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The present investigation explored individuals' (N = 58) retrospective accounts of the costs and benefits associated with acts of revenge they had committed against a current or past romantic partner. Content analysis of participants' responses to a semistructured interview revealed that, consistent with claims that revenge can have constructive as well as destructive consequences, participants described both good and bad outcomes associated with their vengeful acts. There was little evidence, however, that they perceived the consequences of revenge as achieving prosocial ends (i.e., as having benefited their partners/ relationships or others) and, overall, participants seemed to believe that they, rather than others, had profited from their vengeful actions.
Keywords: revenge, romantic relationships, costs, benefits, consequences
Résumé
La présente étude visait à explorer auprès des participants (N = 58) les coûts et bénéfices rétrospectifs associés à des gestes de vengeance commis contre un partenaire amoureux présent ou passé. Une analyse de contenu des réponses des participants lors d'une entrevue semistructurée a révélé que, conformément à l'affirmation comme quoi la vengeance peut avoir des conséquences constructives et destructives, les participants ont décrit des bonnes et des mauvaises conséquences à leurs actes de vengeance. Toutefois, il y avait peu d'indications à l'effet qu'ils percevaient les conséquences de leur vengeance comme étant profitables sur le plan pro-social (c.-à-d., comme ayant bénéficié a leur partenaire, au couple ou aux autres) et, globalement, les participants semblent croire qu'ils ont eux-mêmes profité de leurs actions vengeresses, plutôt que les autres.
Mots-clés : vengeance, relations amoureuses, coûts, bénéfices, conséquences
The present article reports the results of a content analysis of avengers' retrospective accounts of the costs and benefits they believed were (or might be) associated with acts of revenge they had committed against a current or former romantic partner. Our goal was to provide a descriptive base of people's beliefs concerning revenge's potential to harm - or perhaps to heal - in this important interpersonal domain. We hoped that this base might serve as a point of departure for future investigations of people's expectations and experiences in the aftermath of romantic revenge.
Revenge in Romantic Relationships
The topic of revenge has attracted little attention among relationship scholars, despite clear evidence that partners do not always turn the other cheek in response...