Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Theory and Application

Everett L. Worthington, Jr.

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135450953
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

To be unforgiving is harmful. The inability to come to terms with one's anger or strife often can lead to stress disorders, mental health disorders, and relationship problems. Forgiveness is a personal decision. Forgiveness and Reconciliation focuses on individual experiences with forgiveness, aiming to create a theory of what forgiveness is and connect it to a clinical theory of how to promote forgiveness. Dr. Worthington creates an evidence-based approach that is applicable for individuals and relationships, and even for society. He also describes an evidence-based method of reconciliation - restoring trust in damaged relationships.

Dr. Worthington hopes that this theory will inform scientific research and improve intervention strategies. Showing that forgiveness transforms personality, Worthington describes ways a clinician can promote (but not force) forgiveness of others and self. He provides research-based theory and applications and discusses the role of emotion and specific personality traits as related to forgiveness. Forgiveness and reconciliation might not be cures, but, as Worthington shows, they are tools for transforming both the self and the world.

PART I

A Stress-and-Coping Theory of Forgiveness and Relevant Evidence

CHAPTER 1

Models of Forgiveness

One of the questions I am most frequently asked is, “How do I know if I have really forgiven someone?” Usually, that question is motivated when a person notices he or she is acting inconsistently.

How Can We Know?

For example, Diana might have worked through forgiving her ex-spouse and believes herself to have completely gotten over the difficulties that resulted in the divorce. Years later, she sees her ex-spouse and negative feelings flood her. She is angry, afraid, and sad. “I thought I'd forgiven him,” she thinks, “but obviously I haven't.”

Other inconsistencies motivate us, as observers, friends, or therapists, to ask the same question. Gertrude was hurt by a romantic betrayal. She is gritting her teeth, clenching her jaws, crossing her arms, and muttering, “Of course I forgive him,” without seeming to move her lips. Do we believe her? Has she really forgiven?

What about Bob? He says, “Yesterday my boss fired me. He said I took too much time to go to the doctor to deal with my neck injury that I received in an auto crash. He said the company just did not get enough work from me to make it worthwhile to continue my employment. It's so unfair.” Then he continues. “However, I forgive him for that unfair treatment.”

Bob showed no hostility in his voice or his manner. So I asked, “What prompted you to forgive him so quickly?”

Bob said, “The Scripture says that if I don't forgive someone who wrongs me, then I won't be forgiven by God. So, by will, I simply chose to forgive him.” Did he really forgive? Is it really so easy? Can one simply choose to forgive and by willpower affect full forgiveness?

Such inconsistencies make us question whether the forgiveness is real. Contrast divorced Diana, teeth-gritting Gertrude, and Bible-responding Bob with the following cases. Sally lost a promotion to vice president of a corporation because she had an enemy within the management team. “I was the subject of a smear campaign. My enemy told things about me that were true, yet she twisted them. It sounded as if I was not working hard and was doing things that were marginally ethical. I have had the opportunity to get even with her before, but I swore not to take revenge on her. So I never have. I have forgiven her. I no longer feel resentment.”

Abigail, a middle-aged woman, had struggled for years to forgive her father for his physical abuse of her and her siblings. After two years of psychotherapy, she felt that her forgiveness was complete. Finally, she initiated contact with her father after being away from home for over 10 years. “He started right in on me,” she said. “It was as if I have never been away. He was insulting, demeaning, and ugly. I think he would have attacked me physically, but I yelled that I would call the police and have him put away. Now, I don't know what to think. Did I forgive him? He was able to push my buttons so easily. Of course, he installed those buttons. Still, if I had really forgiven, I should be above being provoked. Shouldn't I?”

Sid, an elderly man who was embezzled of ten thousand dollars, said, “The guy who swindled me was a friend. I trusted him. When he asked me to loan him $10,000, I didn't hesitate. Then he skipped town. It took a while, but I got over it. I don't miss the money now, and I don't really hold any hard feelings toward him. In fact, I hope he gets some use out of that money.”

“Have you forgiven him?”

“I suppose so,” he said. “Never really thought about it as forgiving him. I sorta accepted it and got a kind of peace. I guess you could say I forgave.”

Ellie, an elderly woman, was really ill. As she talked to a hospice care worker, the woman said, “I used to have so much resentment of my daughter Marie. But as I have gotten nearer to seeing my Maker, I have simply determined in my spirit not to be resentful against Marie for the harm she did to me. It's difficult. I struggle every day. I think about her, but I'm determined not to let resentment cloud my last days on this earth. I think I've succeeded. I still get upset, but I honestly think my resentment and hate are totally gone.”

Suzanne, a middle-aged woman, was talking with a reporter. She was reacting to the death of her mother. She said, “I believe I have completely forgiven the youth who killed Mama. I have had peace about this since I was able to forgive. I still remember my mother and miss her. Yet I do not feel that this young man should be sentenced to a death penalty for what he did. I'll testify to that in my victim impact statement next week. Still, I don't believe he should be let off. He is responsible for his crime, and society says that he should pay. It wouldn't be right to simply let him walk scot-free. Forgiveness has nothing to do with whether he is required to pay for his crime under the law.”

