New research, detailed in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, offers substantiation that harboring resentment stems from a specific emotional cocktail of hurt and anger. The findings indicate that when these two feelings converge, those victimized tend to view the wrongdoer as fundamentally immoral, which fuels prolonged grievance. This psychological adjustment functions as a defense mechanism, helping individuals guard against future harm by staying wary of those who have betrayed them.
Forming deep social bonds is a fundamental human requirement essential for survival, yet relationships inevitably face jeopardy when one person inflicts harm upon another. When someone is wronged, they might respond via vengeance or through forgiveness. Retaliation aims to punish the offender, which potentially wards off further injury, but such counteractions typically escalate the dispute and cause irreversible strain on the relationship.
Forgiveness represents an amicable reaction intended to preserve the connection, yet it carries a significant downside. It can leave an individual vulnerable to repeated harm without any real repercussions for the perpetrator. Holding a grudge offers an alternative response, one that serves as a defensive psychological shield.
Hurt is characterized as a persistent negative feeling that fades over time but is easily triggered when the transgression is recalled. By maintaining vigilance toward the betrayer, the victim effectively protects itself from subsequent threats. Prior studies have generally examined how emotions such as anger and hurt operate in isolation following a conflict.
Anger typically signals a sense of injustice, a power imbalance, and a drive to confront the offender. Hurt reflects a sense of vulnerability, emotional reliance, and damaged social ties. Distress is frequently linked to feelings of social pain and devaluation, highlighting the importance an individual attaches to specific relationships.
However, researchers suspected that examining these feelings separately obscured the complete psychological picture. “We identified significant gaps in the literature. One such gap is the lack of conceptual and theoretical work on the issue of harboring resentment,” explained study author Jingyuan Sophie Li of York University in Canada. “Recently, Van Mounseaux and colleagues surveyed approximately 20 individuals who held grudges and developed a conceptual definition of bearing a grudge as persistent feelings of hurt and anger that dissipate over time but can be reignited when needed. However, this definition had not been quantitatively tested. We did not yet know if hurt and anger contribute to holding a grudge, or how they might interact.”
“Another void in the literature was the absence of empirical data regarding factors promoting the maintenance of a grudge. To address these gaps, we began by investigating the role of victims’ hurt feelings and anger in the development of resentment. We didn’t know if or why hurt and anger contribute to holding a grudge. Previous studies suggest that hurt and anger are distinct emotions with different social implications: hurt might occasionally motivate reconciliation, whereas anger can damage it,” Li explains. “Nevertheless, researchers remained unclear about the interplay between hurt and anger. Therefore, we questioned what happens when someone experiences both hurt and anger concurrently. We hypothesized that the interaction of these two emotions would be most likely to lead to bearing a grudge. Furthermore, we began testing hypotheses about why hurt and anger interact to influence the maintenance of resentment.”
The researchers constructed four studies to explore how the combination of hurt and anger affects the likelihood of maintaining a lasting grudge. They also sought to determine if this emotional blend alters the victim’s moral appraisal of the person causing them harm. In the initial study, the scientists recruited 242 adults from the general community who were in romantic partnerships.
Participants were instructed to write about a recent, unresolved conflict with their romantic partner. They then rated their levels of hurt and anger on a numerical scale from one to seven. Participants also completed a survey measuring the intensity of their resentment, which included ratings of contempt and the expectation that the harm caused would not be easily settled.
The scientists determined that feelings of hurt and anger interact to influence the propensity to hold a grudge. Participants experiencing strong levels of both hurt and anger reported significantly more intense resentment than those experiencing strong levels of only one of the emotions. Neither feeling, in isolation, provoked severe resentment without the presence of the other.
To confirm the validity of these initial findings, the researchers conducted a second study involving a larger sample of 694 adults in committed relationships. The methodology mirrored the first: participants recalled a conflict and rated their emotional responses. The results corroborated the first study’s data, showing that the combination of strong hurt and strong anger was uniquely correlated with harboring resentment.
A third study broadened the scope to include a wider array of social connections beyond romantic partners. The researchers engaged 463 university students and asked them to recall a recent undisclosed transgression committed by someone in their social network. This could include friends, family members, colleagues, or mere acquaintances.
In addition to measuring levels of hurt, anger, and sustained grievance, Li and her colleagues asked participants to rate how immoral they perceived the offender to be. The outcomes revealed the identical interaction between hurt and anger concerning the holding of a grudge. They also found that this emotional mixture led victims to judge the wrongdoer as a bad or completely immoral person.
This harsh moral judgment, in turn, accounted for the persistence of the grievance against the offender. In the fourth study, the scientists employed an experimental design to test whether the hurt-anger combination directly causes resentment. They recruited 438 students and randomly assigned them to groups, each instructed to recall a past wrong that elicited one of four specific feelings.
Participants recalled an event where they experienced only hurt, only anger, both hurt and anger, or neither hurt nor anger. Participants then rated the moral character of the offender and their own degree of held resentment. After controlling for the general negative nature of the event, the researchers found that participants recalling both intense hurt and intense anger experienced the strongest lingering grudge.
The scientists also examined alternative explanations, such as whether victims ceased caring about the offender’s welfare or began viewing themselves as superior to them. Similar to the third study, the mere perception of the offender as immoral was the sole factor explaining why the hurt-anger combination led to amplified ill will. This suggests that the moral judgment of the offender is the core driver in maintaining resentment.
“Hurt can alter the meaning of anger during the process of grievance formation,” Li commented. “Anger often signals that something is wrong, but when paired with hurt, it may signal that the offense is deeply personal and unacceptable within the relationship. When people experience both hurt and anger, they appear to shift their moral evaluation of the wrongdoer from ‘good’ or moral to ‘bad’ or immoral. This shift in perception explains why hurt and anger interact to affect the holding of a grudge. From this perspective, bearing a grudge may serve as a form of self-protection, maintaining a level of alertness toward transgressors. It helps individuals remember the offense and safeguards them against future violations by the offender.”
While this research provides evidence regarding the formation of grudges, certain limitations merit consideration. The experimental research relied upon participants’ recollections of past incidents rather than experiencing a standardized offense under controlled laboratory parameters. Since individuals’ memories of conflicts can vary significantly in severity, this reliance on memory might introduce subtle inconsistencies.
Furthermore, the researchers noted that the precise sequence in which hurt and anger arise remains incompletely understood. It is unclear whether these emotions arise simultaneously or if one typically provokes the other during an ongoing conflict.
“We are currently attempting to grasp the overall significance of hurt and anger in interpersonal conflicts, how individuals interpret these emotions, and how they affect relationship outcomes over time,” stated Li. “We are also beginning to investigate the impact of harboring resentment on various variables concerning the victim, the offender, and the relationship. Moreover, we are particularly interested in the role of culture. The meaning and process by which hurt and anger lead to holding a grudge might differ based on social norms and relationship structures. To address this, we aim to gather both qualitative and quantitative data from diverse geographic areas to explore how these emotional processes unfold across cultures.”
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