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

Charlotte V. O. Witvliet
Lindsey Root Luna
R. D. Vlisides-Henry
Gerald D. Griffin
All your life you’re told forgiveness is for you. But we’re never told why it’s for you. It means you’re working on owning your life.
Shani Tran
Therapist and Founder, The Shani Project
Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
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Consecutive Reappraisal Strategies Strengthen and Sustain Empathy and Forgiveness: Utilizing Compassion and Benefit Finding While Holding Offenders Accountable.

Charlotte V. O. Witvliet
Lindsey Root Luna
R. D. Vlisides-Henry
Gerald D. Griffin
NO. of participants
Date
2019
Type of Evidence
Type of Paper
Primary Empirical Study
Empiricism
open access
Yes
No
sample size
198

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.

Research
North America
Mental Health Professionals
Supporting Research
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