Julia E. M. Kidwell

Douglas C. Russell

Thomas E. Ludwig

Joanna North

Rachel C. Garthe

Kinga Kaleta

Patricia A. Thomas

Glen Pettigrove

Jean Hampton

David J Bauer

Igor Grossmann

John Klatt

Mark S. Rye

Paul A. DeYoung

Martina A. Waltman

Wen-Chuan Chang

Jeanette A. Knutson Enright

Loren L. Toussaint

Kyler  R. Rasmussen

Blake Riek

Andrea J. Miller

Daniel Y.-J. Yang

Elizabeth A. Goncy

Reine C. van der Wal

Nancy E. Snow

Charlotte O. Kwakye-Nuako

Anthony Sellu

Everett L. Worthington

Nathaniel J. DeYoung

Monisha Nag

Alyssa Cheadle

Yu-Rim Lee

Thomas Baskin

Justin C. Baker

Solomon Makola

Arndt Büssing

Lucia Záhorcová

Júlio Rique

Charlotte V. O. Witvliet

Trechaun Gonzalez

Cirleen DeBlaere

Fabiola Azar

Steven J. Sandage

Michael McKenna

Peter Halama

Gabriel Dorn

Cheryl A. Smith

Lee Shawkey

Per-Erik Milam

Jane Barlow

Anthony C. Holter

Jill L. VanderStoep

Richard Swinburne

Dana Kay Nelkin

Daryl R. Van Tongeren

Ross W. Knoll

Savitri Marigoudar

Catherine T. Coyle

Brandon Warmke

John P. Crowley

Richard G. Cowden

Amy F. Sato

Christopher M. Swoboda

Christopher Bennett

Jaap J. A. Denissen

Nova G. Hinman

Robert C. Roberts

Kelly L. Vander Laan

Caroline R. Lavelock

Margaret R. Holmgren

Tiffany Zarifkar

Jeffrie G. Murphy

Ryan Fehr

Michael A. McDaniel

William T. Hoyt

Chris Bell

Alicia J. Hofelich

Charles J. Westbrook

Adriana Bagnulo

Michele Gelfand

Nancy Peddle

Martha Minow

Man Yee Ho

Mitchell Zoelzer

Eloá Losano de Abreu

Paul M. Hughes

Jo-Ann Tsang

Nathaniel G. Wade

Nkansah Anakwah

Norvin Richards

Don E. Davis

George M. Slavich

Everett L. Worthington, Jr.

Thapelo Mokushane

Robert D Enright 

Frederic Luskin

Genevieve Vinsonneau

In this paper, I begin with a familiar puzzle about forgiveness, namely, how to distinguish forgiveness from excuse on the one hand and “letting go” on the other. After considering three recent and influential accounts of forgiveness that offer answers to this challenge among others, I develop an alternative model of forgiveness as a kind of personal release from debt or obligation. I argue that this model has a number of distinct advantages, including offering a new explanation of the subtle connections between forgiveness, resentment and perspective taking, as well as helping to provide plausible answers to normative questions such as whether forgiveness is ever morally required. Finally, I draw connections between the debate about forgiveness and the debate about free will, and suggest one way in which the compatibility of forgiveness and understanding of an action’s causes can illuminate the debate about the compatibility of freedom and determinism.


Freedom and Forgiveness

Although women are believed to be more forgiving than men, the results of many studies comparing women with men vary. Moreover, little is known about unique correlates or differential patterns of experiencing forgiveness by gender. In the present study, we compared men and women in terms of their level of dispositional forgiveness and its emotional correlates, namely positive and negative affect, anxiety, and emotional control. The sample consisted of 625 individuals aged 19–69, of whom 478 (76.5%) were women and 147 (23.5%) were men. Polish versions of the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the Courtauld Emotional Control Scale (CECS), and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were used. Men showed a higher level of general forgiveness and greater willingness to overcome unforgiveness than women, but there was no significant difference in positive facets of the disposition to forgive. In both genders negative affect, anxiety, and control of anger and of depression were negatively related to dimensions of dispositional forgiveness, and positive affect was positively associated with forgiveness. In females control of anxiety was negatively and in males it was positively related to facets of forgiveness. Gender moderated a number of links between affective traits and forgiveness of self and of situations beyond control, but not forgiveness of others.


Gender Differences in Forgiveness and its Affective Correlates

An intervention, with forgiveness toward their abuser as the goal, was implemented with 12 female incest survivors. The women, from a midwestern city, were 24 to 54 years old, and all were Caucasian. A yoked, randomized experimental and control group design was used. The participants were randomly assigned to an experimental group (receiving the forgiveness intervention immediately) or a waiting-list control group (receiving the intervention when their matched experimental counterpart finished the intervention). Each participant met individually with the intervener once per week. The average length of the intervention for the 12 participants was 14.3 months. A process model of forgiveness was used as the focus of intervention. Dependent variables included forgiveness, self-esteem, hope, psychological depression, and state-trait anxiety scales. After the intervention, the experimental group gained more than the control group in forgiveness and hope and decreased significantly more than the control group in anxiety and depression. When the control group then began the program they showed similar change patterns to the above, as well as in self-esteem improvement.


Forgiveness as an Intervention with Incest Survivors

This within subjects experiment (28 females, 26 males) examined three responses to a past interpersonal offender. We contrasted offense-focused rumination with two subsequent, counterbalanced coping strategies: compassionate reappraisal and emotion suppression. Compassionate reappraisal emphasized the offender's human qualities and need for positive change. Emotion suppression inhibited the experience and expression of negative offense-related emotions. Offense rumination was associated with negative emotion, faster heartbeats (i.e., shortened electrocardiogram R-R intervals), and lower heart rate variability (HRV; i.e., the high-frequency component of the R-R power spectrum). By contrast, both compassionate reappraisal and emotion suppression decreased negative emotion in ratings and linguistic analyses, calmed eye muscle tension (_orbicularis oculi EMG_, electromyography), and maintained HRV at baseline levels. Suppression inhibited negative emotion expression at the brow (_corrugator_ EMG) and slowed cardiac R-R intervals, but without forgiveness effects. Only compassionate reappraisal significantly increased positive emotions, smiling (_zygomatic_ EMG), and social language along with forgiveness.


