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Forgiveness is an emotion-focusedcoping strategy that can reduce healthrisks and promote health resilience:theory, review, and hypothesesEverett L. Worthington Jr. a & Michael Scherer aa Virginia Commonwealth UniversityVersion of record first published: 01 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Everett L. Worthington Jr. & Michael Scherer (2004): Forgiveness is an emotion-focused coping strategy that can reduce health risks and promote health resilience: theory, review,and hypotheses, Psychology & Health, 19:3, 385-405

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Psychology and HealthJune 2004, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 385–405

FORGIVENESS IS AN EMOTION-FOCUSED

COPING STRATEGY THAT CAN REDUCE HEALTH

RISKS AND PROMOTE HEALTH RESILIENCE:

THEORY, REVIEW, AND HYPOTHESES

EVERETT L. WORTHINGTON, JR.* and MICHAEL SCHERER

Virginia Commonwealth University

(Received 26 September 2002; Revised 9 June 2003)

Experimental evidence suggests that when people are transgressed against interpersonally, they often react byexperiencing unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is conceptualized as a stress reaction. Forgiveness is one (of many)ways people reduce unforgiveness. Forgiveness is conceptualized as an emotional juxtaposition of positiveemotions (i.e., empathy, sympathy, compassion, or love) against the negative emotions of unforgiveness.Forgiveness can thus be used as an emotion-focused coping strategy to reduce a stressful reaction to a trans-gression. Direct empirical research suggests that forgiveness is related to health outcomes and to mediatingphysiological processes in such a way as to support the conceptualization that forgiveness is an emotion-focused coping strategy. Indirect mechanisms might also affect the forgiveness-health relationship. Namely,forgiveness might affect health by working through social support, relationship quality, and religion.

Keywords: Forgiveness; Coping strategy; Health risks

In 1997, research on forgiveness consisted of only 58 empirical studies (McCulloughet al., 1998). Since then, that number of studies has more than quadrupled.

We define two types of forgiveness – decisional and emotional. We closely examinethe emotional forgiveness as being rooted within the individual and involving emotionalexperiences (though transgressions usually occur in interpersonal contexts). We use astress-and-coping framework and show that emotional forgiveness might be one ofmany coping strategies people use to deal with transgressions, perceived injustices,and the emotion of unforgiveness. We hypothesize that unforgiveness produces illhealth and emotional forgiveness might lessen health risks. We submit this conceptuali-zation in terms of four theoretical propositions and adduce initial evidence bearing onthem. Finally, if the propositions are (at least partially) supported, physical mechanismsmust underlie the relationship between forgiveness and physical health. We suggestpossible physical mechanisms – direct and indirect – based on research in the neuro-science of anger (Pietrini et al., 2000), the study of anger and health (Williamsand Williams, 1993), and the emerging field of positive psychology and its health

*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

ISSN 0887-0446 print: ISSN 1476-8321 online � 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/0887044042000196674

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implications (Salovey et al., 2000; Fredrickson, 2001). Finally, we sketch out a researchagenda based on our theorizing and review.

DEFINITIONS AND THEORETICAL CONTEXT

Researchers who study forgiveness have used many theoretical understandings of theconstruct. Most agree that forgiveness is complex (Enright and Fitzgibbons, 2000).It involves cognitive (Flanigan, 1992), affective (Malcolm and Greenberg, 2000), behav-ioral (Gordon et al., 2000), motivational (McCullough et al., 1997), decisional (DiBlasio,1998), and interpersonal (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1998) aspects. Researchers do not agreeabout which aspects are most important.

Worthington (2003) has proposed that two types of forgiveness exist – decisional andemotional forgiveness. Decisional forgiveness is a behavioral intention statement thatone will seek to behave toward the transgressor like one did prior to a transgression.One decides to release the transgressor from the debt (Baumeister et al., 1998; DiBlasio,1998). One might grant decisional forgiveness and still be emotionally upset, cognitivelyoriented toward angry, anxious, or depressive rumination, and motivationally orientedtoward revenge or avoidance. However, in some cases, decisional forgiveness couldtrigger emotional forgiveness.

The second type of forgiveness is called emotional forgiveness. Worthington and hiscolleagues have defined forgiveness as rooted in emotions (Worthington and Wade,1999; Worthington, 2000; Worthington et al., 2001), which affect motivations. Theytheorize that people who are offended or hurt experience an injustice gap, which isdescribed as the difference between the way one would prefer a transgression to befully resolved and the way they perceive the situation currently (Exline et al., 2003).The injustice gap widens as subsequent events aggravate the person or narrows assubsequent events mitigate the injustice. Magnitude of the injustice gap is hypothesizedto be inversely proportional to ease of forgiving and directly proportional to unforgive-ness. They define unforgiveness as a complex combination of delayed negative emotionstoward a person who has transgressed personal boundaries. Immediate negativeemotions include anger, fear, or both. Anger is typically thought to be an emotionalstate that arises due to a threat, frustration, or perceived transgression (Spielbergerand Moscoso, 1999). Unforgiveness is more a limited, nuanced, and delayed responseto a perceived transgression. Unforgiveness is not thought to arise from threat orfrustration. Anger can also become a trait (Spielberger and Moscoso, 1999) generalizedacross situations and time. Numerous researchers have studied anger and its effects onhealth (e.g., Williams and Williams, 1993; Gallo and Matthews, 2003). Mostly, angeraffects cardiovascular health (Gallo and Matthews, 2003). Reviewing the literatureon anger and health would be beyond the scope of the present article. Delayed negativeemotions – resentment, bitterness, hostility, hatred, anger, and fear (the combinationof which is unforgiveness – may derive from rumination. Worthington and Wade(1999) have differentiated anger and unforgiveness. Not everyone will develop unfor-giveness when transgressed against. Only people who ruminate angrily (and perhapsanxiously and depressively) will likely develop unforgiveness. People try to reducenegatively experienced unforgiveness by dealing with the transgression to rectify it(thereby leading to a narrowed injustice gap and less unforgiveness) or by dealingwith the emotion directly.

386 E.L. WORTHINGTON AND M. SCHERER

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Worthington (2001) identified over 25 ways by which people attempt to reduce unfor-giveness. They can try restore justice through seeking retaliation or revenge, pursuinglegal or political justice, seeking restitution, demanding an apology, or appealing todivine justice. People also might try to create a new narrative about the transgression(i.e., perhaps excusing or justifying it). People might try to reduce their unforgivenessdirectly by accepting the misfortune and moving on with their life (i.e., Jacobson andChristensen, 1996). They might employ defenses such as denial and avoidance. Theymight also forgive.

