Hope Forgiveness Study, McVeigh Execution, Forgiveness Week

Hope Forgiveness Study, McVeigh Execution, Forgiveness Week

National Forgiveness Week runs from June 17 to 23 and is called "a celebration of the people, by the people and for the people of the U.S." by Positive People Partners -- its founding group. The week-long observance asks people to forgive themselves on Sunday, spouses on Monday, children on Tuesday, family on Wednesday, friends on Thursday, neighbors on Friday and enemies on Saturday.

Forgiveness Week starts less than a week after the execution of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Maybe that's good, according to a recent forgiveness study by researchers from Hope College in Holland, Mich. The study found that victims who harbored bad memories and nursed grudges towards their offenders suffered more aversive emotional and physiological responses that may erode health over time, while forgiving responses may enhance it.

Hope Assistant Professor of Psychology Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet, Professor of Psychology Thomas Ludwig, and 2000 psychology graduate Kelly L. Vander Laan reported the results of their study in a paper titled "Granting Forgiveness or Harboring Grudges: Implications for Emotion, Physiology, and Health." It was printed in the March 2001 Psychological Science -- the journal of the American Psychological Society.

Made possible by the John Templeton Foundation for Scientific Studies on the Subject of Forgiveness, the study examined the immediate emotional and physiological effects that occurred when the 71 participants (35 females, 36 males) rehearsed hurtful memories and were unforgiving, compared with when they cultivated empathetic perspective and granted forgiveness to real-life offenders. They found that unforgiving thoughts prompted more aversive emotion, and significantly higher physiological responses -- like increased blood pressure and heart rate -- while the forgiving thoughts prompted greater perceived control and comparatively lower physiological stress responses.

While these findings can apply to the Oklahoma City blast survivors and families of the victims towards the pending McVeigh execution, Witvliet knows the event is highly complex.

"It wasn't my child, my spouse, or my body (impacted by the bombing), so it's difficult to make a call on forgiveness for such a traumatic event. But for those deeply wounded by this heinous crime, they may find that in addition to justice, they may need to embrace forgiveness in order to come to an even greater resolution. This comes from understanding that forgiveness is not to be confused with excusing, minimizing, ignoring, or forgetting," says Witvliet. "Furthermore, for those hurt by the actions of an offender, justice is an appropriate and necessary response to crimes, however justice alone may not bring the resolution many victims long for.

The researchers define forgiveness in two ways. One is relinquishing bitterness or vengence, and the second is adopting a merciful response towards the offender -- finding even a small way in which you can genuinely wish good for the offender.

"The difficulty with forgiveness is that we often want the offender -- like McVeigh -- to confess, express contrition and repent and show outward signs of transformation. But, there are times when that's not going to happen, and this may be one of those cases," says Witvliet. "If we who have been victimized and wait to forgive until that offender expresses those feelings, we essentially commit to remaining as a prisoner to our bitter, hurtful feelings. We're giving control of our emotional, physical and spiritual state to the very person who wasn't trustworthy in the first place -- rather than embracing the key that can release us from the prisons of our destructive emotions. There is nothing easy about forgiveness. It takes so much moral muscle. It takes tremendous courage, and yet this difficult path ultimately leads to life."

The 71 subjects in the study were introductory psychology students who volunteered to participate. Script materials were used to prompt forgiveness-related imagery from each subjects' past. To maximize the effect, subjects used the same scripts and were asked to rehearse their hurt, or remember harboring a grudge, as well as remembering empathizing with an offender and granting forgiveness. Each participant completed a two-part, two-hour testing session.

Participants reported that their primary offenders included friends, romantic partners, parents and siblings. Common offenses included betrayal of trusts, rejection, lies and insults. During the unforgiving imagery, participants reported feeling more negatively effected, and in less control. During forgiving imagery, subjects reported significantly greater empathy for and forgiveness toward the offender.

"Participants felt significantly more negative, aroused, angry, and sad, and less in control during the unforgiving condition than during the forgiving condition," says Witvliet.

Although the researchers conclude that it is unlikely that the brief unforgiving trials in their study would have a clinically significant effect on health, they believe that effects obtained in this study provide a conservative measure of effects that naturally occur during unforgiving responses to real-life offenders.

"Chronic unforgiving and begrudging responses may contribute to adverse health outcomes by perpetuating anger and heightened sympathetic nervous system arousal and cardiovascular reactivity," says Witvliet. "Expression of anger has been strongly associated with chronically elevated blood pressure and with aggregation of platelets, which may increase vulnerability for heart disease -- especially if the expressions of anger are frequent and enduring. Although fleeting expressions of unforgiveness may not erode health, more frequent, intense, and sustained unforgiving emotional imagery and behaviors may create physiological vulnerabilities or exacerbate exiting problems in a way that erodes health."

By contrast, less heart rate, blood pressure and facial tension occurred during the forgiving imagery.

"It may be that when people enact forgiving responses, the physiological demands of unforgiving emotional hurt and anger are reduced, thereby decreasing allostatic load and associated health risks," says Witvliet.

Witvliet may to contacted by calling either her office at (616) 395-7167, or home at (616) 667-1479. Her e-mail is [email protected].

Feel free to call me at (814) 867-1963, or e-mail me at [email protected]. Dick Jones Communications assists Hope with its public affairs work.