Drawing upon literature on social account, ethical leadership, and moral justification, we propose that subordinate attributions of supervisors' performance promotion motives play a mitigating role in the negative relationship of abusive supervision with subordinate forgiveness, resulting in a beneficial effect on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (i.e., a decreased drop). We conducted three studies to test our hypotheses. Study 1 used a two-wave survey with 188 military personnel in Taiwan. Respondents filled out scales on leadership styles of direct supervisors, and their attributed motives, forgiveness, and OCB. Study 2 employed a 2X2 scenario-based design (i.e., high vs. low abusiveness with supervisory motives of self-centered vs. subordinate-centered) to preclude effects of supervisors' performance promotion motives from supervisors' self-centeredness. Respondents were 160 undergraduates enrolled in a military university in Taiwan. Results of Study 1 and 2 showed that the difference between path estimates of the indirect effect of abusive supervision on OCB via subordinate forgiveness across high and low levels of subordinate-attributed performance promotion motives, and subordinate-centered and self-centered motives, were both significant ([-.04] - [-.13] =.09 and [-.08] - [-.21] =.13, p < .05). In Study 3, we obtained a sample of 159 respondents through mTurk in the U.S., with a design similar to that of Study 1. Although the difference between path estimates of the indirect effect of abusive supervision on OCB via subordinate forgiveness across low and high levels of subordinate-attributed performance promotion motives was again significant ([.11] - [.05] =.06, p < .05), abusive supervision was found positively (rather than negatively) associated with forgiveness (b = .11, p < .05). We discussed possible reasons for such a finding at the end. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the importance of subordinates' attributions in shaping responses to supervisor misbehavior and the transformative power of forgiveness in organizational settings.