The interpersonal level: Affirming transgressors' morality as a strategy to promote apologies and interpersonal reconciliation- the promise and potential pitfalls

Individuals who harm others (i.e., transgressors) experience threat to their moral identity, which they often try to defend through moral disengagement (e.g., by denying their culpability). Optimistically, the needs- based model of reconciliation suggests that restoration of transgressors' moral identity can reduce their defensiveness and increase their readiness for reconciliation. Several studies supported this possibility, revealing that morally accepting messages from their victims, as well as self- affirmation exercises through which transgressors affirmed their morality and the values breached by the transgression, increased their tendency to offer genuine, non- defensive apologies and invest effort in reconciliation. In contrast, however, morally accepting messages by third parties are associated with transgressors' lower willingness to reconcile. Further research is needed to identify the conditions under which moral affirmation might lead to such 'moral licensing' effects, rather than to increased reconciliatory behavior. Understanding the effects of moral affirmation is practically important for structuring effective restorative justice procedures. • When a person harms someone else, the threat to the transgressors' moral identity hinders their readiness to apologize to the victim. • Restoring transgressors' moral identity increases their readiness to apologize and reconcile with their victims. • Morality restoration can be achieved through transgressors' self- affirmation of their morality or through morally accepting messages from their victims. • Morally accepting messages by third parties, however, lead to moral licensing effects. • Further research is needed to identify the conditions under which moral affirmation leads to prosocial, conciliatory vs. antisocial, licensing effects.