Compassionate reappraisal and emotion suppression as alternatives to offense-focused rumination: Implications for forgiveness and psychophysiological well-being.

The idea of self-forgiveness poses a serious challenge to any philosopher interested in giving a general account of forgiveness. On the one hand, it is an uncontroversial part of our common psychological and moral discourse. On the other, any account of self-forgiveness is inconsistent with any general account of forgiveness which implies that only the victim of an offense can forgive. To avoid this conclusion, one must either challenge the particular claims that preclude self-forgiveness or offer an independently plausible account of self-forgiveness. I deploy both strategies in this article, explaining what self-forgiveness is and how it is possible.


How is Self-Forgiveness Possible?

How stable vs. dynamic is wisdom in daily life? We conducted a daily diary study of wise reasoning (WR) by recording people’s reflections on daily challenges in terms of three facets: intellectual humility, self-transcendence, and consideration of others’ perspectives/compromise. We observed substantial and systematic intraindividual variability in WR, with wiser reasoning in the social versus nonsocial contexts. State-level WR variability was potent in predicting a bigger-picture construal of the event, more positive (vs. negative) emotions, greater emotional complexity, lower emotional reactivity, less thought suppression, and more reappraisal and forgiveness. In contrast, on the trait level, we observed only a few associations to emotional complexity and reappraisal. We discuss implications for conceptualization and measurement of wisdom-related thought.


Wise Reasoning in the Face of Everyday Life Challenges

In recent years, forgiveness research, education, and therapy have received a great deal of theoretical and empirical attention. Past research illustrates the potential benefits of and interest in forgiveness therapy (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000; Legaree, Turner, & Lollis, 2007). Misunderstandings and misconceptions about what it means to forgive are linked to criticism aimed at the use of forgiveness therapy and education. The 3-fold purpose of the current study is to explain the value of forgiveness as a therapeutic approach, address misconceptions of forgiveness and forgiveness therapy, and describe a model of forgiveness that has been used effectively with a variety of populations.


The Psychology of Interpersonal Forgiveness and Guidelines for Forgiveness Therapy: What Therapists Need to Know to Help Their Clients Forgive

Peace efforts that focus on children occur infrequently and are rarely researched. Because excessive anger can lead to violence and because student anger is an important and increasing concern within the school setting, three studies were done to address this issue within Belfast, Northern Ireland. In Study 1, 309 first-grade students from Belfast, and Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin completed the Beck Anger Inventory-Youth. Children in the two impoverished and violent environments presented with statistically significantly greater anger than those in Madison. In Studies 2 and 3, using a teacher/psychologist consultation model, psychologists instructed and supported teachers who led forgiveness interventions with first grade children (N= 36 experimental, 57 control) and third-grade children (N= 35 E, 49 C) in Belfast. In each case, the children whose classrooms were randomly assigned to the forgiveness intervention reduced statistically significantly in anger relative to the children whose classrooms were in the control group. For the third grade study, the children in the experimental condition also improved more in forgiveness and reduced more in psychological depression than their control counterparts. Implications for peace education regarding anger reduction in schools, especially in socially contentious regions, are discussed.


Waging peace through forgiveness in Belfast, Northern Ireland II: Educational programs for mental health improvement of children

P.F. Strawson claimed that forgiveness is such an essential part of our moral practices that we could not extricate it from our form of life even if we so desired. But what is it about forgiveness that would make it such a central feature of our moral experience? In this paper, I suggest that the answer has to do with what I will call the _normative significance_ of forgiveness. Forgiveness is normatively significant in the sense that, in its paradigmatic instances, forgiving alters the operative norms bearing on the interaction between the victim and the wrongdoer in certain characteristic ways. My project here is, first, to clarify the ways that paradigmatic cases of forgiveness alter the norms of interaction between victim and wrongdoer and to argue that it is in this respect that forgiveness is a normatively significant feature of our moral responsibility practices. Second, I show that most extant theories of forgiveness fail to explain the characteristic ways in which forgiving alters norms. Third, I offer a theory of forgiveness that accounts for this significant normative feature. I conclude by addressing two objections to my proposal.


The Normative Significance of Forgiveness

Citizens of South Africa are confronting a painful past through the new nation's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, which thus far has heard thousands of reports (many televised) about murders, torture, and other human rights abuses that took place during the apartheid era. South Africa's TRC is grounded in a constitutional commitment to the African concept of "ubuntu," or humaneness. Amnesty is available on a conditional basis to alleged perpetrators. The author assesses the potential restorative power of truth-telling; the significance of sympathetic witnesses; and the tasks of both perpetrators and bystanders in the TRC process. Aspirations for justice are considered along with restoring dignity to victims, offering a basis for individual healing, and promoting reconciliation of a divided society.


Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The present study is the first randomized, controlled trial comparing REACH Forgiveness and Forgive for Good, two of the most commonly used approaches to promote forgiveness. Additionally, the combined effects of psychoeducation and a community forgiveness intervention were examined. Psychoeducation participants were 99 Luther College students randomly assigned to six hours of one of two types of forgiveness training led by undergraduate facilitators or a control condition. The community forgiveness intervention involved campus-wide modifications to the environment that were difficult for most students to not notice. Unforgiveness and forgiveness were measured at pre-, post-intervention, and two-month follow-up. Both forgiveness groups reported decreased unforgiveness and increased forgiveness pre- to post-intervention, and these gains were maintained at follow-up. Both methods were found to be equally effective, can be taught by undergraduates, and were effective in tandem with a community intervention.