Worthington and Wade (1999) defined forgiveness as the emotional juxtapositionof positive other-oriented emotions against negative unforgiveness, which eventuallyresults in neutralization or replacement of all or part of those negative emotions withpositive emotions. The positive emotions that lead to forgiveness have been identifiedas empathy, sympathy, compassion, romantic love, and altruistic love (Worthingtonet al., 2001; Wade and Worthington, 2002). Whereas the experience of some positiveemotions is necessary to neutralize unforgiveness, the person may or may not havea net final positive emotion toward the transgressor. The forgiveness might be partial(reduced unforgiveness) or complete (resulting in a net neutral or even net positiveemotion toward the transgressor).

Berry et al. (2001) have conceptualized unforgiveness as a stress reaction to apprais-als of interpersonal stressors that include transgressions, betrayals, offenses, andwrongs. Using Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) schema, the transgression is considereda stressor. A perception of the interpersonal stressor as a hurt or offense is consideredto be the result of primary and secondary appraisals. The appraisals create physiolog-ical, cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and emotional stress reactions. Unforgivenessis one emotional part of the stress reaction. People’s attempts to reduce the injusticegap (Exline et al., 2003) and unforgiveness (Worthington, 2001) are seen as copingstrategies. Some are problem-focused coping strategies such as seeking to bringabout justice in the situation. Others are meaning-focused coping strategies such asrenarrating the event through excusing or justifying the transgression. Still others areemotion-focused coping strategies, such as seeking to regulate the person’s emotionalexperience (see Thayer and Lane, 2000). This might occur through self-soothing oravoidance. Worthington’s definition of forgiveness as being an emotional juxtapositionof positive emotion against the negative emotions comprising unforgiveness places itwithin Lazarus and Folkman’s model as an emotion-focused coping strategy (seePark and Folkman, 1997; Folkman and Moskowitz, 2000; McCullough, 2001).

Research on coping has shown that neither problem-focused nor emotion-focusedcoping strategies per se are superior for dealing with stress (Park et al., 2001). Whendirect action is possible, problem-focused coping has often been found to be superior(Lazarus, 1999). When direct action to remove stressors is hampered, emotion-focusedcoping has often been found to be superior (Lazarus, 1999). By extension, this suggeststhat unforgiveness might be reduced most effectively by using different strategies (suchas seeking redress for injustice) sometimes and by forgiving at other times. Both mightbe simultaneously or sequentially employed at still other times. In addition, in meaning-focused coping (Park and Folkman, 1997), people try to modify the appraised meaningof situations to be more consistent with their goals. Forgiving, in some cases, couldaffect one’s appraisal of the meaning of the situation and could be a meaning-focusedcoping strategy. In other cases, forgiving could be a problem-focused coping strategyif it contributed to solving an interpersonal problem. Generally, though, we believe

FORGIVENESS AS EMOTION-FOCUSED COPING 387

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it is usually an emotion-focused coping effort. Within this stress-and-emotion-focused-coping framework, we suggest four principal theoretical propositions that relateunforgiveness, emotional forgiveness, and health.

1. Unforgiveness is stressful.2. Coping mechanisms besides forgiveness can reduce unforgiveness.3. Forgiveness reduces the stress of unforgiveness.4. Forgiveness as a coping strategy is related to health.

In the following section, we adduce evidence that addresses these four propositions.

DIRECT EVIDENCE PERTAINING TO THE FOUR PROPOSITIONS

Proposition 1: Unforgiveness is Stressful

To declare support for this proposition, we would have to establish that unforgivenesscould lead to physical changes similar to those produced in other stress reactions. Stressinvolves decreases in prefrontal activity and associated increases in limbic-system activ-ity and later changes in cortisol-mediated areas of the hippocampus and amygdala.In addition, stress involves (a) stimulation of the direct pathway from hypothalamusto adrenals with subsequent release of epinephrine, (b) stimulation of the hormonallymediated HPA axis, (c) release of the Vagal ‘‘brake,’’ and (d) activation of the sympa-thetic nervous system (SNS) and engagement of the visceral afferent system. Each ofthese (and all in conjunction) lead to allostasis (McEwen, 2002), characterized byincreases in respiration, blood pressure, heart rate, and energy release and by decreasesin digestion, growth hormone, and sexual hormones.

There are four lines of evidence suggesting that unforgiveness is stressful and arousescorresponding negative emotions. First, activity in the brain during unforgiveness isconsistent with activity in brain structures involved in stress and other negative emo-tions. Pietrini et al. (2000) have examined anger using positron emission tomography(PET) scanning with 15 participants who imagined neutral and angry scenarios.Pietrini et al. showed that, when people become angry, cognitive activity in the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex diminishes and limbic-system activity increases.Unforgiveness, which has been shown to correlate highly with anger (Berry andWorthington, 2001; Berry et al., 2001; McCullough et al., 2001), might thus havea neuro-physical basis that identifies it as an emotion. Farrow et al. (2001) showed,using functional MRI technology, that judgments of the fairness of a transgressionversus whether to forgive it are processed differently. Ten individuals made judgmentsof social scenarios. Both empathic and forgiveness judgments activated the left superiorfrontal gyrus, orbitofrontal gyrus, and precuneus. Empathy judgments also activatedthe left anterior middle temporal gyrus and the left inferior frontal gyrus. Forgivenessjudgments also activated the posterior cingulated gyrus. Empathy and forgivenessresulted in similar neural structure and function, and yet they were differentiatedfrom each other. McCullough et al. (1998) have demonstrated that forgiving andempathy are often related but not overlapping.

Second, hormonal patterns – notably glucocorticoid secretion – in unforgivenessare consistent with hormonal patterns from negative emotions associated with stress.Berry and Worthington (2001) assessed self-reports and measured salivary cortisolfor 39 people involved in romantic relationships. They selected people who had


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(a) happy ongoing versus (b) either unhappy ongoing or recently ended romanticrelationships. Baseline levels of cortisol were moderately negatively correlated withtrait forgivingness. Also, a modest change in salivary cortisol level, when thinkingabout a typical interaction with the relationship partner, was related to both relation-ship satisfaction and self-reported unforgiveness toward the partner.

