Glasgow 2003
Tab. A
Present day state of the psychology of forgiveness
Jaro Křivohlavý,
Charles University, Faculty of humanitarian studies
Prague, Czech. Rep.
1. Present day state
2. Theory
3. Methods
4. Outlook
Tab. B
The problem of forgiveness took its place in the realm of the main tasks of the psychology of religion in the last years. This can be seen in the second ever published review of the psychology of religion in the Annual review of psychology (Emmons and Paloutzian, 2003)
In the section on ”The return to virtue” a review of the present day state of the art of this topic was published stressing four main taks being studied:
1. Developing measures of dispositional forgiveness.
2. Investigating the psychofysiological correlates and healt consequences of forgiveness
3. Exploring the dispositional and situational correlates of forgiveness
4. Examining the mental health and interpersonal benefits of forgiveness
Tab. C.
Theory
Forgiveness was stressed as an important factor for optimal human functioning, being a key element of the well-functioning human personality. This concept is not a new one. As the history tells us religion and philosophy took that for granted ever since its start.
Tab. D
Religion
Majority of psychologists studying forgiveness have a good reason to do so. Most of them are influenced by Christian spirituality and forgiveness is there embedded in the core of its teaching. To give two examples from the contemporary theological writing: M.Volf (1996) in Exclusion and embrace takes forgiveness for an important factor in reconciliation. J.B. Smith (1995) in analyzing love as the highest value of Christian teaching diagnoses three main forms of its realisation: acceptance, forgiveness and care. The psychological concept of forgiveness expressed in the definition of forgiveness published in McCullough, M.E., Pargment, K.I., Thoresen, C.E. (2000a) takes forgiveness for a kind of basic change of attitude - not too far from the Christian concept of changing faith (metanoia) and William James´s religious experience (Křivohlavý, 2003b). There are nevertheless problems with the realisation of forgiveness in everday life. Psychological studies are wellcommed as an alley and a potentional help in the application of this teaching.
Tab. E
Evolutionary psychology
There is nevertheless another stream of thinking about forgiveness not too much stressed as yet in official writing - the evolutionary psychology. D.S. Wilson in his book called ”Darwin´s cathedral” (2002) tried to express it. In his way of thinking society is conceptualized as an organism. Its primary interest is to survive as it is for any organism. Survive is generic not only for the society at large but as well any human group as organic units. Anything that threatens this survival has to be eliminated. Escallation of retaliation and fighting back in interpersonal or intergroop conflicts is an example of such a thretening element in the organism of human groups. History has already shown what does this deadly blood feud means.
Evolutionary psychology (Tooby, 1985 and Tooby, Cosmidel 1989) tries to show which rules have to be kept for a group to survive (the so called grammer of social contracts). Stopping destructive forms of interpersonal conflicts resolution is one example what has to be done. Trivels (1971) has shown one mechanism how it could be done - the so called reciprocal altruism at least between relatives- something known to the jewish people as the commandement ”eye for eye and tooth for tooth.”. It is possible to take forgiveness as a step father in this direction as a mechanism of introducing a intragroup peace.
Methods
A dichotomy could be seen in he study of forgiveness in the kind of methods used. On the one hand several questionnaires were developed to diagnose and meassure forgiveness as a personality trait. All of these methods use verbal expression as a vehicle to discover dispositional forgiveness:
Tab. F
Threre were several methods diagnosing different aspects of dispositional forgiveness published as seen in Tab. F. Ten different aspects of forgiveness are diagnosed by WADE. HFS enables to diagnose forgiveness to oneself, other people and severe circumstances as well as to see if it is done from moral reasons, evading responsibility or escalation of conflict or whether it is a pseudoforgiveness.
There are trends in the personality forgivenesss studies to take forgiveness for a dispositional factor of a higher level overarching several personality factors of a lower level (McCullough, M.E., Pargment, K.I., Thoresen, C.E.,2000a). We tried in our own research to go as well this way measuring e.g. forgiveness by the Heartland Forgiveness Inventory ( Snyder et al. (1998) and diagnosing the mental health or well-being of the person by the use of the Quality of life measure SEIQoL enabling us a certain insight in the relation betweeen dispositional forgiveness and mental health.