Promoting Forgiveness at a Christian College: A Comparison of the REACH Forgiveness and Forgive for Good Methods

What is to forgive someone? Is it primarily a change in one’s emotions, in one’s behavior, or something else? What is the connection between forgiveness and blaming attitudes like resentment? What is the relationship between forgiveness and free will? The chapters in this book explore not only these questions about the nature of forgiveness but also questions about the norms of forgiveness. Is forgiveness necessarily gift-like, and thus always discretionary? Is forgiveness ever prohibited or required? What is the relationship between forgiveness and apology? Does love require us to forgive? How does one maintain self-respect when one forgives? Is it morally permissible to forgive people for doing evil? And what would a utilitarian theory of the norms of forgiveness look like? This volume contains entirely new chapters on forgiveness by some of the world’s leading moral philosophers. Some contributors have been writing about forgiveness for decades. Others have taken the opportunity here to develop their thinking about forgiveness they broached in other work. For some contributors, this is their first time stepping into the forgiveness literature. While all the contributions address core questions about the nature and norms of forgiveness, they also collectively break new ground by raising entirely new questions, offering original proposals and arguments, and making connections to what have until now been treated as separate areas within philosophy.


Forgiveness and Its Moral Dimensions

Although the topic of forgiveness has received abundant attention in research on close relationships, little is known about the benefits of forgiveness in work relationships. This is unfortunate because research suggests that forgiveness is associated with numerous beneficial outcomes, such as improved social relationships and psychological well-being. The present research addresses the question whether and when forgiveness is associated with enhanced work outcomes. It was expected that forgiveness is associated with better work outcomes, especially when perceived work relationship quality between victim and offender is strong rather than weak. Study 1 (_n_ = 472 MTurk participants) revealed that trait forgiveness was strongly associated with a broad range of work outcomes. Study 2 (_n_ = 216 Dutch working employees) showed that state forgiveness was negatively associated with burnout. Study 3 (_n_ = 370 Prolific participants) replicated the positive association between forgiveness (both trait and state) and work outcomes (especially well-being-related work outcomes, that is, job satisfaction, work engagement, and less burnout). Moreover, the associations between state forgiveness and work outcomes were stronger when the quality of work relationships (i.e., exchange quality) was high rather than low. Furthermore, only in cases of high exchange quality, the positive association between trait forgiveness and work outcomes could be explained by higher levels of state forgiveness. These findings suggest that levels of work relationship quality are of great importance to better understand forgiveness in the work context. Implications of these findings for the role of interpersonal forgiveness in the work context are discussed.


When Work Relationships Matter: Interpersonal Forgiveness and Work Outcomes

This research advances the forgiveness literature by identifying genetic and gender predictors that operate through empathy. In a sample of 202 (101 males, 101 females), both the oxytocin receptor gene single nucleotide polymorphism rs53576 and gender had indirect effects on trait forgiveness through trait empathy. Furthermore, rs53576 and gender had indirect effects on state interpersonal forgiveness through trait empathy and state empathy for one’s real-life offender. Simulation-based regression analyses with 10,000 repetitions on an additive model showed stronger evidence for the effect of gender (females > males) than rs53576 (GGs > A-carriers) on most empathy and forgiveness measures. Further, rs53576 effects on empathy were stronger at the state than trait level. Overall, this work advances knowledge of interpersonal forgiveness predictors, shows the importance of balancing gender with sufficient sample sizes in studies of rs53576, points to the value of investigating state empathy effects and demonstrates genetic and gender indirect effects on forgiveness through empathy.


Granting Forgiveness: State and trait evidence for genetic and gender indirect effects through empathy.

Theory and research suggest that an individual’s negative interactions with his or her parents or romantic partner are associated with the perpetration of dating abuse. Research is beginning to explore the role of forgivingness within abusive romantic relationships, and these preliminary findings suggest that dispositional forgivingness might mediate the relations between negative interpersonal interactions and dating abuse. The current study assessed negative interactions with one’s parents and one’s romantic partner, the frequency of dating abuse perpetration, and dispositional forgivingness of others and oneself among a sample of emerging adults in college (n = 421). Dispositional forgivingness of others was negatively associated with the perpetration of emotional/verbal dating abuse and threatening behaviors, and it mediated relations between negative interpersonal interactions and dating abuse perpetration. Our findings suggest that the tendency to forgive others may explain why some individuals who experience negative interpersonal interactions with parents or romantic partners do not escalate to perpetration of abuse within their romantic relationships. Implications for future research and application are discussed.


Negative Interpersonal Interactions and Dating Abuse Perpetration: The Mediating Role of Dispositional Forgivingness

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, forgiveness is discussed as a culturally relevant response for coping and meaning-making in the wake of a decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone. Cultural aspects of coping which include rituals and traditions are discussed. A case is made for forgiveness as a culturally appropriate means of coping with the trauma of civil war. Second, an adaptation of a university-based forgiveness education curriculum is discussed. Development of this curriculum for Sierra Leoneans is described and its scientific evaluation is presented. The results of our evaluation suggest that adapting a research-driven psychoeducational forgiveness curriculum was effective in eliciting individual-level change that ultimately can provide the foundation for group and cultural forgiveness.


Striving for Peace through Forgiveness in Sierra Leone: Effectiveness of a Psychoeducational Forgiveness Intervention

This chapter sketches the overall gestalt of the literature on forgiveness by providing a bibliography of narrative reviews and meta-analyses published on forgiveness between 2004 and 2018. The literature was organized into five domains: conceptualization and measurement; individual and personality differences; health and well-being; dyads, organizations, and societies; and clinical intervention. Conceptualizations of various dimensions of forgiveness commonly refer to forgiveness as the release of an emotional burden associated with honest appraisal of a perceived transgression. The chapter reviews individual differences in forgiveness on several sociodemographic characteristics. Although the forgiveness-health association might be conceptualized in a variety of ways, several scholars adapted stress-and-coping models to integrate research that links forgiveness to health and well-being. Investigators recently expanded the historical focus on individuals' experiences with forgiveness to forgiveness when it occurs in dyads, organizations, and societies. One of the most proliferative domains within the forgiveness literature is devoted to the development of clinical interventions designed to promote forgiveness. Based on the review, the chapter offers an omnibus model of forgiveness and directions for future research. It concludes that the study of forgiveness offers promise to novice researchers looking to build expertise and established scientists looking to expand to new areas.