Third, sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity and EMG tension in facial musclesare similar to patterns obtained with stress and negative emotion. Witvliet et al. (2001)assessed 64 undergraduates using questionnaires and measures of physical responses.Undergraduates imagined a transgressor (a) of whom they were unforgiving, (b) againstwhom they held a grudge, (c) toward whom they felt empathic, or (d) whom theyhad forgiven. Witvliet et al. measured self-reported (via questionnaires) unforgivenessand forgiveness. They also used immediate joystick ratings of the person’s sense ofcontrol, empathy, and gratitude. Participants’ heart rate and mean arterial pressureduring periods of imagination as well as skin conductance were measured. EMGin three facial locations was recorded during participants’ imagery. Mean arterialpressure, heart rate, and skin conductance all showed a pattern of SNS arousal whenimagining the transgression or the person against whom one held a grudge. Facialmuscle EMG was consistent with the expression of anger and fear and subtle second-ary emotions that include both. These findings are consonant with research by otheremotion researchers (Ekman et al., 1983) and are consistent with Worthington andWade’s (1999) emotional juxtaposition hypothesis.

Witvliet, Worthington and Wade (2002) presented three studies that examinedstudents’ reactions to an imaginal crime. The three studies will be discussed below.For now, inWitvliet, Worthington andWade Study 3, participants were assessed physio-logically using the same measures as in Witvliet et al. (2001). People who imagined thatthey were robbery victims responded similarly to people in Witvliet et al. (2001) who hadimagined being unforgiving or holding a grudge. Thus, Witvliet et al. (2001) was repli-cated. Lawler et al. (in press) also replicated these findings using different methods.

Fourth, measures of blood chemistry reveal a similarity between unforgivenessand both stress and negative emotion. Seybold et al. (2001) conducted a correlationalstudy of forgivingness disposition and physical markers in 68 patients at a Veteran’sAdministration Medical Center. They measured corrugator EMG, blood pressure,heart rate, plasma protein, cholesterol (LDL and HDL), non-estisfied fatty acids, trigli-cerides, total lymphocytes, neurophils, T-cells, and T-activated cells. People whowere unforgiving chronically had blood chemistry assays that were similar to thoseof people under stress. The evidence was weak: only 3 of 16 correlations were signifi-cant. Dispositional forgivingness was correlated negatively with blood viscosity andpositively with toxicity-preventive activity. Forgiving the self was positively correlatedwith the T-helper-to-T-cytotoxic ratio.

In general, research evidence to date supports the proposition that unforgiveness isstressful. Numerous experiments using a variety of methods converge to support thisproposition.

Proposition 2: Many Coping Mechanisms Besides Forgiveness

Can Reduce Unforgiveness

Worthington (2001) hypothesized many ways to reduce unforgiveness. To support thisproposition, it would be necessary to show that, at some time after a transgression,


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people could (a) report reduced unforgiveness but simultaneously report zero forgive-ness had occurred presumably because they had gotten revenge, received an apology,or experienced some other non-forgiving event and (b) report complete forgivenessand not have residual unforgiveness.

Evidence that people use a variety of coping mechanisms to deal with unforgivenesscomes from two sources. First, Wade and Worthington (2002) assessed 96 psychologystudent volunteers on both unforgiveness for a particular transgression and the degreeto which they had forgiven the offender for that transgression. Wade and Worthingtongraphed the range of scores in unforgiveness against the degree of forgiveness. TheTransgression Related Inventory of Motivations (TRIM; McCullough et al., 1998)was used to assess unforgiveness. The TRIM has a possible range between 12 and 60.Students rated the degree to which they had forgiven the transgressor on a five-pointscale from 0¼ no forgiveness to 4¼ complete forgiveness. At 0 forgiveness, the rangeof scores on the TRIM was from 15 to 59, reflecting the full range of unforgiveness.Some people virtually eliminated unforgiveness without forgiving. They must havedone so by using some alternatives to forgiving. With each subsequent unit of increasein forgiveness, the range of scores on unforgiveness narrowed. People who said theyhad completely forgiven the perpetrator had a range on the TRIM that extendedonly from 12 to 31. When people forgave completely, they eliminated almost all theirunforgiveness.

Second, as we alluded to above, Witvliet, Worthington and Wade (2002) examinedthe relationship between offender apology, restitution, both, and neither (using a2� 2, apology� restitution design) and victim responses to an imaginary robbery sce-nario. Participants completed questionnaires, were instructed to imagine that they hadbeen robbed, and were assessed again. They then were told that the next day the offen-der (a) apologized, (b) sent back the stolen money plus an additional money (i.e., res-titution), (c) both, or (d) neither. People were assessed on a third time. In Study 3,besides completing questionnaires, participants were assessed on SNS markers andfacial EMG at baseline and while imagining responding to scenarios.

In Study 1, participants were told that the offender’s note merely said that he or shewas sorry for taking the stolen items (i.e., a weak apology). In Study 2, the offendermade a strong apology – several expressions of regret, contrition, and remorse alongwith the statement of being sorry. In Studies 1 and 2, Witvliet, Worthington andWade (2002) used a between-subjects design. In Study 3, which included the physiolo-gical measures, Witvliet et al. used a within-subject design. People imagined each of thefour conditions counterbalanced for order. In all studies, participants self-reported thedegree of unforgiveness they still felt toward the offender and the amount to which theyhad forgiven the offender.

In Study 1, restitution reduced self-reported unforgiveness. However, the weakapology reduced unforgiveness minimally. In Study 2, the strong apology producedas much reduction in unforgiveness as did making restitution. Furthermore, the twoeffects added together when the perpetrator both strongly apologized and offered res-titution. In Study 3, Witvliet, Worthington and Wade (2002) replicated the self-reportfindings of Study 2. They also found some physiological differences among the con-ditions (e.g., heart rate, corrugator [brow muscle] EMG, and obicularis oculi [eyemuscle] EMG). They did not find differences for mean arterial pressure, skinconductance, or zygomatic (smile muscle) EMG. It is instructive to compare the phy-siological responses from Witvliet, Worthington and Wade (2002), who attempted to