The cognitive aspect of forgivenes thinking is targeted by these methods. The emotional aspect is studied only as far as it is possible to the given person to express verbally its emotion. The real activity or behavioral aspect of forgiveness is left over and stays unknown.
Tab. G
Activity or behavior based method
There are on the other hand methods primarily oriented on human behavior - on the decision making and decision taking in conflict situations where forgiveness is at stake. The non-zero-sum games enable the study of cooperation in dilemma situations where we have to decide in a conflict between competitive and cooperative way of activity. This situation is analogous to the crises situation where we have to choose between harboring grudges or granting forgiveness. Results of many experiments have shown that forgiveness is a condition sine qua non for cooperation to be born and maintained.
Research using the the non-zero-sum games can therefore tell us something about dispositional personality variables or about the situational conditions positively or negatively influencing forgivness process (Křivohlavý, 1974).
In relatively artificial and simplified situations the non-zero-sum games enable us to look at a decision of the forgiveness art (”forgiveness granting” - in the language of present day forgiveness studies) and on the other hand at the activity of the person facing forgiveness granted (”getting a gift of forgiveness”).
There are other possibilities in these methods as well not only to study the dispositional forgiveness in action. - e.g. to study the activity of a person resisting to behavior change after a longer period of acts of forgiveness granting or to study the endeavour to persist in offering forgiveness for a longer period of forgiveness granting acts, studying the influence of the severity or symmetricity of a decision situation, the influence of different values at stake in the conflict situation, the influence of different strategies already faced before the conflict etc. (Křivohlavý, 2003)..
As an example we can show the results of several studies that have shown how some personality traits influence cooperation:
Tab. H
Conclusion
There are paralell theoretical concepts of forgiveness - one proposed by the religious and spiritual thinking and the other proposed by the evelutional psychology. It would pay to follow the convergence of both of them. Should they really converge it would mean that both the grammar of social contracts and religious recommendations or commandments point in a vitally important direction in human social conduct..
It would as well pay to study the relation between the results of the verbal methods studying forgiveness personaly disposition and real forgiveness activity even when at the start in very simplified conflict situations. It could enable us to understand the diferences there are between cognitions and real forgiveness behavior..
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Tables and Transparencies
Tab. A.
Present day state of the psychology of forgiveness
Jaro Křivohlavý,
Charles University, Faculty of humanitarian studies
Prague, Czech. Rep.
1. Present day state
2. Theory
3. Methods
4. Outlook
Full text: Internet page: krivohlavy.zde.cz
Tab. B.
Emmons, R. E. a Paloutzian, R.F. (2003).
The psychology of religion.
Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 377 - 402.
1. Developing measures of dispositional forgiveness.
2. Investigating the psychofysiological correlates and healt consequences of forgiveness
3. Exploring the dispositional and situational correlates of forgiveness
4. Examining the mental health and interpersonal benefits of forgiveness
Tab. C.
Forgiveness as a main topic of some books
Smedes L.B. (1984) Forgive and Forget.
Smedes L.B., (1996) The Art of Forgiving.
McCullough, M.E., Sandage, S.J., Worthington, E.L.(1997). To Forgive is Human. How to put Your Past in the Past.
Worthington, E.L. (Ed.).(1998). Dimensions of Forgiveness.
McCullough, M. E., Pargament, K. I., Thoresen, C.E. (2000). Forgiveness. Theory, Research, and Practice.
Arnold, J. Ch.(2000). Why forgive?
Enright, R.D., North, J. (2001). Exploring Forgiveness.
Standard, S., Harris, A., Benisovich, S. Luskin, F. Thoresen,C. (2001).The Psychology of forgiveness. APA Workshop, San Francisco.
Enright and Fitzgibons (2002). Helping clients forgive. An empirical guide for resolving anger and storing hope.
Luskin, F. (2002. Forgive for Good.
Enright, R.D. (2003). Forgiveness is a Choice.
Tab. D Religion - Christian concept of forgiveness
What the Bible says
1. The Lord´s prayer:
Mt 6,12 ”Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
Lk 11,4: ”Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us”.