Bibliography of Narrative Reviews and Meta-analyses on Forgiveness

Objective: This meta-analysis addressed the efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions to help people forgive others and to examine moderators of treatment effects. Method: Eligible studies reported quantitative data on forgiveness of a specific hurt following treatment by a professional with an intervention designed explicitly to promote forgiveness. Random effects meta-analyses were conducted using k  53 posttreatment effect sizes (N  2,323) and k  41 follow-up effect sizes (N  1,716) from a total of 54 published and unpublished research reports. Results: Participants receiving explicit forgiveness treatments reported significantly greater forgiveness than participants not receiving treatment (  0.56 [0.43, 0.68]) and participants, receiving alternative treatments (  0.45 [0.21, 0.69]). Also, forgiveness treatments resulted in greater changes in depression, anxiety, and hope than no-treatment conditions. Moderators of treatment efficacy included treatment dosage, offense severity, treatment model, and treatment modality. Multimoderator analyses indicated that treatment dosage (i.e., longer interventions) and modality (individual  group) uniquely predicted change in forgiveness compared with no-treatment controls. Compared with alternative treatment conditions, both modality (individual  group) and offense severity were marginally predictive (ps  .10) of treatment effects. Conclusions: It appears that using theoretically grounded forgiveness interventions is a sound choice for helping clients to deal with past offenses and helping them achieve resolution in the form of forgiveness. Differences between treatment approaches disappeared when controlling for other significant moderators; the advantage for individual interventions was most clearly demonstrated for Enright-model interventions, as there have been no studies of individual interventions using the Worthington model.


Efficacy of Psychotherapeutic Interventions to Promote Forgiveness: A Meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

An educational intervention using forgiveness as the goal was implemented with 10 at-risk adolescents attending an alternative school in a Midwestern city. The adolescents ranged in age from 15 to 19 years of age. A randomized experimental and active control group pre- and post-test design was used. Twenty-one participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (forgiveness education class) or the control group (personal communications class). Classes met daily for 31 sessions for approximately 23 hours of education. Enright’s process model of forgiveness was used as the focus of the intervention. Dependent variables included forgiveness, self-esteem, hope, depression, and state-trait anxiety scales. After the education, the experimental group gained more than the control group in forgiveness and hope, and decreased significantly more than the control group in anxiety and depression. Verbal reports from the experimental participants following the education also illustrate the positive impact forgiveness had on the students.


Forgiveness as an Educational Goal with At-risk Adolescents

This study examines the relationship between interpersonal forgiveness and health for older Black people and White people. We outline a series of arguments concerning the following: (a) how forgiveness can affect health, (b) how forgiveness may be more protective for Black people, and (c) how the relationship between forgiveness and health may vary by neighborhood deterioration.


Forgiveness of Others and Health: Do Race and Neighborhood Matter?

Self-forgiveness and forgiveness-seeking are important and understudied aspects of forgiveness. We examined the cardiac and emotional patterns of healthy young adults (40 women, 40 men) who recalled an unresolved offense they had caused another person. Participants engaged in four imagery conditions: ruminating about the offense, being humbly repentant and engaging in self-forgiveness, seeking forgiveness from the victim and receiving forgiveness, and seeking forgiveness from the victim and being begrudged. Being repentant and begrudged forgiveness by one’s victim was associated with the same level of guilt as when ruminating, but significantly more negative emotion, less control, and less empathy than when ruminating, self-forgiving, and receiving forgiveness from the victim. Compared to ruminating about one’s wrongdoing, self-forgiving alleviated guilt and negative emotion, increased perceived control, decreased heart rate, and increased parasympathetic activation. Imagery of receiving forgiveness from the victim resulted in these same patterns and was equivalent to self-forgiveness across variables.


Self-forgiveness and Forgiveness-seeking in Response to Rumination: Cardiac and Emotional Responses of Transgressors

The critical legal studies movement has, in my judgment, raised at least one important issue for jurisprudence and moral philosophy. I am thinking of its claim that traditional moralistic jurisprudence errs in confining its inquiries to formal, abstract, and public doctrines and to the intellectual rationales for those doctrines. According to the “crits,” a full philosophical grasp of law and morality requires an examination of the underlying causal forces that in part generate both the doctrines and the intellectual rationales for them. The person who seeks total enlightenment about morality and the law is invited to look, not just to the ideological superstructure, but to the underlying substructure that gives the superstructure at least a part of its point. This seems to me an invitation that those of us who practice traditional jurisprudence should accept.



Introduction

It is generally thought that we cannot forgive people for things they do to others. I cannot forgive you for lying to your mother, for instance. I lack standing to do so. But many people believe that God can forgive us for things we do to others. How is this possible? This is the question I wish to explore. Call it the problem of divine standing. I begin by cataloging the various ways one can have standing to forgive a wrongdoer. I then provide two solutions to the problem of divine standing.


God's Standing to Forgive

Previous research demonstrates the health benefits of both intrapersonal and interpersonal forgiveness as indicated by various markers of physiological activity. Specifically, evidence suggests that forgiveness can help regulate the body’s stress response and increase an individual’s ability to relax after exposure to an acute stressor. This review identifies specific outcomes associated with the health benefits of forgiveness and its effects on cardiovascular functioning, as well as hyperarousal in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and sympathetic nervous systems. In addition to its health benefits, the findings suggest that activity in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis may influence the types of forgiveness that individuals communicate.


The Physiological Substrate of Forgiveness

When we are done wrong, how should we react? If the answer is that we should take offense and hold the behavior against the wrong-doer, should that remain our attitude as time goes by? Or should we put what happened behind us and forgive? What would be a reason to forgive, and how strong can such reasons be? Can it be wrong _not_ to forgive?



