Applying the intentional forgetting process to forgiveness

The current research tests the hypothesis that the cognitive process of intentional forgetting can be applied to promote forgiveness. In three experiments, participants read stories set in second person point of view sentence by sentence. Each story included a target conflict sentence. After each sentence, participants saw a cue indicating forget or remember (Experiment 1, n = 89) or important or not important (Experiment 2, n = 123) or control cue (Experiment 3, n = 198). Findings revealed that, among participants who remembered the transgression, being told to intentionally forget the transgression led to increased forgiveness (Experiments 1 & 3). However, being told that the transgression was not important had no effect on forgiveness (Experiment 2). Overall, results are consistent with the hypothesis that an active process of intentional forgetting (as opposed to a passive process of disregarding unimportant information) can promote forgiveness. The interpersonal and clinical applications of these findings are discussed.     

Self-forgiveness and well-being: Does divine forgiveness matter?

ABSTRACT

A reliable association exists between self-forgiveness and well-being. But self-forgiveness and its correlates will not be fully understood without considering forgiveness by God or divine forgiveness, especially in light of the fact that the majority of the population identifies as religious. This study therefore examined the role of divine forgiveness in understanding the association between self-forgiveness and well-being using data collected from 435 young adults. Because well-being is not the absence of distress, this study examined whether self-forgiveness and divine forgiveness relate to psychological well-being and distress in the same way. Self-forgiveness and divine forgiveness were independently related to psychological well-being and distress even with religiosity statistically controlled. Divine forgiveness also moderated the relationship between self-forgiveness and psychological distress in that perceived forgiveness by God was associated with fewer depressive symptoms at lower but not higher levels of self-forgiveness. The implications for future research are outlined.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of a community-based forgiveness campaign

Abstract

Forgiveness interventions have been employed in individual, couple, family, and group psychotherapy. Few attempts have been made to deliver forgiveness interventions via community-based campaigns. In the current field study, we administered a community-based forgiveness campaign to an entire university campus. A quasi-experimental design was used in which multiple pre-tests were compared to post-test scores on a psychometrically sound measure of forgiveness as well as single items assessing forgiveness, love, and conflict across students’ relationships with others in the community (i.e. friends, roommates, teachers, and parents). Multilevel models were specified to compare repeated scores from the baseline phase to post-intervention phase scores. Findings indicated that community-based approaches are a viable method of promoting forgiveness that may serve as a less intense but more easily disseminated and less costly approach to promoting forgiveness than traditional modalities of psychological treatment. Implications for future empirical investigation and clinical application are discussed.     

Religiously or spiritually-motivated forgiveness and subsequent health and well-being among young adults: An outcome-wide analysis

ABSTRACT

This study performs an outcome-wide analysis to prospectively examine the associations of forgiveness (including forgiveness of others, self-forgiveness and divine forgiveness) with a range of psychosocial, mental, behavioral and physical health outcomes. Data from the Nurses’ Health Study II and the Growing Up Today Study (Ns ranged from 5,246 to 6,994, depending on forgiveness type and outcome) with 3 or 6 years of follow-up were analyzed using generalized estimating equations. Bonferroni correction was used to correct for multiple testing. All models controlled for sociodemographic characteristics, prior religious service attendance, prior maternal attachment and prior values of the outcome variables. All forgiveness measures were positively associated with all psychosocial well-being outcomes, and inversely associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms. There was little association between forgiveness and behavioral or physical health outcomes. Forgiveness may be understood as a good itself, and may also lead to better psychosocial well-being and mental health.     

Articulate forgiveness and normative constraints

Philosophers writing on forgiveness typically defend the Resentment Theory of Forgiveness, the view that forgiveness is (or crucially implicates) the overcoming of resentment. Rarely is much more said about the nature of resentment or how it is overcome when one forgives. Pamela Hieronymi, however, has advanced detailed accounts both of the nature of resentment and how one overcomes resentment when one forgives. In this paper, I argue that Hieronymi’s account of the nature of forgiveness is committed to two implausible claims about the norms bearing on forgiveness. Her account is highly instructive, however, for it brings into relief how certain intuitive views about the norms of forgiveness should be used to constrain our theories about its nature. I conclude by defending this methodological proposal.     