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promote victims’ judgments of repaired injustice through receiving an offender apology,restitution, or both, with Witvliet et al. (2001), who had people imagine having empathyfor offenders or forgiving them. The measures of mean arterial pressure, heart rate, skinconductance, and facial EMG at three sites were the same in both studies for (a) nooffender apology or restitution (Witvliet et al., 2002) and (b) imagining someoneagainst whom held a grudge or was unforgiving (Witvliet et al., 2001). However,when people imagined forgiving or having empathy for an offender (Witvliet et al.,2001), they experienced reduced heart rate, mean arterial pressure, skin conductance,and facial EMG at three locations. In Witvliet et al. (2002), though, participants in‘‘justice’’ conditions (i.e., offender apology, restitution, or both) had reduced heartrate (but not blood pressure or skin conductance) and lower facial EMG on two ofthe three facial muscles. Apparently, perceiving justice to have been done does nothave quite as much physiological effect as does forgiving. This is consistent withWorthington’s theorizing about apologies and restitution (Worthington, 2000; seealso Exline et al., 2003). He hypothesized that ease of forgiving was inverselyproportional to the magnitude at the injustice gap. Thus, apology and restitution areeach thought to have reduced the injustice gap, stimulating some forgiveness in additionto the reduced unforgiveness that directly attends receipt of apology or restitution orboth. Witvliet, Worthington and Wade (2002) found that more forgiveness indeedoccurred with both a strong apology and restitution than with only an apology, onlyrestitution, or neither.

Witvliet et al. (2003) assessed the psychophysiological effects of justice and forgive-ness. Participants (27 male and 30 female college students) imagined a scenario inwhich they were victim of a home burglary. There were six justice-forgiveness outcomes.A 3 Justice (Punitive, Restorative, No Justice) by 2 Forgiveness (Granted, Not Granted)repeated-measures design was used. Each participant imagined all six conditions twicewith order of conditions counterbalanced. For justice, main effects indicated increasinglypositive and decreasingly negative self-reports across the no-justice to punitive justice torestorative justice conditions. For forgiveness, granting forgiveness to the perpetratoryielded self-reports of more positive feelings, perceived control, gratitude, and empathy,and less fear, anger, and arousal than did not granting forgiveness. Granting forgivenessalso was associated with significantly lower heart rate and corrugator EMG level.Physical reactions were generally less responsive to differences in justice conditionsthan to forgiveness relative to none. Witvliet et al. (2003) concluded that for victims,restorative justice and granting forgiveness may yield the strongest emotional benefits.

A methodological note is in order, Green and his colleagues (Green et al., 1999) haveobserved that when positive and negative emotions are measured simultaneously, theresults often do not suggest strong effects of both positive and negative emotionseven though effects are strong if either is measured separately. Multivariate analysestend to capture the variable with the strongest effect and remove common variance,leaving only one significant effect. Researchers, thus, often measure only one variable.Researchers who study forgiveness often measure only unforgiveness or forgiveness.They infer that if unforgiveness decreased, then forgiveness must have occurred. Orthey infer that if forgiveness took place, then unforgiveness must have been reduced.These are probably good assumptions for intervention studies that try to produceforgiveness. But this may not be a good strategy when studying justice, such as inthe Witvliet, Worthington and Wade (2002) study of apology and restitution. In studiessuch as that, it is necessary to measure both unforgiveness and forgiveness.


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In summary, there is initial support for this proposition. Clearer demonstrationsare needed that hypothesized alternatives to forgiving actually reduce unforgiveness.Only hearing an apology, receiving restitution, and being informed of criminal convic-tion have been investigated thus far. All three resulted in less unforgiveness accompa-nied by a little forgiveness. Future research needs to consider revenge, which would beexpected to reduce unforgiveness but produce virtually no forgiveness. Also, futureresearch should investigate other alternatives. Measures that clearly distinguish reducedunforgiveness and the experience of emotional forgiveness must be developed.

Proposition 3: Forgiveness Reduces the Stress of Unforgiveness

Theoretical difficulties to overcome

Emotional forgiveness is thought to reduce the stress of unforgiveness. Evaluating thisproposition requires more measurement precision than has thus far been evident.Granting decisional forgiveness might change negative motivations but not changenegative emotions. Some people grant forgiveness and sincerely never intend to seekrevenge or avoid the offender, yet they remain bitter, resentful, hostile, hateful,angry, and fearful toward the offender. Measures that reliably distinguish of decisionalforgiveness from emotional forgiveness are needed. None now exist. Furthermore, theemotional juxtaposition hypothesis suggests that measuring emotional forgivenessmight not be as straightforward as has been assumed. Emotions differ in both degreeof arousal and valence (Russell and Carroll, 1999). Low doses of positive emotions(say love, for instance) experienced after a transgression might neutralize some unfor-giveness, which would reduce the arousal of the negatively valenced unforgiveness. Buta high dose of love might change the arousal and also the valence. Researchers haveuntil now used linear measures of forgiveness and unforgiveness.

Evidence bearing on the proposition

Witvliet et al. (2001) investigated people physiologically. When they directed studentsto take an empathic mindset toward the transgressor or to recall and imagine aperson they had forgiven, students showed a marked reduction in mean arterial pres-sure, heart rate, and skin conductance relative to people toward whom they felt unfor-giving. This suggests that forgiving reduces the sympathetic nervous system responsesto the transgression. Similar findings come from Lawler et al. (2003). They replicatedWitvliet et al. (2001) using a between-subjects design with 108 college students, whileWitvliet used a within-subjects design. Lawler et al. found that state forgiveness wasassociated with lower blood pressure and product of heart rate and blood pressurewhile participants described transgressions by both (a) friend or partner and (b) parent.

Huang and Enright (2000) used blood pressure to determine the degree to which44 children or adolescents might have forgiven a transgressor. They found a relation-ship between stage-of-development thinking about forgiveness and blood pressureat the end of one minute of recounting a transgression. Huang and Enright differen-tiated two types of forgiveness. One they called ‘‘anger-related forgiveness’’ – forgivingmotivated by obligation – which is similar to decisional forgiveness, using our distinc-tion. They compared this to forgiveness due to ‘‘unconditional love’’ – which is likeemotional forgiveness. People who forgave due to ‘‘unconditional love’’ had lowerblood pressure (both systolic and diastolic) when recalling the transgression. Other


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unobtrusive behavioral measures – such as masking smiles and lowering the eyes –showed parallel findings.

These three studies suggest that emotional forgiveness indeed reduces the stress ofunforgiveness. Much research is still needed to support this proposition.