Forgiveness

In this chapter, we review forgiveness measures for use within healthcare settings. Because forgiveness is multidimensional, and individuals can perceive various offenders, we differentiate between forgiveness of self, others, and the Sacred. First, we adopt a stress-and-coping framework to explore the association between forgiveness and health. Next, we examine forgiveness measures across the three domains (self, others, the Sacred) and their relation to health and healthcare settings. Finally, we recommend screening questions about pain related to blame of self, others, or the Sacred and whether the patient wishes to address this in their care. If so, we suggest state-scales that assess forgiveness of self (e.g., Wohl and Thompson, Br J Soc Psychol 50:354–364, 2011, plus questions of responsibility and reparative behavior per Fisher and Exline, Self Identity 5:127–146, 2006), another person (e.g., TRIM-18; McCullough et al, J Consult Clin Psychol 74:887–897, 2006), and the Sacred (e.g., Attitude Toward God Scale; Wood et al, Psychol Relig Spiritual 2:148–167, 2010). These state assessments can be re-administered to assess treatment.


Measuring Forgiveness in Health-related Contexts

Forgiveness can arise only in the context of an interpersonal injustice. The possibility of forgiveness emerges when a transgressor acts, or fails to act, in a way that is unjust and wounds a victim. The victim's perception of the injustice and the wound may differ considerably from how the transgressor or witnesses perceive it. Forgiveness theory and research point to the importance of focusing on the humanity of the offender, which resists totalizing him or her in terms of the offense. Within the social sciences, the measurement of forgiveness has received substantial attention. The science and practice of forgiveness are combined in research on the affective implications of granting forgiveness. The relationship between forgiveness and well-being also has been assessed using longitudinal designs. Fluctuations in forgiveness were related to subsequent increases in self-reported hedonic well-being. The emerging literature on seeking forgiveness is showing that it can have positive side effects similar to forgiveness granting.


Forgiveness and Well-being

This experiment assessed the emotional self-reports and physiology of justice outcomes and forgiveness responses to a common crime, using a three Justice (retributive, restorative, no justice) × 2 Forgiveness (forgiveness, none) repeated-measures design. Participants (27 males, 29 females) imagined their residence was burglarized, followed by six counterbalanced justice–forgiveness outcomes. Imagery of justice—especially restorative—and forgiveness each reduced unforgiving motivations and negative emotion (anger, fear), and increased prosocial and positive emotion (empathy, gratitude). Imagery of granting forgiveness (versus not) was associated with less heart rate reactivity and better recovery; less negative emotion expression at the brow (corrugator EMG); and less aroused expression at the eye (lower orbicularis oculi EMG when justice was absent). When forgiveness was not imagined, justice-physiology effects emerged: signs of cardiovascular stress (rate pressure products) were lower for retributive versus no justice; and sympathetic nervous system responding (skin conductance) was calmer for restorative versus retributive justice.


Retributive Justice, Restorative Justice, and Forgiveness: An Experimental Psychophysiology Analysis

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.


Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Community-based Forgiveness Campaign

To forgive is to respond in a particular way to someone who has treated someone badly or wrongly. Forgiveness is therefore a dyadic relation involving a wrongdoer and a wronged party, and is thought to be a way in which victims of wrongdoing alter both their and a wrongdoer’s status by, for instance, acknowledging yet moving past a moral transgression. Commonly, forgiveness is thought to involve the giving up of certain negative emotions towards the wrongdoer, the forbearance of negative reactions against the wrongdoer, and possibly the restoration of the relationship with the wrongdoer. Much philosophical discussion of forgiveness centers on three primary questions: (1) What is the nature of forgiveness—what must one do in order to forgive; (2) Who has standing to forgive—when is one in a position to forgive a wrongdoer; and (3) What are the norms governing forgiveness—when is forgiveness morally good, right, or praiseworthy?


Research from South Latin America and Latin Europe supports theoretical claims for interpersonal forgiveness in close and valuable relationships, with researchers adapting versions of traditional measures: the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI) and the Transgression Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-12 and TRIM-18). The quality of psychometric analysis applied to Spanish and Portuguese versions of these measures have improved reliability, providing strong empirical evidences for cross-cultural comparisons. This chapter reports on significant scholarship on forgiveness from four South American countries of Latin background: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. Spain and Portugal are also included in the review as European countries with Latin cultures and languages disseminated to nations in South and Central America during colonization. Research on forgiveness in these countries grew out of the revival of interest in the theme by North American psychology during the 1990s. This coincides with periods of social conflicts for the return of democracies in the South Latin American nations. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia are, each in their own way, consolidating socioeconomic development and social harmony, after facing a past of political repression and social conflicts. Portugal and Spain, former colonizers of nations in South America, have internal social conflicts of different sorts.


Theories and Empirical Research on Forgiveness in South America and Latin Europe: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Spain, and Portugal

We explore meta-analytic associations between health and forgiveness, testing a number of potential theoretical and methodological factors that could alter that association, including the type of forgiveness measure (e.g. state vs. trait), the type of health measure (i.e. physical vs. psychological) and the target of forgiveness (e.g. self- vs. other-forgiveness).


Meta-analytic Connections Between Forgiveness and Health: the Moderating Effects of Forgiveness-Related Distinctions

To examine risk and resilience factors that affect health, lifetime stress exposure histories, dispositional forgiveness levels, and mental and physical health were assessed in 148 young adults. Greater lifetime stress severity and lower levels of forgiveness each uniquely predicted worse mental and physical health. Analyses also revealed a graded Stress × Forgiveness interaction effect, wherein associations between stress and mental health were weaker for persons exhibiting more forgiveness. These data are the first to elucidate the interactive effects of cumulative stress severity and forgiveness on health, and suggest that developing a more forgiving coping style may help minimize stress-related disorders.


Effects of lifetime stress exposure on mental and physical health in young adulthood: How stress degrades and forgiveness protects health

We are constantly exhorted to forgive those who wrong us. However, in Chapter 1 Jeffrie Murphy is sympathetic to the Nietzschean thought that forgiveness may, at least in certain circumstances, be harmful and wrong, a vice rather than a virtue. Like Bishop Butler, Murphy understands forgiveness as the overcoming of resentment. But the failure to resent a moral injury need not be a good thing: “If I count morally as much as anyone else (as surely I do), a failure to resent moral injuries done to me is a failure to care about the moral value incarnate in my own person (that I am, in Kantian language, an end in myself) and thus a failure to care about the very rules of morality.”


