More specifically, forgiving other people provides the opportunity to translate belief into actions and behaviors that may provide direct tangible benefits in daily life, such as the mending of strained social ties. This is unfortunate because simultaneously examining the effects of forgiveness from different sources may begin to shed light on why forgiveness may be associated with psychological well-being. First, most studies on forgiveness focus solely on forgiving other people far fewer compare and contrast the effects of forgiving others with receiving forgiveness from God (for a notable exception, see Toussaint et al. The purpose of the present study is to address three issues that have been largely overlooked by other investigators. Further support for the potentially beneficial effects of forgiveness may be found in the literature on clinical psychology, where a number of psychotherapeutic programs have been developed to explicitly enhance a person’s ability to forgive others ( Enright and Coyle 1998 Hargrave and Anderson 1992).Īlthough research on forgiveness and psychological well-being is intriguing, a good deal of work remains to be done. More specifically, this research suggests that people who are able to forgive others for things they have done are less likely to experience symptoms of psychological distress than individuals who are unable or unwilling to forgive ( Maltby, Macaskill, and Day 2001 Toussaint et al. A small cluster of studies, which focus primarily on forgiveness of others, provide empirical support for this view. Recently, the study of forgiveness has attracted a great deal of attention because some scholars believe it may enhance physical as well as psychological well-being across the life course ( Thoresen, Harris, and Luskin 2001 Worthington, Berry, and Parrott 2001). Moreover, a central message in the New Testament involves the importance of forgiving other people for things they have done ( Rye et al. The basic tenets of this faith place an emphasis on repentance and seeking forgiveness from God ( Brown 1997). Forgiveness figures prominently in the Christian religion.
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