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When assessing the moral character of others, people cling to good impressions but readily adjust their opinions about those who have behaved badly, according to new research.

Hands in a gesture of embracing other hands

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

This flexibility in judging transgressors might help explain both how humans forgive - and why they sometimes stay in bad relationships.

The research, conducted by psychologists at Yale, the University of Oxford, University College London, and the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

Find out more (University of Oxford website)