We examined victim and offender correlates of forgiveness for intimate partner violence.
Participants were from couples (133 women, 76 men) in which males were convicted of intimate
partner violence and court-ordered into an intervention program. In women, empathy and general
religiousness positively related to forgiveness, but attributions of blame were unrelated to
forgiveness. Several dispositional variables in men were associated with forgiveness in women.
Men who were more dominant were more likely to be forgiven, but men with more
psychological problems were less likely to be forgiven. Many offender effects were mediated by
women’s state empathy.