2. In C R E D O
a. the Apostolic version: ” I believe in the forgiveness of sins”
b. the Nicean version: ”I confess the only one baptism for the forgiveness of sins”
1. Basic concept in the New Testament:
a.) Forgiveness is one of the last words of Jesus Christ on the cross:
Lk 23,34 : ”Father forgive them for they do not know what are they doing”
b.) Forgiveness in the eucharistic concept:
Mt 26, 28: ”This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”
c.) Forgiveness is one of the last words of Jesus Christ:
Lk 24,48: ”Repentance and forgiveness will be preached in his name to nations”.
d.)Forgiveness was the topic of the first preaching of John the Baptist:
Mk 1,4: ”John came baptising int he desert region and preaching a baptist of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
d.) Forgiveness is the topic of reconciliation:
2 Co 5, 18: ”God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation”
1. Jesus´s parables with the topic of forgiveness:
Lk 15, 11 – 32 the father of the lost (prodigal) son
Lk 22, 31 – 34 and J 21, 15 – 19 Apostol Peter
Mt 18, 23 – 35 the Unmerciful Servant
Jn 8,3 – 11 woman caught in adultery
Lk 7,36 – 50 Jesus annointed by a sinnful woman and the two debtors
2. Old Testament:
Gen chapter 3. ”You will die” vers. They did not died.
Gen chapter 27 and 32: Jacob and Esau
Gen chapter 37 and 45 Joseph and his brothers
Jon chapter 1 and chapter 3, 1 – 11. Jonah and forgiveness message
Tab. E
Evolutionary psychology
D.S. Wilson: Darwin´s catheral
Tooby, J. (1985). The emergence of evolutionary psychology.
Tooby, J. and Cosmides, L (1989).:Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture.
Trivers, R.L. (1985). The evolution of reciprocal altruism.
Wilson, D.S. (12002). Darwin´s cathedral: EvolutionReligion, and Nature of Society. Univesity of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Tab. F.
Published methods enabling diagnosing forgiveness
1. HFS - Heartland Forgiveness Scale - Standard, S., Harris, A., Benisovich, S. Luskin, F. Thoresen, C. (2001).
2. The Rye Scale - Standard, S., Harris, A., Benisovich, S. Luskin, F. Thoresen,C. (2001)
3. Enright Forgiveness Inventory - Subkoviak, Enright, Wu, Gassin, Freedman, Olson, Sarinopoulos (1995).
4. Wade Forgiveness Scale - Wade, S.H. (1989)
5. Forgiveness Likelihood Scale. Standard, S., Harris, A., Benisovich, S. Luskin, F. Thoresen, C. (2001)
6. Transgression Test of Forgiveness (TNFT) - Berry, J.E. a Worthington, E.L.Jr, Parrot, L.III.,O´Connor, L.E., Wade, N.G. (2001).
HFS enables to diagnose forgiveness to oneself, other people and severe circumstances as well as to see if it is done from moral reasons, evading responsibility or escalation of conflict or whetherit is a pseudoforgiveness. Ten different aspects of forgiveness are diagnosed by WADE.
Tab. G.
Theory of games criteria of forgiveness (in PDG):
L R
L +1; +1 -2; +2
 |
|||
 |
|||
R +2; -2 -1+ -1
Decisions:
1. LL RR LL RR
2. LR LR RL RL
3. L.. L.. .. L ..L
.
.
.
Serial decisions:
LL, RL, RL, RL, RL, RL, RL, RL, RL,....
Tab. H.
Cooperation (forgiveness) and personality traits
· trust and trustfulness ( Rotter and Donavan) -(500)
· risk-taking in social interactions (Wallach - Kogan)- (502)
· tolerance of amgiguity (513)
· democratic attitudes (F-scale - Adorno) - (510)
· general tolerance level (F-scale - Adorno¨) - (510)
· moral or ethical flexibility- Bixenstine-Potash- Wilson method - 506
· aspiration level (514)
· need of abasement and deference(514)
· conciliation in conflict situations(515)
· belief in general human trustfullness (510)
· belief in natural human altruissmus (510)
· belligerence (515)
· need of aggressive activity (515)
· authoritarian personality - as measured by the f-scale (Adorno) 499
· isolantionalismus measured by the Murphy and Liker scale - 501
· Macchiavellismus (511)
· need of autonomy (514)
Internet: www.Krivohlavy.zde.cz