Forgiveness, Resentment and Hatred

Conceptualizations of forgiveness were examined in two samples of Latin American and Western European participants. In both samples the same basic four-factor structure of conceptualizations was found: Change of Heart, More than Dyadic Process, Encourages Repentance, and Immoral Behavior. Latin Americans agreed more than Western Europeans with the idea that forgiveness is extensible to unknown or deceased people, thus it can be offered on behalf of deceased relatives. In both samples, substantial 	disagreements were found about the psychological nature of forgiveness (a change of heart), and a large proportion of participants disagreed with the idea that it may encourage the offender’s repentance. However, most participants, agreed with the basic idea that forgiveness is not immoral. It is thus recommended, to precisely define the concept of forgiveness before introducing it in therapeutic (and non-therapeutic) settings, and not to expect that everyone would agree with the proposed definition.


Conceptualizations of Forgiveness: a Latin America-Western Europe Comparison

We examined how adopting a future (vs. present)-oriented perspective when reflecting on a relationship conflict impacts the process of reasoning and relationship well-being. Across two studies, participants instructed to think about how they would feel in the future (vs. present) expressed more adaptive reasoning over a relationship conflict—low partner blame, greater insight, and greater forgiveness, which was then associated with greater relationship well-being—for example, more positive versus negative emotions about the relationship and expectations that the relationship will grow. These findings were driven by a decrease in person-centered language when reflecting on the conflict. Implications for understanding how temporal distance and reasoning impact relationship conflict management are discussed.


The Value of Prospective Reasoning for Close Relationships

This research assesses the effects of a psychology of forgiveness pilot study on anger-recall stress induced changes in myocardial perfusion, forgiveness and related variables. Thirty-two patients were administered baseline rest and anger-recall stress imaging studies, and 17 of these participants who demonstrated anger-recall stress induced myocardial perfusion defects (forgiveness group, n 1⁄4 9; control group, n 1⁄4 8) were randomly assigned to a series of 10 weekly interpersonal forgiveness or control therapy sessions with a trained psychologist, and underwent additional anger-recall stress myocardial perfusion nuclear imaging studies post-test and at 10-week follow-up. Patients assigned to the forgiveness group showed significantly fewer anger-recall induced myocardial perfusion defects from pre-test to the 10-week follow-up as well as significantly greater gains in forgiveness from pre-test to post-test and from pre-test to follow- up compared to the control group. Forgiveness intervention may be an effective means of reducing anger-induced myocardial ischemia in patients with coronary artery disease.


The Effects of a Forgiveness Intervention on Patients with Coronary Artery Disease

The aim of this pilot study was to test the effectiveness of an educational forgiveness intervention on mental health in grieving parents. 21 grieving parents were randomly assigned to the experimental group (in which the educational forgiveness intervention occurred) and to the control group (in which a psycho-education grief intervention with a humanistic approach took place). Participants in both groups completed 12 individual hourly sessions for three months. The results showed that participants in the experimental group achieved statistically greater improvement in forgiveness towards others, self-forgiveness, and a greater decrease in depression in the post-test and follow-up test; a greater decrease in anxiety and anger in the post-test; as well as higher improvement in the post-traumatic growth in the follow-up test, four months after the end of the intervention. We highlight the potential benefits of using a forgiveness intervention with bereaved parents.


The Effectiveness of a Forgiveness Intervention on Mental Health in Bereaved Parents—A Pilot Study

Thirty years later, Alison still recalls an episode in her teens, not frequently, but often enough, and always with something akin to self-loathing. There was this girl, Dana, someone Alison had been friends with in middle school, though they'd drifted apart. Dana was nice and smart and funny, and she was deformed (maybe thalidomide, Alison now thinks). That hadn't mattered to Alison when they were younger, but it was a big deal to her high school friends. They made up mocking songs and dances and made fun of Dana in the halls. Alison never sang the songs or danced the dances, and she told her friends to stop it when they ridiculed Dana. But she has always known to her deep shame that she was not guilt-free-she knows she was too cowardly and too needy of acceptance to stand up for Dana, to make her friends stop tormenting, to stop being friends with tormentors, and she knows that she did laugh. After all these years, Alison can't forgive herself for Dana. Nor is she sure that she should-how could a self-respecting person be at peace with herself about something like this? Recurrent self-reproach reminds Alison of things she wants not to forget.


Self-Forgiveness and Self-Respect

This new edition considers forgiveness in a diverse range of contexts and presents a research agenda for future directions in the field. Chapters approach forgiveness from a variety of perspectives, drawing on related work in areas including biology, personality, social psychology, clinical/counseling psychology, developmental psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience, as well as considering international and political implications. The Handbook provides comprehensive treatment of the topic, integrating theoretical considerations, methodological discussions, and practical intervention strategies that will appeal to researchers, clinicians, and practitioners.
Reflecting the increased precision with which forgiveness has been understood, theorized, and assessed during the last 14 years of research, this updated edition of the Handbook of Forgiveness remains the authoritative resource on the field of forgiveness.


Handbook of Forgiveness (2nd Edition)

This repeated measures psychophysiology experiment studied three responses to a past interpersonal offense (38 females and 33 males). We compared rumination with two offense reappraisal strategies. Compassion-focused reappraisal emphasized the offender's humanity, and interpreted the transgression as evidence of the offender's need for positive transformation. Benefit-focused reappraisal emphasized insights gained or strengths shown in facing the offense. Supporting the manipulations, compassion-focused reappraisal stimulated the most empathy and forgiveness, whereas benefit-focused reappraisal prompted the most benefit language and gratitude. Both reappraisals decreased aroused, negative emotion, and related facial muscle tension at the brow (corrugator). Both reappraisals increased happiness and positive emotion in ratings and linguistic analyses. Compassion stimulated the greatest social language, calmed tension under the eye (orbicularis oculi), and slowed heart beats (R–R intervals). A focus on benefits prompted the greatest joy, stimulated smiling (zygomatic) activity, and buffered the parasympathetic nervous system against rumination's adverse effects on heart rate variability (HRV).


