Psychology & Psychiatry

Study outlines ways to help children learn forgiveness

A recent study suggests that teaching children to understand other people's perspectives could make it easier for them to learn how to forgive other people. The study also found that teaching children to make sincere apologies ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Forgiving your boss can increase job satisfaction

Workers should consider forgiving their boss for mistakes because doing so boosts their own job satisfaction, according to research from the University of Exeter Business School.

Psychology & Psychiatry

Should you really forgive and forget?

(HealthDay)—Is forgive and forget always the right approach after hurtful behavior from your spouse or significant other?

Psychology & Psychiatry

How can people move past anger after the election?

Fred Luskin, lecturer in wellness education in the Health and Human Performance unit of Stanford's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation, offers his thoughts on forgiveness.

Psychology & Psychiatry

Forgiving others protects women from depression, but not men

Forgiveness is a complex process, one often fraught with difficulty and angst. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences studied how different facets of forgiveness affected aging ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Children in particular more forgiving of friends

Parents have little influence over how forgiving a child is towards other children. It also appears that if children think they are special, they are less forgiving. These are the conclusions of research conducted by Reine ...

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Forgiveness

Forgiveness is typically defined as the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as 'to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt'. The concept and benefits of forgiveness have been explored in religious thought, the social sciences and medicine. Forgiveness may be considered simply in terms of the person who forgives including forgiving themselves, in terms of the person forgiven or in terms of the relationship between the forgiver and the person forgiven. In some contexts, forgiveness may be granted without any expectation of restorative justice, and without any response on the part of the offender (for example, one may forgive a person who is incommunicado or dead). In practical terms, it may be necessary for the offender to offer some form of acknowledgment, apology or restitution, or even just ask for forgiveness, in order for the wronged person to believe himself able to forgive.

Most world religions include teachings on the nature of forgiveness, and many of these teachings provide an underlying basis for many varying modern day traditions and practices of forgiveness. Some religious doctrines or philosophies place greater emphasis on the need for humans to find some sort of divine forgiveness for their own shortcomings, others place greater emphasis on the need for humans to practice forgiveness of one another, yet others make little or no distinction between human and divine forgiveness.

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