What Forgiving—And Being Forgiven—Mean for Your Health
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Posted: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 12:30 pm
The Reporter-Times
Going too hard on yourself? It has been shown that the inability to self-forgive can weaken your immune system or trigger depression and anxiety. Looking to forget the drama and move on? Two new studies shed light on the concept of forgiveness and how it impacts our emotional and physical health.
A new study out of Baylor University finds that making amends over a “wrong” gives us permission to let go of it. That research was published in The Journal of Positive Psychology and was based on two experiments. In the first, 269 participants recalled diverse “real-world” offenses they had committed, ranging from romantic betrayals to physical injury to gossip to rejection. They were asked how much they have forgiven themselves for an actual offense; how much they had tried such efforts as apology, asking forgiveness, and restitution; how much they felt the other person had forgiven them; and how much they saw self-forgiveness as morally appropriate. The more they made amends, the more they felt self-forgiveness was morally permissible. Further, receiving forgiveness appeared to help people feel it was morally all right to let go.
In the second study, 208 participants were asked about a hypothetical wrong in an effort to test people based on a uniform situation. They were asked about failing to take the blame for an action that caused a friend to get fired. The results showed that the guiltier a person felt and the more serious the wrong, the less he or she was likely to self-forgive. Making amends also appeared to help people self-forgive by reducing those feelings, the researchers found. Also, women were generally less self-forgiving than men.
Forgiveness is a morally ambiguous territory
“One of the barriers people face in forgiving themselves appears to be that people feel morally obligated to hang on to those feelings. They feel they deserve to feel bad. Our study found that making amends gives us permission to let go,” said researcher Thomas Carpenter, a doctoral student in psychology in Baylor’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Self-forgiveness may be “morally ambiguous territory,” the researcher say. “Individuals may, at times, believe that they deserve to continue to pay for their wrongs.”
By making amends, however, they may be able to “tip the scales of justice.”
Forgive and forget?
What about “forgive and forget?” Turns out, that may be scientific truth to the statement. Another recent study from researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland shows that we’re more likely to forget the details of a transgression when we are forgiven. The findings were published in Psychological Science.
“It is well established that learning to forgive others can have positive benefits for an individual’s physical and mental health,” said Saima Noreen, lead author of the study. “The ability to forget upsetting memories may provide an effective coping strategy that enables people to move on with their lives.”
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