Proposition 4: Forgiveness as a Coping Strategy is Related to Health

Forgiveness is hypothesized to be a coping strategy that reduces acute unpleasant stressand thus affects more positive health. However, negative health effects would likelybe measurable only if people were chronically unforgiving. If people were frequentlyunforgiving for years yet they experienced no negative health symptoms, it could bebecause they consistently employed alternative ways of reducing unforgiveness (e.g.,renarrating events, giving judgment to God, accepting misfortune philosophically).Or they could be persistently forgiving. Therefore to establish that forgiveness wasat least partially responsible for absence of stress-related disorders as one aged, onewould have to show that a person was forgiving at a trait level and that trait forgiving-ness was related to health. The strength of the correlation would be expected to increasewith age. (Note that Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 2002, have shown that even acute stress canproduce negative physical effects. These are expected to accumulate with age.)

Several investigators have studied trait forgivingness and health at different ages.Toussaint et al. (2001) conducted a national telephone survey of randomly selectedpeople throughout the United States. They sampled people in young adulthood(18–44 years), middle age (45–64), and older adults (65 and older). Toussaint et al.had people rate the degree to which they felt generally forgiving against those whohad transgressed against them. They also rated degree of forgiveness of self, forgivenessof God, and forgiveness by God. They estimated proactive forgiveness, and theycompleted health measures. Toussaint et al. found that middle-aged people forgaveothers more than did young adults and also felt more forgiven by God. Older adultswere more proactively forgiving than were younger adults. There was a relationshipbetween forgiving and health symptoms in the elderly but not in other age cohorts.

Krause and Ingersoll-Dayton (2001) surveyed 129 older adults in Michigan. Theyfound that some people were automatic forgivers; others were reluctant forgivers;others treated forgiveness as something that must be earned. Religion was oftenimplicated in decisions about forgiving. Forgiveness seemed related to health, butevidence was qualitative.

Findings from both surveys above are consistent with research that has investigatedother positive emotional states and health, such as optimism. When people chronicallyexperience negative emotions, it typically takes years of negative emotional experiencebefore ill health results. This has also been demonstrated frequently with the literatureon stress (for reviews, see Sapolsky, 1994; McEwen, 2002).

McCullough et al. (2001) has studied the personality disposition, vengefulness. Theyhad people complete a measure of dispositional vengefulness. Students returned eightweeks later for a subsequent testing, which assessed physical complaints. More physicalcomplaints were noted among the dispositionally vengeful people than among thosewho were not vengeful. Small physical impairments can occur from being disposition-ally unforgiving – especially vengeful – over a period as short as eight weeks.

While we can tentatively say that emotional forgiveness is related to health, researchis needed to test the emotional juxtaposition hypothesis. Forgiveness is hypothesized


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in the emotional juxtaposition hypothesis to involve experiences of positive emo-tions such as empathy, sympathy, compassion, or love that systematically neutralizethe stressfulness of unforgiveness and promote forgiveness. In naturally occurringsituations, testing this hypothesis would require making ambulatory measures of phys-iological events. In the laboratory, events could be arranged to produce positiveother-oriented emotions and measure physical responses. In psycho-educational set-tings, creating positive other-oriented experiences in people who feel unforgivingis precisely the goal. Many studies have placed volunteers in psychoeducationalgroups that undergo an intervention to promote forgiveness. In almost every group,the effect sizes for forgiving and for reducing unforgiveness are positive. In fact,Worthington et al. (2000), besides reporting the results of three brief interventions,examined data from interventions drawn from four independent laboratories. Theyfound that a linear relationship existed between the amount of time people attemptedto forgive, and the amount of forgiveness people actually experienced.

Findings in support of these four propositions are consistently supportive. Yet find-ings are weak on several fronts. (1) Alternative explanations have not been ruled out.(2) Methods of measuring forgiveness and unforgiveness have not been precise.(3) Longitudinal research has been short-term (on the order of weeks). (4) An insuffi-cient number and variety of health measures have been employed. (5) No prospectivestudies have been done. At the present, research is promising but only suggestive at best.

THEORIZING AND EVIDENCE ABOUT THE DIRECT MECHANISMS

BY WHICH UNFORGIVENESS AND FORGIVENESS MIGHT AFFECT

PHYSICAL HEALTH

Given that evidence is suggestive that emotional forgiveness might reduce the stressful-ness of unforgiveness and prevent stress-related disorders, the question of physicalmechanisms arises. Obviously, forgiveness affects mental and relational health. Forexample, frequent forgivers might have better mental health (and thus fewer suicides).Also, frequent forgivers might affect relationships and thus provoke fewer homicides,incidents of road rage, or accidents. However, we draw from the literature on stressand coping to suggest direct mechanisms whereby forgiveness might affect physicalhealth (this section) and indirect mechanisms (the following section). We suggest poten-tial mechanisms and review existing research specifically on forgiveness that is relevantto each.

There are several of direct mechanisms by which (1) unforgiveness might lead toill health and (2) forgiveness might act as a coping strategy affecting better health.Some were alluded to as we discussed four propositions.

Direct Mechanism 1: Forgiveness Might Reduce Hostility

Hostility is a central part of unforgiveness (Worthington and Wade, 1999; Thoresenet al., 2000). Hostility also has been found to be the part of Type A behavior thatseems to have the most pernicious health effects (Smith, 1992; Miller et al., 1996).Thus, the first hypothesized mechanism is that unforgiveness instigates hostility,which heightens risk of cardiovascular disease. Thoresen et al. (2000) have describedhostility as a core component of unforgiveness. Hostility has been directly related


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to numerous health problems. Hostility has its most deleterious effects on the cardio-vascular system (Kaplan, 1992; Williams and Williams, 1993). Measures of heartrate variability and cardiac impedance might be used to assess the degree to whichunforgiveness might affect the cardiovascular system (Brosschot and Thayer, 1998).At present, neither of these measures has been used to assess unforgiveness, its effects,or possible moderating effects of forgiveness. Forgiveness has been found to be inverselyrelated to hostility. Berry and Worthington (2001) have found that unforgivingromantic relationships were characterized by hostility. Berry et al. (2001) have showndispositional forgivingness is negatively correlated with trait hostility (see alsoMauger et al., 1992; McCullough et al., 2001).

