Case Western Reserve University

Narcissistic entitlement impedes forgiveness in ways not captured by other robust predictors (e.g., offense severity, apology, relationship closeness, religiosity, Big Five personality factors), as demon-strated in 6 studies. Narcissistic entitlement involves expectations of special treatment and preoccupation with defending one’s rights. In Study 1, entitlement predicted less forgiveness and greater insistence on repayment for a past offense. Complementary results emerged from Study 2, which used hypothetical transgressions, and Study 3, which assessed broad forgiveness dispositions. Study 4 examined associa-tions with the Big Five, and Study 5 extended the findings to a laboratory context. Study 6 demonstrated that entitlement predicted diminished increases in forgiveness over time. Taken together, these results suggest that narcissistic entitlement is a robust, distinct predictor of unforgiveness. Conflicts, disputes, and transgressions seem to be unavoidable aspects of human social life. Hundreds of utopian experimental societies from the past 2 centuries repeatedly failed to eliminate such interpersonal clashes. These attempts failed even when orga-nizers tried such radical methods as abolishing private property, on the basis of a Marxist assumption that greed and envy would become obsolete within such a system. Given the admittedly low odds that people will find a way to perfect human nature or social organization, it seems safe to predict that interpersonal conflicts will continue. Social harmony will therefore depend largely on people’s ability and willingness to repair the interpersonal damage these conflicts cause. Forgiveness is one response that can help restore interper-sonal harmony after transgression (for reviews, see Enright &amp