So, What Is Forgiveness?

What forgiveness is and what makes people forgive are highly complex, as these case summaries illustrate. I have repeated these eight cases in Appendix A, and there I discuss each in light of the theory I will develop. I invite you to delay looking at Appendix A until after you complete chapter 5. Then, see whether you would respond as I have.

Philosophers, theologians, psychological researchers, and lay people can develop their own views about the essence of forgiveness. Like blind men feeling the proverbial elephant, they can be adamant that they have the truth and can adduce evidence to support their views. I am no different. I have my own blind spots and theoretical biases. Over the years, I have tried to listen to the other voices and synthesize a big picture. Whether I have succeeded, or to what degree, you judge. Have I fairly accounted for the complexities of forgiveness and used the voices fairly?

At the center of this stress-and-coping theory of forgiveness rest several concepts. First, there are different types of forgiving. Instead of treating forgiveness as an all-or-none, think of it as different processes. They occur differently in different types of relationships—we forgive strangers and acquaintances differently than we do loved ones who violate a trust. Our decisions to forgive have different effects than our emotional experiences of forgiving. Therefore, our common notion of complete consistency as the indication of forgiveness is not productive. Second, forgiveness is a global term that suggests changes over time. Because all sorts of events happen over time, it is often difficult to say whether we have “fully forgiven” once and for all time. Third, forgiveness is related to perceived injustice. Fourth, despite this complexity, one aspect of forgiving is the major barometer of change over time—emotional forgiveness. Fifth, I propose the emotional replacement hypothesis (Worthington & Wade, 1999; Worthington & Scherer, 2004) as a centerpiece of emotional forgiveness: Emotional forgiveness occurs due to replacing negative, unforgiving stressful emotions with positive, other-oriented emotions.

Before I describe the stress-and-coping theory and discuss the emotional replacement hypothesis, I will describe other researchers’ models of forgiving. First, let us look at interpersonal models.

Interpersonal Models of Forgiveness

Baumeister

Baumeister, Exline, and Sommer (1998) have identified two components to forgiving: an intrapersonal and interpersonal component. The intrapersonal component can reflect either an internal forgiveness or a lack of it. The interpersonal component involves the expression of forgiveness to the person toward whom one is unforgiving. The victim could either express or not express forgiveness. This results in four possibilities.

In the first possibility—no intrapersonal forgiveness and no interpersonal forgiveness—the person is simply unforgiving. The transgressor is never told otherwise. However, if the person feels forgiveness toward the transgressor but does not say so, silent forgiveness has occurred. Silent forgiveness has many benefits for the victim, who can feel peace but can nonetheless hold the transgression over the head of the transgressor and perhaps extract concessions. If the victim does not feel forgiving but tells the transgressor he or she is forgiving, this is hollow forgiveness. Hollow forgiveness is given when victims feel that social norms require forgiveness. It can be the most costly to the victim. It expresses that one has let the transgressor off the hook, yet negative feelings remain. So the victim gets little benefit other than the adherence to social norms and relief from social pressure for not adhering to those norms. In full forgiveness, internal forgiveness is expressed to the perpetrator. Both victim and perpetrator benefit.

Sapolsky and de Waal's Reconciliation-Based Models

Sapolsky (Sapolsky & Share, 2004) and de Waal (de Waal & Pokorny, 2005) draw heavily from evolutionary theory to understand reconciliation. Some rituals are necessary in animal troupes that live in close social proximity so that disagreements can be patched up. Reconciliation rituals are hypothesized to lower arousal and foster repair of closer social relationships. One can see how this would provide a selection advantage. With lower emotional arousal, animals within the troupe could more easily defend the troupe, cooperate to achieve survival tasks, and mate. Lowered arousal that accompanies reconciliation rituals could thus be considered a precursor to forgiveness, which is thought to have developed later in humans.

McCullough's two-system model. McCullough (2001a) has extended evolutionary theory-based reasoning to a two-system opponent-process model. An attachment-empathy system competes with a rumination system to govern social processes. Sometimes forgiveness is at the fore. At other times, rumination, justice, or revenge are more dominant. Whereas McCullough's two-tier system model is more a model of intrapersonal than interpersonal forgiveness, it is derived from evolutionary theory and is considered here as an extension of reconciliation theory.

Hargrave's Four Stations of Forgiveness

Hargrave and Sells (1997) posited an interpersonal theory of forgiveness that was based largely on Boszormenyi-Nagy's (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973) theory of family therapy. Hargrave and Sells identified both exoneration and entitlement as the driving forces of forgiveness. They identified four stations of forgiveness. Each station can be a starting point for forgiveness, but it is not a sequential process (Hargrave, 2001). Insight (station 1) involves recognition of the dynamics of the transgression. Understanding (station 2) grasps why the transgression occurred. Together, Hargrave calls the first two stations exoneration. Within the context of a family systems theory, the system is responsible for problems. Thus, when one has insight and understanding, one may declare that no individual is guilty of the way the system responds, thus the individual is exonerated. In the third and fourth stations, allowing for compensation and explicit forgiving, Hargrave and Sells describe the interpersonal aspects of forgiving. Allowing for compensation permits a consideration of responses of the offender. Explicit forgiving considers the expression of forgiveness from victim to offender as well as the responses of the offender.