Forgiveness has been hypothesized to be an emotion-focused coping strategy. It hasbeen found to reduce anger and hostility (Al-Mabuk et al., 1995). Williams andWilliams (1993) have described numerous ways by which reducing anger and hostilitycan affect physical health. For example, stress transients can damage the inner liningof arteries providing sites for subsequent collection of arterial plaque and perhapseventual arteriosclerosis. Arterial inflexibility can lead to increased risks for cardiacinfarction, hypertension, and stroke. Williams and Williams (1993) suggested ways tomodulate hostility, including forgiving. Their suggestions need to be tested usingmore measures of cardiovascular health.

Direct Mechanism 2: Forgiveness Could Affect the Immune System

at the Cellular Level

Another possible mechanism for affecting health outcomes is that the stressfulness ofunforgiveness might affect the immune system. A sizable literature has developedabout how negative emotions (of which unforgiveness is one) is related to and cancause dysregulation in the immune system. Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (2002) have thoroughlyreviewed the literature on how stress and negative emotion can affect cytokines.

Cytokines are protein-like materials that are secreted when an infection or injury issustained or when stress is experienced. They primarily help fight infection and providean early response to injury. They attract immune cells to the site of damage and activatethem. They also affect metabolism, and help regulate body temperature. When a personis under constant stress, pro-inflammatory cytokines are elevated. This can dysregulatethe intercellular immune system. No researcher who is studying forgiveness has yetexamined cytokine production as a measure of responsiveness to unforgiveness or toforgiveness, though such research is underway by Temoshok and Wald (2002).

Direct Mechanism 3: Forgiveness Could Affect the Immune System at

the Neuro-endocrine Level

Forgiveness could affect health by boosting the immune system. Specifically, forgive-ness could reduce HPA reactivity and reduce secreted cortisol. Over-production ofcortisol has been shown to have deleterious health effects on the cardiovascular andimmune systems and on cognitive and brain functioning (for reviews, see Sapolsky,1994; McEwen, 2002).

Only one study has addressed cortisol and unforgiveness. Berry and Worthington(2001) found base-rate production of salivary cortisol to be slightly elevated inpeople who were high in trait unforgiveness. They also found cortisol reactivity in


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people who think about unforgiving events in their relationship to be slightly greater introubled relative to happy relationships. The findings suggested the need for additionalstudy.

The neuro-endocrine system is affected by stress, which affects the immune system.Extension to the study of unforgiveness has little support.

Direct Mechanism 4: Forgiveness Could Affect the Immune System

through Release of Antibodies

The study of stress suggests that anti-bodies are suppressed during chronic stress. Giventhat forgiveness is hypothesized to juxtapose positive emotions against unforgiveness,we suggest that findings from the study of positive emotions can provide hypothesesabout forgiveness.

Salovey et al. (2000) reviewed the literature on the relationship between negativeand positive emotions and physical health. They focused primarily on the relationshipbetween negative emotions and suppression of secretatory Immunoglobulin-A (sIg-A)inhibition. Levels of sIg-A have been found to affect immune system functioning.At the present, sIg-A suppression has not been investigated in relation to the unfor-giveness. It is hypothesized that when people use forgiveness as a coping strategy toreduce unforgiveness, then sIg-A levels would return to baseline. This has not beeninvestigated.

Direct Mechanism 5: Forgiveness Might Affect Central Nervous System Processes

At the level of the central nervous system (CNS), three processes might be affected.(a) Gray’s (and others’) identification of two motivational systems suggests CNS pro-cesses and structures that might pertain to unforgiveness and forgiveness. (b) Likewise,structure and function of the hypothalamus and amygdala might be implicated inunforgiveness and forgiveness. (c) Finally, vagal tonality might affect forgiving orunforgiving responses.

Motivational Systems

Gray (1994) has identified two motivational systems. The Behavioral Inhibition System(BIS) is primarily associated with anxiety. The BIS responds to conditioned stimuliassociated with aversive and novel events. It typically increases arousal and interruptsongoing behavior, preparing the organism for focusing attention on aversive or novelstimuli. The BIS involves the septohippocampal system, the prefrontal cortex, andmonoaminergic pathways that innervate the hippocampus based on limbic stimulation.The Behavioral Activation System (BAS) is associated with both positive and negativeemotions. Both types of emotions can stimulate the BAS because both arouse and moti-vate the organism to engage with the environment. The BAS has been shown to beinvolved both with extreme happiness, aggression, anger (Harmon-Jones et al., 2001)and trait anger (Harmon-Jones and Allen, 1998). The neural structures associatedwith BAS arousal include the basal ganglia (dorsal and ventral striatum and dorsaland ventral pallidum), dopaminergic pathways from limbic system to basal ganglia,thalamic nuclei that are linked to the basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex, and motor andsensori-motor cortical areas.


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Harmon-Jones et al. (2002) have examined 67 people’s responses to an anger-evokingevent. They found a relative increase in left frontal activity using EEGs. Individualswho showed more tendency to actively cope with their anger showed more BAS activa-tion, and individuals who showed more tendency toward depression and inhibitedcoping showed less BAS activation. The research by Harmon-Jones et al. (2002) suggestthat unforgiveness–which involves anger–and forgiveness, which is theorized to involve(a) active emotion-focused coping and (b) use of positive emotions to regulate the nega-tive emotions, might be associated with people who have an active BAS. People whoseBIS is more active might be more likely to be mired in unforgiveness and be anxiousabout being hurt in subsequent interpersonal interactions (see Worthington, 1998).

Structure of the Hypothalamus and Amygdala

One speculative relationship concerns the relative production of testosterone and sera-tonin in the hypothalamus (Bell and Hobson, 1994). Aggressive youth tend to be highin testosterone. They might be unable to inhibit testosterone production after a provo-cation. Seratonin seems to decrease aggression. The hypothalamus is rich in receptorsites for both testosterone and seratonin, and the hypothalamus has been implicatedin motivational processes. Newberg et al. (2000) suggests that it makes sense evolutio-narily to have motivational processes of aggression and its regulation controlled by thesame central nervous system area. Animals often must act aggressively to defend eating,drinking, and mating rights, motivations which have been found to be associated withthe hypothalamus. Thus, seratonin may counteract testosterone in the hypothalamus.Forgiveness, as an emotion-focused coping strategy might inhibit testosterone bystimulating seratonin release. This potential connection would support hypothesizingby McCullough (2001) and his colleagues (McCullough et al., 1998) who have suggestedthat the regulation of vengeance (McCullough et al., 2001) by forgiving is a fundamen-tally motivational process (McCullough et al., 2002; McCullough et al., 2003).

