Interpersonal transgressions are disruptive to relationships as they violate values presumed to be shared and threaten the integrity of victim and offender, and their shared identity. Forgiveness and self-forgiveness are understood to be important elements of the moral repair process, however commonly they are studied as intrapsychic phenomena without considering the dynamics between them. Here, we investigate whether victims' expression of forgiveness can facilitate offenders' genuine self-forgiveness – the restoration of the offender's moral self by taking responsibility and working through their guilt. We argue that forgiveness can do so when it leads offenders to perceive that the victim believes the offender shares in a consensus about the violated values (meta-perceived value consensus) and, in turn, leads offenders to affirm their perception of value consensus. Three experimental studies (N = 807, 606, and 752) provided evidence for the hypothesized sequential mediation, with forgiveness having an indirect positive effect on genuine self-forgiveness via meta-perception of value consensus and offender's affirmation of value consensus. Study 2 furthermore manipulated the victim's belief in the offender sharing in the value consensus and provided causal evidence for its role in the process. The findings highlight the importance of a restored value consensus for the offender's repair of integrity through genuine self-forgiveness, which depends on the offender knowing, and knowing that the victim knows, that they share those values. The research advances our understanding of moral repair as a dyadic negotiated process.

人际犯罪破坏了人际关系，因为它们违反了假定共享的价值观，并威胁到受害者和犯罪者的完整性以及他们共同的身份。宽恕和自我宽恕被认为是道德修复过程的重要元素，但通常将它们作为心理现象进行研究，而不考虑它们之间的动态。在这里，我们调查受害者表达宽恕是否可以促进罪犯真正的自我宽恕——通过承担责任和克服罪恶感来恢复罪犯的道德自我。我们认为，当宽恕让犯罪者认为受害者相信犯罪者对被侵犯的价值观有共识（元感知价值共识）时，宽恕就可以做到这一点，反过来，导致罪犯肯定他们对价值共识的看法。三项实验研究（N  = 807、606 和 752）为假设的顺序调解提供了证据，宽恕通过价值共识的元感知和罪犯对价值共识的肯定对真正的自我宽恕产生间接的积极影响。研究 2 进一步操纵了受害者对罪犯分享价值共识的信念，并为其在这一过程中的作用提供了因果证据。调查结果强调了恢复价值共识对于罪犯通过真正的自我宽恕修复完整性的重要性，这取决于罪犯知道，并且知道受害者知道，他们分享这些价值观。该研究推进了我们对道德修复作为二元协商过程的理解。