An Interdependence Theory Model of Forgiveness

Rusbult and her colleagues (Rusbult, Hannon, Stocker, & Finkel, 2005) advocate an interpersonal view of forgiveness. They describe forgiveness as entailing an immediate gut response to wrongdoing, which is characterized by a vengeance motive and angry emotions. Most people restrain the gut response within a few seconds. People then may experience cognition, emotion, and motivation that move them toward pro- or antirelationship behavior. The third aspect of forgiving involves acting to actively or passively affect the relationship positively or negatively. These acts are called voice (positive active), loyalty (positive passive), exit (negative active), and neglect (negative passive) responses.

Critique of Interpersonal Models of Forgiveness

The foregoing models not only describe forgiveness proper but include the interpersonal context within which forgiveness is often considered. Forgiveness occurs in a clear interpersonal context when it involves transactions between parent and child, romantic partners, or others in ongoing intimate relations. However, when one is robbed on the street, run off the road in an act of road rage, or offended by a stranger on the subway, then any consideration of forgiveness is not well described as interdependent. The consideration of forgiveness is interpersonal only in a highly abstract sense. The victim usually does not interact with the stranger again, and whether the victim decides to forgive has little impact on the victim's friends, family, and greater society. Certainly, the transgression occurred in interpersonal context, but not considerations of nor experience of forgiveness.

Even in intimate relationships, forgiveness does not occur in a relationship. It occurs within the forgiver. Models of interpersonal forgiveness—to be precise—are better termed models of interpersonal interaction surrounding transgressions. As such, they are valuable in themselves. They affect whether, how, and how fast forgiveness might be experienced. But strictly speaking, they are not forgiveness. We must look to intrapersonal models to describe the experiences of forgiveness.

Intrapersonal Models of Forgiveness

Most other theorists separate the interpersonal aspects of interacting around transgressions from the intrapersonal aspects of forgiveness. Following are important intrapersonal models of forgiveness.

A Classical Conditioning Model

In Worthington (1998a) I suggested an emotional conditioning model of forgiveness. I likened a transgression to a stimulus that triggers pain (and thus fear and anger). The transgression and aspects of the situation surrounding the stimulus could become classically conditioned to anger or fear. I examined usual responses to classical conditioning of emotional responses. An animal could freeze, attempt to withdraw, and, avoidance failing, fight. Those responses might then be paired with angry or fearful responses to a transgression.

Pushing the model further, I likened extinction to forgiving. Extinction might yield to spontaneous recovery of the fearful or angry response even after “forgiving” if the animal was (1) placed in a similar situation again, (2) subjected to another pairing of conditioned stimulus (e.g., if the animal was hurt again), (3) reminded of the original harm, or (4) hurt similarly by another situation.

Critique. The classical conditioning model is of limited utility. It focused on fear more than anger as one's response to a transgression. It also did not account for (a) exercises of willpower and (b) the richness of cognitive complexity and the nuances in construing situations.

Decision-Based Model

Addressing one weakness in a conditioning model of unforgiveness and forgiveness, DiBlasio (1998) emphasizes willful decision-making. DiBlasio draws on his clinical experience to develop his model of decision-based forgiveness. “Decision-based forgiveness is defined as the cognitive letting go of resentment and bitterness and need for vengeance. However, it is not always the end of emotional pain and hurt. Forgiveness here is viewed as an act of the will, a choice to let go or to hold. People can separate their thoughts of resentment and bitterness from their feelings of hurt” (p. 76).

DiBlasio (1998) draws on theorizing by family therapists including Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark, 1973), Murray Bowen (1985), James Framo (1982), and Madanes (1990). DiBlasio presented a description of the use of an intervention in family therapy modeled from Worthington and DiBlasio (1990) for couples therapy.

Critique. DiBlasio (1998) emphasizes willful decision, which is a cognitive act but is in sharp distinction from cognitive therapy with its systematic attack on cognitive structures and processes. DiBlasio ignores emotional forgiveness as less important than the decision to forgive.

Cognitive Models

Some theorists of forgiveness, such as Gordon, Baucom, and Snyder (2000), have posited a cognitive theory of forgiveness (Gordon, Baucom, & Snyder, 2000; Gordon, Baucom, & Snyder, 2004; Gordon, Baucom, & Snyder, ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I A Stress-and-Coping Theory of Forgiveness and Relevant Evidence
• Part II Personality Traits of Forgivers and Nonforgivers
• Part III Clinical Applications to Promote Forgiveness and Reconciliation
• Conclusion Forgiveness Is Not a Panacea
• Appendix What Is Forgiveness?
• References
• Index