Compassion-focused Reappraisal, Benefit-focused Reappraisal, and Rumination After an Interpersonal offense: Emotion Regulation Implications for Subjective Emotion, Linguistic Responses, and Physiology.

Apology and restitution each represents wrongdoers’ accountable repair responses that have promoted victims’ self-reported empathy and forgiveness in crime scenario research. The current study measured emotional and stress-related dependent variables including physiological measures, to illuminate the links between predictors of forgiveness and health-relevant side effects. Specifically, we tested the independent and interactive effects of apology and restitution on forgiveness, emotion self-reports, and facial responses, as well as cardiac measures associated with stress in 32 males and 29 females. Apology and restitution each independently increased empathy, forgiveness, gratitude, and positive emotions, while reducing unforgiveness, negative emotion, and muscle activity above the brow (corrugator supercilii, CS). The presence of a thorough apology—regardless of whether restitution was present—also calmed heart rate, reduced rate pressure products indicative of cardiac stress, and decreased muscle activity under the eye (orbicularis oculi, OO). Interactions pointed to the more potent effects of restitution compared to apology for reducing unforgiveness and anger, while elevating positivity and gratitude. The findings point to distinctive impacts of apology and restitution as factors that foster forgiveness, along with emotional and embodied changes relevant to health.


Apology and Restitution: The Psychophysiology of Forgiveness after Accountable Relational Repair Responses

Although interpersonal forgiveness has recently received some discussion in philosophical literature, little has been written about the equally important topic of self-forgiveness. I will take an analysis of interpersonal forgiveness I have developed and extend it to self-forgiveness. While the same basic principles provide the moral ground for each type of forgiveness, forgiving ourselves is sufficiently different from forgiving others that there is much to be gained from an independent examination of self-forgiveness. 


Self-Forgiveness and Responsible Moral Agency

We review 14 measures of forgiveness, including measures of state forgiveness, forgivingness as a disposition or trait, self-reported state self-forgiveness, and trait self-forgivingness. The state forgiveness measures include self-report measures, chemical measures of state unforgiveness and forgiveness, measures of peripheral physiology (i.e., blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance, and electrical activity of facial muscles) to supplement self-reports – unforgiveness, measures of brain activity associated with forgiveness, and behavioral indices of forgiveness. We also review a ten-item scale and a five-scenario scale of dispositional forgivingness. Self-forgiveness may also be assessed at state (one measure) and trait levels (one measure). These measures of forgiveness and their various targets (self or other) and different levels (state or trait) are generally strong – with considerable evidence supporting estimated reliabilities and construct validities.


Measures of Forgiveness: Self-report, Physiological, Chemical, and Behavioral Indicators

Objective: This meta-analysis addressed the efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions to help people forgive others and to examine moderators of treatment effects. Method: Eligible studies reported quantitative data on forgiveness of a specific hurt following treatment by a professional with an intervention designed explicitly to promote forgiveness. Random effects meta-analyses were conducted using k = 53 posttreatment effect sizes (N = 2,323) and k = 41 follow-up effect sizes (N = 1,716) from a total of 54 published and unpublished research reports. Results: Participants receiving explicit forgiveness treatments reported significantly greater forgiveness than participants not receiving treatment (Δ+ = 0.56 [0.43, 0.68]) and participants, receiving alternative treatments (Δ+ = 0.45 [0.21, 0.69]). Also, forgiveness treatments resulted in greater changes in depression, anxiety, and hope than no-treatment conditions. Moderators of treatment efficacy included treatment dosage, offense severity, treatment model, and treatment modality. Multimoderator analyses indicated that treatment dosage (i.e., longer interventions) and modality (individual > group) uniquely predicted change in forgiveness compared with no-treatment controls. Compared with alternative treatment conditions, both modality (individual > group) and offense severity were marginally predictive (ps < .10) of treatment effects. Conclusions: It appears that using theoretically grounded forgiveness interventions is a sound choice for helping clients to deal with past offenses and helping them achieve resolution in the form of forgiveness. Differences between treatment approaches disappeared when controlling for other significant moderators; the advantage for individual interventions was most clearly demonstrated for Enright-model interventions, as there have been no studies of individual interventions using the Worthington model.


Efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions to promote forgiveness: A meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

We assessed transgressors’ (20 male, 20 female) subjective emotions and physiological responses in two complementary within-subjects imagery studies. In Study I, participants ruminated about a real-life transgression and imagined seeking forgiveness from the victim. In Study II, participants imagined their victims responding with a grudge, with genuine forgiveness, and with reconciliation. Imagery of forgiveness-seeking behaviors (Study I) and merciful responses from victims (forgiveness and reconciliation in Study II) prompted greater perceived interpersonal forgiveness, improved basic emotions (e.g., sadness, anger, fear) and moral emotions (e.g., guilt, shame, gratitude, empathy, hope), as well as less furrowing of the brow muscle (corrugator) compared to ruminations about one’s real-life transgression (Study I) or an unforgiving response from the victim (Study II). Autonomic nervous system measures (heart rate, skin conductance levels) were largely unaffected by imagery. In Study II, smiling activity (zygomatic EMG) increased more when imagining victims’ merciful versus begrudging responses. In Study I, participants reported higher self-forgiveness during forgiveness-seeking imagery, but perceived greater divine forgiveness during transgression-focused imagery.


Please Forgive Me: Transgressors’ Emotions and Physiology During Imagery of Seeking Forgiveness and Victim Responses

Using a within-subjects design, three emotion regulation strategies (compassion-focused reappraisal, benefit-focused reappraisal, and offense rumination) were tested for their effects on forgiveness, well-being, and event-related potentials. Participants (_N_ = 37) recalled a recent interpersonal offense as the context for each emotion regulation strategy. Both decisional and emotional forgiveness increased significantly for the two reappraisal strategies compared to offense rumination. Compassion-focused reappraisal prompted the greatest increase in both decisional and emotional forgiveness. Furthermore, both reappraisal strategies increased positively oriented well-being measures (e.g. joy, gratitude) compared to offense rumination, with compassion-focused reappraisal demonstrating the largest effect on empathy. Late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes in response to unpleasant affect words were larger following the benefit-focused reappraisal strategy, indicating frontal LPP augmentation due to affective incongruence of the unpleasant stimuli with the positive, silver-lining orientation of the benefit-focused reappraisal emotion regulation strategy.


