Author Archive: directorifi

Do you think that if a person forgives too easily, then this might enable harmful behavior by the other person?

I think this issue is often misunderstood, based on my reading and the questions I’ve been asked. If a person forgives quickly (or, as you say, easily), this does not invalidate the philosophical issue that moral virtues should be practiced together. In the case of forgiveness, justice should be a teammate. In other words, when you forgive, also respectfully ask for justice from the one who acted unjustly. When this occurs (forgiveness and justice working in tandem), it does not matter if the forgiving is quick or lengthy. In either case, justice should accompany the forgiving.

I am wondering if time can have an influence on a person’s motivation to forgive. Here is what I mean: If a person is holding on to resentment for a long time, might all this misery, experienced for years, get a person’s attention? The person then might get fed up with feeling badly. This, then, gives people the motivation to try forgiving.

You definitely show insight into the forgiveness process. Our first phase of the forgiveness process focuses on the forgiver’s internal states of anger and unrest, which often motivate a person to move forward with forgiving. So, time and insight together can be a strong motivation to forgive. Time by itself probably does not have much of an effect because sometimes time solidifies a person’s identity, for example, as a “feisty person,” and this can be difficult to alter. So, time plus insight that the resentment is not helpful can get the person’s attention and motivate the person to try forgiving.

If deep anger can affect the heart, is it possible that forgiveness therapy, for people who have been treated very unfairly and have heart compromise, might be beneficial in a physical way that improves cardiac functioning?

Yes, we have published an experimental study in which we assessed men with cardiac compromise who were on a hospital unit for this. We screened them for their level of forgiveness and blood flow through the heart. Only those who were unforgiving were part of the study. We randomized the men into the experimental group (having a forgiveness intervention) and the control group that had cardiac health education as usual. At a 4-month follow-up, the experimental group had more blood flow through the heart than the control group (N=9 in the experimental group; N=8 in the control group). The reference to the study is this:

Waltman, M.A., Russell, D.C., Coyle, C.T., Enright, R.D., Holter, A.C., & Swoboda, C. (2009). The effects of a forgiveness intervention on patients with coronary artery disease.  Psychology and Health, 24, 11-27.

Are there actions that should never be forgiven?

I have never seen an incident in which at least some people forgive, even though many will not. As one example, the late Eva Mozes Kor forgave the Nazis after she was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp and lost her sister Miriam to complications from the evil medical experiments. Not everyone would forgive the Nazis for what they did, but Eva did. In other words, it is not the “actions” that are forgiven or not. It is a person deciding to forgive those who perpetrated those actions, and some people do forgive others for horrendous actions.

Is forgetting a necessary part of forgiveness, or can you forgive while still remembering?

A recent study showed that as people forgive, they do not forget. Instead, as they remember, the heightened negative emotions are quieter, giving the forgiver a sense of inner peace. Here is a link to that interesting study:

Fernández-Miranda, G., Stanley, M., Murray, S., Faul, L., & De Brigard, F. (2025). The emotional impact of forgiveness on autobiographical memories of past wrongdoings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001787