Abstract Three autobiographical studies tested the valuable relationships hypothesis of forgiveness. Although previous studies revealed that relationship value predicts interpersonal forgiveness, the measure of relationship value may be conflated with affective assessments of the relationship with the transgressor, which might have caused a criterion contamination problem. Therefore, we assessed the goal-related instrumentality of the transgressor (i.e., how useful the transgressor is for helping the victim to achieve his/her goals in fitness-relevant domains). Three studies, one involving a Japanese student sample (Study 1), a second involving Japanese community sample (Study 2), and a third involving U.S. community sample (Study 3), convergently showed that perceived goal instrumentality, as well as a latent relationship value variable estimated from multiple measures of relationship value, are associated with forgiveness. Moreover, this association could be explained in part by the intermediate association of perceived goal instrumentality with empathy both in Japan and the U.S.

中文翻译：

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感知目标工具与宽恕有关：对有价值关系假设的检验

摘要 三项自传性研究检验了宽恕这一有价值的关系假说。尽管先前的研究表明关系价值可以预测人际宽恕，但关系价值的衡量标准可能与对与违规者关系的情感评估混为一谈，这可能会导致标准污染问题。因此，我们评估了违规者的目标相关工具（即，违规者在帮助受害者实现他/她在健身相关领域的目标方面有多大用处）。三项研究，一项涉及日本学生样本（研究 1），第二项涉及日本社区样本（研究 2），第三项涉及美国社区样本（研究 3），一致地表明，感知目标工具，以及从关系值的多种度量估计的潜在关系值变量，都与宽恕相关。此外，这种关联可以部分解释为在日本和美国，感知目标工具与同理心的中间关联