Positive reappraisals after an offense: Event-related potentials and emotional effects of benefit-finding and compassion.

The present study investigated the efficacy of the REACH Forgiveness psychoeducation program for the first time in Indian college students and examined theoretically-based predictors of program response based on the model of relational spirituality and forgiveness. This was an intervention experiment that spanned 5 weeks and included three measurement occasions (weeks 1, 3, 5) and two separate deliveries of the forgiveness intervention (weeks 2 and 4). Participants were _N_ = 124 students at Karnatak University in Darwha, India (100 Hindu; 18 Muslim, 5 Christian, and 1 Jain). This was a manualized, secular intervention led by a trained facilitator in a group, psychoeducational format. Measures included forgiveness and unforgiveness as well as assessments of positive and negative affective states and spirituality. Participants who received immediate forgiveness training showed significant and large positive changes in forgiveness and unforgiveness, as well as, more positive affect and increased self-esteem in contrast to wait-list comparisons. Perceiving one’s offender as having a similar spirituality to oneself was a consistent predictor of response to the REACH Forgiveness program. Specifically, perceiving the offender as having a similar spirituality was related to less growth of unforgiveness and more growth in empathy, positive affect, and emotional forgiveness as a result of the psychoeducational program. The REACH Forgiveness psychoeducational approach is efficacious in an Indian college student sample, and some relational spirituality variables are important predictors of response to the program. Future studies should consider the role of Indian culture in promoting forgiveness and possibly tailor the intervention to suit the significant proportions of Hindus and Muslims in India.


Efficacy of the REACH Forgiveness Intervention in Indian College Students

Forgiveness has received widespread attention among psychologists from social, personality, clinical, developmental, and organizational perspectives alike. Despite great progress, the forgiveness literature has witnessed few attempts at empirical integration. Toward this end, we meta-analyze results from 175 studies and 26,006 participants to examine the correlates of interpersonal forgiveness (i.e., forgiveness of a single offender by a single victim). A tripartite forgiveness typology is proposed, encompassing victims' (a) cognitions, (b) affect, and (c) constraints following offense, with each consisting of situational and dispositional components. We tested hypotheses with respect to 22 distinct constructs, as correlates of forgiveness, that have been measured across different fields within psychology. We also evaluated key sample and study characteristics, including gender, age, time, and methodology as main effects and moderators. Results highlight the multifaceted nature of forgiveness. Variables with particularly notable effects include intent (r = -.49), state empathy (r = .51), apology (r = .42), and state anger (r = -.41). Consistent with previous theory, situational constructs are shown to account for greater variance in forgiveness than victim dispositions, although within-category differences are considerable. Sample and study characteristics yielded negligible effects on forgiveness, despite previous theorizing to the contrary: The effect of gender was nonsignificant (r = .01), and the effect of age was negligible (r = .06). Preliminary evidence suggests that methodology may exhibit some moderating effects. Scenario methodologies led to enhanced effects for cognitions; recall methodologies led to enhanced effects for affect.


The Road to Forgiveness: A Meta-analytic Synthesis of Its Situational and Dispositional Correlates

To forgive a person for a wrong he has done has often been valued as morally good and as indicative of a benevolent and merciful character. But while forgiveness has been recognized as valuable its nature as a moral response has largely been ignored by modern moral philosophers who work outside the confines of a religious context. Where it has been discussed, forgiveness has been thought particularly difficult to define, and some have thought the forgiving response paradoxical or even impossible. I shall discuss some of these difficulties and suggest firstly that the value of forgiveness lies in the fact that it essentially requires a recognition of the wrongdoer's responsibility for his action, and secondly that forgiveness typically involves an effort on the part of the one wronged: a conscious attempt to improve oneself in relation to the wrongdoer.


Wrongdoing and Forgiveness

Evidence commends individual use of compassionate and benefit-focused reappraisals to increase empathy and forgiveness, yet the impact of using both reappraisal strategies consecutively is unknown. Building programmatically on experimental research with practice-oriented implications, participants (99 females, 99 males) first relived an unresolved interpersonal offense for which they held another person accountable. Next, they engaged in back-to-back compassionate and benefit-focused reappraisals, counterbalanced within gender. While both reappraisal types facilitated empathic and forgiving responses, interaction effects showed that reappraisal order mattered. Participants who first reappraised with compassion increased their empathy and benevolence and decreased their avoidance; these levels were sustained during subsequent benefit-focused reappraisal. Participants who first reappraised with benefit finding and then compassion showed two back-to-back increases in empathy and benevolence, and decreases in avoidance. Use of negative emotion language about offenders did not decrease until two reappraisal strategies were completed. Overall, findings commend consecutive reappraisals to strengthen and sustain forgiveness.


Consecutive Reappraisal Strategies Strengthen and Sustain Empathy and Forgiveness: Utilizing Compassion and Benefit Finding While Holding Offenders Accountable.

Self-forgiveness has been conceptualized as a coping strategy that may improve health and well-being. To better understand the functions of self-forgiveness, this meta-analysis examines the correlates of self-forgiveness associated with physical and mental health. For physical health, across 18 samples and 5,653 participants, the correlation was .32. For psychological well-being, across 65 samples and 17,939 participants, the correlation was .45. To augment this primary focus on physical and mental health correlates, we estimated the relationships between self-forgiveness and specific mental health constructs and relationship outcomes. Implications for future basic and applied research on self-forgiveness are discussed.


Forgiving the Self and Physical and Mental Health Correlates: A Meta-analytic Review

This paper explores the virtue — "forgivingness" — that is associated with the practice of forgiveness (an action or state of mind taken towards an offender). Forgivingness is a disposition to forgive under appropriate conditions.


What Can Forgiveness Do?

Forgiving the Self and Physical and Mental Health Correlates: A Meta-analytic Review

Research details

Description