Group Threat, Collective Angst, and Ingroup Forgiveness for the War in Iraq

We examine the consequences of threat to the ingroup for emotional reactions to ingroup harm doing. It was hypothesized that reminders of a past threat to the ingroup would induce collective angst, and this emotional reaction would increase forgiveness of the ingroup for its harmful actions toward another group. In Experiment 1, Americans read an article about the war in Iraq that implied Americans would soon experience another attack or one where such implied future threat to the ingroup was absent. When the ingroup's future was threatened, forgiveness for the harm Americans have committed in Iraq was increased, to the extent that collective angst was induced. In Experiment 2, Americans experienced more collective angst and were more willing to forgive their ingroup for their group's present harm doing in Iraq following reminders of either the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, or the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor compared to when the victimization reminder was irrelevant to the ingroup. We discuss why ingroup threat encourages ingroup forgiveness for current harm doing.     

Forgiveness of Interpersonal Offenses in Younger and Older Roman Catholic Women

Forgiveness involves replacing negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with constructive responses following an interpersonal offense. Although older adults report themselves to be more forgiving than younger adults, it is unclear why. The current study examined forgiveness of specific offenses in two samples of Roman Catholic women. Participants wrote about an interpersonal offense and completed a multi-dimensional measure of forgiveness with regard to the offense. On 5 of 10 dimensions, older women (n = 26; mean age = 74 years) were significantly more forgiving of specific offenses than were younger women (n = 37; mean age = 19 years). Religiousness/spirituality and current hurt/anger about the offense partially mediated the associations between age group and forgiveness. The results support models of successful aging, with older women showing greater likelihood of responding to interpersonal conflicts with forgiveness.     

Justice and forgiveness: Experimental evidence for compatibility

A 3 (justice prime: restorative, retributive, no prime) × 3 (contextual prime: criminal justice system, intimate relationship, workplace) experimental design was used with 173 participants reading hypothetical transgression scenarios to test the hypothesis that people associate forgiveness more with restorative justice than with retributive justice, and that such relationships hold regardless of the social context. As predicted, there were main effects for justice prime, with participants more likely to associate benevolent responding, and less likely to associate revenge and avoidant responses, with restorative justice than with retributive justice. They were also more likely to associate benevolence, and less likely to associate revenge and avoidant responses, with intimate relationships than with criminal justice and the workplace. Also as predicted, there was no interaction between justice and context for benevolence and revenge. Although one should be cautious about extrapolating from ‘no difference’ hypotheses, these results provide some indication that the forgiveness-justice relationship may be generalised beyond the criminal justice system.     

大学生人际宽恕发展趋势及其反刍思维的作用

目的探讨大学生人际宽恕(回避、报复和仁慈)的增长模型,以及反刍思维在人际宽恕及其发展过程中的影响作用。方法采用人际侵犯动机量表对在"一周内"遭受过冒犯行为的116名大学生的人际宽恕过程进行"每周一测"的5次跟踪测评,并使用反刍思维反应量表评估被试的反刍思维。结果 1回避和报复动机符合线性增长模型,而仁慈动机更符合曲线增长模型;2在控制了冒犯严重性、关系亲密性因素后,反刍思维对大学生人际宽恕各维度及其变化趋势具有显著预测作用。结论研究结果揭示了将人际宽恕各维度区分对待的重要性,同时说明反刍思维对大学生人际宽恕的适应性心理过程具有阻碍作用。     

Does activating justice help or hurt in promoting forgiveness?

Do justice values promote or obstruct forgiveness? This question has received virtually no empirical attention, even though past theorizing suggest two different answers. The literature on forgiveness suggests that justice constitutes a barrier to forgiveness, suggesting that the activation of justice values should decrease the probability of forgiveness. Conversely, the literature on justice and human values indicates that justice and forgiveness are positively associated, suggesting that the activation of justice should enhance the probability of forgiveness. Consistent with the latter line of reasoning, three studies, using complementary priming methods, provide converging evidence for the prediction that the activation of justice promotes (rather than obstructs) forgiveness. Implications for extant theory regarding forgiveness and justice are discussed.