Forgiveness

Forgiveness

- emotional stages - betrayal, shock, depression

- pathways involve cognitive reframing , letting go, emotional regulation

two models:

enright's model - four phases of personal and relational forgiveness

Worthington model - empathy, commitment, and sustaining forgiveness

why it is a complex and long process

- feelings of being violated and re-evaluating the offenders personality and the friendship as you are in disbelief of what they have done or said

- feelings of depression - sad that it occurred

- social withdrawal - might withdrawal yourself from people as a defence mechanism to protect yourself

Interpersonal dynamics

- this involves the relationship between the offender and offended and how they can both work together to communicate and work through feelings to come to a place where everyone is happy and forgiven

Intrapersonal dynamics

- involves working with internal feelings of the offended

1) emotional processing - feeling the emotions anger or sadness and not running away from it

2) cognitive restructuring - reframing negative thoughts like overgeneralising. working towards positive thoughts on forgiveness

3) self-compassion - showing yourself kindness as being wronged does not reflect worth or value

4) letting go - not holding grudges and letting go of past mistakes that people have done to wrong youE

Enright's model

Uncovering phase

- confronting and reflecting anger that you feel

- understanding the psychological pain you feel from what has happened

decision phase

- making a decision to forgive

- change must occur to move on

work phase

- working towards forgiveness by accepting the hurt by acknowledging and having empathy for the offender

outcome phase

- accepting the hurt and choosing to move on from it and gaining emotional relief after it

Worthington's model of forgiveness (pyramid)

step 1 - recall the hurt in therapy and explore feelings

step 2 - build empathy for the offender

step 3- remember times where you have received forgiveness

step 4 - publicly commit to the forgiveness by speaking to people

step 5 - maintain the gains made in this therapy

Road to forgiveness: Fehr

- he conceptualises forgiveness as cognitions, affect and constraints on situational and dispensational levels

- highlights the interpersonal dimensions on cognitive emotions but does not quantify the relationship variables

Cognitions

- forgiveness includes sensemaking of the offense and the offender

- this includes attribution of intent and responsibility - it is easier to forgive the offender when the offense was unintentional and harder to blame the offender

Rumination

- dwelling -on the act or hurt hinders forgiveness

- apology receptors - acceptance of an apology includes cognitive reframing that aligns with the offenders intentions with less malicious interpretation

Affect

- forgiveness is tied to emotional regulation

- empathy - empathising with the offender foster motivation to forgive

- mood states - negative emotions like anger inhibits forgiveness whereas positive moods increases the likelihood of forgiveness

Constraints

- religion and sociomoral standards increase the likelihood of forgiveness

- embeddedness - individuals may engage in internal forgiveness to stay connected with others

Integration

Fehr's framework suggests that intrapersonal dynamics is a interplay of:

cognitive restructuring - of the offense to reduce blame

emotional regulation - shift from negative affect to positive affect like empathy

motivational shifts - influences from values and the importance of forgiveness

Antecedents influencing intrapersonal forgiveness (riek and mania)

- empathy

- attribution - positive attribution, not intentional

- religiosity - motivates forgiveness

- rumination - inhibits forgiveness

- personality trait - high agreeableness and low neuroticism shape emotional and cognitive responses