, focusing on the role of sadness and attentional orientation under neutral and stress-induced conditions. An online survey was administered through Qualtrics to a U.S. sample (N = 246), employing scales to measure trait forgiveness, compassion, and willingness to forgive. Visual stimuli from the OASIS database were used to induce stress and present facial expressions, with a prior validation study (N = 215) selecting appropriate images displaying happy, neutral, and sad faces. The findings show that sad expressions significantly increased the willingness to forgive compared to neutral or happy expressions, supporting the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Trait forgiveness and compassion enhanced the willingness to forgive, highlighting the interplay between dispositional traits and situational factors. Attentional orientation towards emotional expressions varied with trait forgiveness under stress: those higher in trait forgiveness preferred happy faces. In contrast, those lower in trait forgiveness were more attentive to sad faces. These results suggest that recognizing emotional expressions has the potential to facilitate forgiveness, offering practical implications for conflict resolution strategies. Future research should address limitations such as cultural representation and the complexity of real-life emotional interactions using diverse samples and advanced techniques like eye-tracking.