ارزیابی پیش بینی انتقام عاشقانه: نقش صداقت-تواضع، توافق پذیری و انتقامجویی

This study examined whether personality factors are associated with people’s appraisals of the costs and benefits of romantic revenge. Our goal was to extend our understanding of variables that influence individuals’ decisions to get even with romantic partners. Undergraduates (N = 130) completed the HEXACO personality inventory, the Vengeance Scale, and questionnaires examining people’s beliefs about revenge in romantic relationships. Honesty–Humility predicted individuals’ judgments of revenge as more desirable when appraising its benefits and less undesirable when appraising its costs, whereas Agreeableness only predicted benefit appraisals. Furthermore, vengefulness predicted individuals’ scores on the benefits- and costs-appraisal indices controlling for Honesty–Humility and Agreeableness. These findings provide a first step towards determining whether certain people may be quicker than others to see the benefits of romantic revenge while minimizing its costs.

Relational problems are among the most common reasons individuals seek psychological counseling (Pinsker, Nepps, Redfield, & Winston, 1985) and can pose serious threats to partners’ physical and mental health (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001). Acts of revenge may represent—or serve as one basis for—the development of such problems. Accordingly, as individuals display a greater tendency to transgress against those with whom they have a close and intimate rather than a distant relationship (Richardson & Green, 2006), and as romantic partners do not always “forgive and forget” each others’ offenses, romantic revenge may be a phenomenon worthy of considerable research attention because of its possible implications for individuals’ (and couples’) health and wellbeing. Nevertheless, despite a clear need for research on this topic, only a handful of studies have investigated revenge in romantic relationships (see Boon et al., 2011, Boon et al., 2009 and Yoshimura, 2002). Although this research suggests that romantic revenge may produce both destructive and constructive outcomes (Boon et al., 2011), examination of people’s judgments concerning whether the costs of getting even make revenge more undesirable and its benefits make revenge more desirable would extend our understanding of the processes by which individuals decide to get even with romantic partners. The more value individuals attach to the positive outcomes that may follow revenge and the less weight they attach to its negative outcomes, the quicker they may be to respond to a partner’s wrongdoing with revenge. Understanding whether personality factors are associated with the nature of people’s appraisals of the outcomes of romantic revenge, then, may prove beneficial in enabling us to determine whether certain people may be predisposed to view revenge in a favorable or unfavorable light. The present study examined the extent to which personality predicts individuals’ appraisals concerning whether the costs and benefits of revenge make getting even with a romantic partner more desirable (in the case of benefits) and less undesirable (in the case of costs). We also investigated whether the disposition to be vengeful predicts such appraisals while controlling for broader personality traits.

The present study addresses a gap in the literature by examining the extent to which personality factors predict the extent to which an individual judges the costs of romantic revenge to make getting even undesirable and the benefits of revenge to make getting even desirable. We believe that understanding the extent to which certain personality factors are associated with appraisals of this sort provides a first step towards determining whether certain people may be quicker than others to see the benefits of romantic revenge while at the same time minimizing its costs. Such appraisal processes may play a critical role in individuals’ decision making as they consider options for responding to a romantic partner’s transgression. Further research is required to flesh out more fully the nature of these processes.