Vagal Nerve Tonality

Vagal tonality might be another mechanism by which forgiveness and health areconnected (Brosschot and Thayer, 1998). The vagus nerve is the hub of the parasym-pathetic nervous system (PSNS), which regulates the SNS by inhibiting SNSactivation. Vagal tonality inhibits arousal. When a stressor is encountered, vagal tonal-ity decreases, almost instantaneously removing SNS inhibition–releasing the ‘‘vagalbrake.’’ This allows rapid arousal (McEwen, 2002). Vagal tonality has been found tobe related to cardiovascular disease, emotional expression, and emotion regulation(Porges et al., 1994).

Forgiving people might be hypothesized to have high vagal tonality. Unforgivingpeople might be hypothesized to react quickly to an interpersonal threat by rapidlydecreasing vagal tonality. These very speculative hypotheses have not been investigated.

Direct Mechanisms and Physical Health

Based on an analogy of unforgiveness-and-forgiveness to the stress-and-coping litera-tures, many direct physical pathways might be investigated between unforgivenessand ill health, forgiveness and good health, and unforgiveness-reducing alternatives


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to forgiveness and good health. For the most part, researchers have only scratched thesurface in studying these.

Other analogies might also provide heuristic hypotheses. For example, we haveargued that the emotional juxtaposition hypothesis suggests that positive emotionsare experienced when one forgives. A literature is emerging that relates positive emo-tions to health outcomes and mechanisms (Salovey et al., 2000). Theories such asFredrickson’s (2001) broaden-and-build theory might be used to generate hypothesesabout forgiveness and health.

In the present article, we have focused mostly on hypotheses that link unforgivenesswith ill health and forgiveness with good health. This, of course, does not fully explainall cases. For example, cortisol has short-term health benefits as do most aspects ofallostasis. However, chronic exposure to, overproduction, or underproduction of corti-sol have mostly damaging effects. By analogy, we might suggest that unforgivenesscould have some health benefits. Unforgiveness could mobilize a betrayed person toprotect himself or herself from further damage. It could boost short-term immuneresponses. It could focus cognition toward escaping danger. Perhaps only in thelong-term is chronic unforgiveness physically harmful.

Some people have argued that some alternatives to forgiving – such as denying thatone was harmed – are ‘‘pseudoforgiveness’’ (Enright and Fitzgibbons, 2000, p. 268),and could be harmful. ‘‘Pseudoforgiveness’’ might be thought to occur if, misunder-standing forgiveness, a person believed he or she had forgiven when he or she had infact denied or condoned, and thus continued to experience emotional stress until itcaused physical damage. We prefer to treat these as merely alternatives to forgiving.Each alternative might reduce the injustice gap and unforgiveness variably. Futureresearch could untangle which alternatives work best for which people in which situa-tions to bring about which physical outcomes.

INDIRECT MECHANISMS BY WHICH FORGIVENESS MIGHT

CONTRIBUTE TO BETTER PHYSICAL HEALTH

Forgiveness can possibly affect physical health in a variety of indirect ways aswell. For example, forgiveness might increase social support or improve maritalquality. Forgiveness might be part of a constellation of personality attributes.Forgiveness might be a good relationship skill. Each indirect mechanism might affectthe forgiveness-health connection. We reviewed relevant research in the present section.

Indirect Mechanism 1: Forgiving People Might Have More Social Support

More forgiving people might have larger or more emotionally supportive networks.Forgiveness can promote reconciliation (Worthington and Drinkard, 2000), whichsuggests that highly forgiving people might repair relationships more than less forgivingpeople. Quality and quantity of social support networks have been related to physicalhealth (Brownley et al., 1996).

One physical mechanism through which better quality social support might affecthealth involves release of ‘‘bonding’’ neuropeptides such as oxytocin and prolactin.In animal models, injected oxytocin has lowered blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisollevels in rats (Petersson et al., 1996). In humans, contact and warmth stimulate oxytocin


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(Uvnas-Moberg, 1998). Prolactin might also produce physiological effects of positivehuman interaction (Curtis andWang, 2003). No researchers have studied the ‘‘bonding’’peptides in conjunction with forgiveness.

Obviously, the direction of causality – if such a connection exists – is uncertain. Wehave suggested above that forgiving might contribute to more social support throughrelational repair. However, people with more robust social networks might just as rea-sonably be more confident and less easily threatened, and thus they might be less likelyto develop unforgiveness or, if it develops, more willing to forgive. Both the empiricalconnection and relative contribution of each causal pathway need to be studied.

Indirect Mechanism 2: Forgiving People Might Have Less Stressful Marriages

Marriage has been related to physical health (Friedman et al., 1995). Forgiving peoplehave been hypothesized to be less likely to develop marital conflict and are expected toresolve conflict more thoroughly than are people who are more unforgiving (Fincham,2000). Some evidence exists that supports the stabilizing power of forgiveness inmarriage (McCullough et al., 1998; Fincham et al., 2002); however, much research isneeded. Witvliet, Ludwig and Bauer (2002) have shown that seeking forgiveness canproduce physiological changes that suggest less stress response. When coupled withWitvliet et al. (2001), this research supports other physical effects in good marriages.

Indirect Mechanism 3: Forgiveness Might Be Related to Personality Traits

That Are In Turn Related to Health

Forgiveness, especially as a personality disposition, is likely to co-vary with numerousother (often-related) dispositional variables that have been found to be connected tophysical health. These include more committed religion (Gorsuch and Hao, 1993),higher trait empathy (Berry and Worthington, 2001), lower rumination (Caprara,1986), lower levels of neuroticism (Berry et al., 2001; McCullough and Hoyt, 2003;Symington et al., 2002), and higher levels of agreeableness (McCullough et al., 2001;Symington et al., 2002). McCullough et al. (2001) have shown vengefulness to be associ-ated with most of these (see also Mauger et al., 1992; Mullet and Girard, 2000; Berryet al., 2001; McCullough et al., 2003). Dispositional forgivingness has been relatedto health indicators (Berry and Worthington, 2001; McCullough et al., 2001). Forinstance, Lawler et al. (2003) found trait forgivingness to be related to lower levels ofbaseline blood pressure and to faster recovery to baseline blood pressure and tofaster recovery to baseline blood pressure after recalling and discussing a transgression.

Indirect Mechanism 4: Forgiveness Might Be Related to Relationship Skills

Furthermore, forgiveness might be hypothesized to be related to some relationship skills.For instance, people who forgive more readily might have (a) a greater number of gen-eral coping repertoires for dealing with the stress of negative emotions, (b) more robustemotion-regulation strategies (Gross, 1998), (c) less likelihood of offending a partner,which could lead to lower guilt and shame (Enright and the Human DevelopmentStudy Group, 1996), (d) less capacity to commit to a relationship (Finkel et al.,2002), and (e) less willingness to sacrifice for a relationship (Van Lange et al., 1997).


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There is only a little evidence at present to support such theoretical speculation instudies that measure forgiveness directly (i.e., see Finkel et al., 2002).

Indirect Mechanisms and Physical Health

In each of these indirect mechanisms, the relationships of forgiving people are likely tobe better overall with emotional steadiness being more characteristic of the relationship.Thus less time is expected to be spent in negative emotional arousal. In all of theseindirect mechanisms, we hypothesize a connection between forgiveness-as-a-coping-strategy and physical health.

RESEARCH AGENDA

There is a proliferation of definitions of unforgiveness and forgiveness. In many ways,they are complementary rather than competing. However, we believe that there areadvantages to investigating the emotional juxtaposition hypothesis (Worthington andWade, 1999). Viewing forgiveness as an emotion-focused coping strategy can lead topromising research directions. Namely, such an approach links forgiveness researchto the field of stress and coping. It suggests potential studies that forgiveness research-ers could pursue in health psychology as it intersects with other sub-fields (e.g., social,developmental, or clinical) of psychology. We suggest a brief research agenda thatderives from the foregoing review.

1. The role of positive emotions in stress, coping and health research has gained atten-tion recently (Folkman and Moskowitz, 2000; Fredrickson, 2001). Forgiveness canbe conceptualized as a replacement of negative with positive emotions, suggestinga link between these fields as we have argued throughout the article.

2. Forgiveness is hypothesized to be relevant at the social and political levels as well asat the intra-personal and inter-personal dyadic levels. More research should investi-gate whether forgiveness can affect relationships in the friendship-dyad, co-worker(Bradfield and Aquino, 1999), romantic partner, and family levels. Forgiveness canalso be relevant to interactions in the judicial and criminal processes (Worthington,2000), national and international political levels (Helmick and Petersen, 2001), andhealth and health-care issues (Worthington and Berry, in press).

3. New research is needed to describe the interactions among the many coping-strategies people employ to reduce the stress of interpersonal transgressions: Whouses which coping strategy, under what circumstances, and with what effects onphysical health?

4. Can forgiveness be used as proactive coping (Aspinwall and Taylor, 1997)?5. Little has been done to determine the physical mechanisms by which forgiveness

might produce better health. In the present article, we have summarized relevantempirical research. It is scant, though most existing research supports the theorizedmechanism. We have also reviewed research that suggests hypotheses about forgive-ness and health. Those need to be examined.

6. Researchers need to find who best uses forgiveness as an emotion-focused copingstrategy, and to whom forgiveness can best be taught as an active coping strategy.


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People who seem at first blush to be excellent candidates for the forgiveness inter-ventions are those who are high in trait forgivingness. However, it may turn outthat such people will likely forgive naturally. Better candidates for interventionsmight be those who are moderate or low in trait forgivingness. This questiondeserves an empirical answer.

7. The role of forgiveness in coping with disease is uncertain at this point. Forgivenessmight play a palliative role in coping with gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, andstress-related disorders. Research is needed to identify the roles that forgivenessplays in what disorders.

8. In diseases such as cancer, forgiveness might or might not play a role in the etiol-ogy, physical manifestation, or healing. Forgiving might affect cancer risk directlyby affecting glutamate and thus the N-methyl-D-asparate receptor, which affectsfree radical concentration, which in turn might affect cancer risk (McEwen,2002). Forgiveness might contribute to the healing of cancer only by indirectmechanisms through improving relationships with people’s support network, help-ing people be at more peace with their ailments, or contributing to fewer and lessnegative mental health consequences and more positive mental health conse-quences. On the other hand, forgiving might even have a negative impact onone’s will to battle the disease; thus, the impact of forgiving might be negative.Research is needed to determine the physical, psychological, and relationalmechanisms involved in dealing with diseases.

9. We have argued that emotional forgiveness acts primarily as an emotion-focused coping strategy. It might be, however, that emotional forgiveness mightbe an instance of meaning-focused coping (Park and Folkman, 1997). Forgive-ness might also, in some cases, be instrumental as a problem-focused copingstrategy. Research is necessary about how different people use forgiveness tocope.

10. Decisional and emotional forgiveness can be independent or related to eachother. Investigations are needed to describe the conditions for independence orinterdependence.

11. More attention is needed to identify negative physical effects of forgiving.Forgiveness can be detrimental if it results in forgivers endangering themselvesby forgiving when instrumental behavior is needed to rectify a problem. But arethere negative health effects that directly follow forgiving? Can forgiving short-circuit one of the alternative means of reducing unforgiveness that would havebeen better? Under what circumstances?

SUMMARY

In the present article, we have presented a theoretical model that describes unforgive-ness as being stressful, and we have argued that forgiveness can be viewed as emo-tion-focused coping. The evidence is reasonably strong supporting that unforgivenessis stressful. Evidence is suggestive that unforgiveness can lead to negative health out-comes. However, longitudinal studies showing that unforgiveness is related to ill-health have not yet been done. Empirical evidence that forgiveness is an emotion-focused coping strategy that actually promotes positive health is intriguing and sugges-tive but largely inferential. The hypotheses need to be tested directly.


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Forgiveness is used by many people to deal with transgressions. Yet, until recently, ithas largely been overlooked by scientists studying the relationships between stress,coping, and health. In this article, we provided a theoretical framework and derivehypotheses that we hope will stimulate additional research and understanding.

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our gratitude to and acknowledge support from VirginiaCommonwealth University’s General Clinical Research Center, which is supportedby NIHS M01 RR000065, and from the John Templeton Foundation (grant #239).Portions of this chapter were supported by each. In addition, we acknowledge thesupport of the John Templeton Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropic Societyfor administering A Campaign for Forgiveness Research. The authors compiled thisresearch on forgiveness partially in their work as Executive Director and ExecutiveAssistant, respectively, for the Campaign.

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