Tagged: “Inherent Worth”

Apart from the idea that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, how can non-believers see the worth in other people?

Aristotle makes a distinction between potentiality and actuality.  If it is the case that all people have free will, then even when people behave badly, then they each have the potential to change, to actualize that potential and become better people to others.  According to the philosopher Kant, all people are ends in and of themselves and so should be treated as such.  The philosopher, Margaret Holmgren, argued for the position that all people, based on Kant’s idea, are worthy of respect.  So, there is room in different philosophies for the view that all people have worth.

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Checking in Again on Your Unfolding Love Story

For over 10 years on this site, we have posted a reflection in which we encourage readers to grow in love as their legacy of the present year. We have said this across the years:

“Give love away as your legacy of 2022.

How can you start? I recommend starting by looking backward at one incident of 2021. Please think of one incident with one person in which you were loved unconditionally, perhaps even surprised by a partner or a parent or a caring colleague. Think of your reaction when you felt love coming from the other and you felt love in your heart and the other saw it in your eyes. What was said? How were you affirmed for who you are, not necessarily for something you did? What was the other’s heart like, and yours?”

It is now about four months later. Can you list some specific, concrete ways in which you have chosen love over indifference? Love over annoyance? If so, what are those specifics and how are they loving? We ask because we have only about eight months left to 2022. Have you engaged in about a third of all the loving responses that you will leave in this world this year?

If you have not yet deliberately left love (or enough love) in the world this year, there is time. . . . . and the clock is ticking.

Robert

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Benefits of Classroom Forgiveness Education Confirmed by New Groundbreaking Study

The first-ever meta-analysis of classroom Forgiveness Education programs, a study involving nearly 1,500 grade school students in 10 countries, has determined that such programs “effectively decrease anger and increase forgiveness among children and adolescents. In addition, results indicated that forgiveness education interventions have robust effects that remain even after the termination of the program.” 
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Published this month in Child Development1 (Volume 93, Issue 2, March/April 2022), the critique analyzed 20 randomized intervention studies of forgiveness education programs that were implemented during school years 1996 through 2021. These studies spanned demographically diverse geographic areas including North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

The research, “A meta‐analysis of forgiveness education interventions’ effects on forgiveness and anger in children and adolescents,” was conducted by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers Hannah Rapp and Jiahe Wang Xu (both graduate students in the Dept. of Educational Psychology), and Dr. Robert Enright, educational psychology professor and co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI).

Other significant observations and findings in the just-published report include:

  • Children and adolescents inexplicably experience hurt and conflict in their interpersonal relationships and can “benefit from learning more about what forgiveness is and the process of how to forgive.”
  • Forgiveness education interventions “are effective regardless of whether participants have experienced severe or mild offenses or attend schools in economically disadvantaged areas.”
  • Programs of both short and long durations “can lead to significant positive change in anger and forgiveness outcomes.”
  • Children who forgive are more accepted by their peers.
  • Positive results for students “echoed findings from previous reviews of forgiveness interventions with primarily adult populations.”
  • Forgiveness education interventions are “significantly effective” whether they are facilitated by schoolteachers or by researchers.
  • The forgiveness education curriculum and process developed by Dr. Enright2 and the IFI “yielded significant effects.”

Overall, the analysis presents strong evidence that “children and adolescents can benefit from forgiveness education interventions.” Read the full meta-analysis report.
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1 Child Development is a 92-year-old bimonthly scientific journal published by the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). It is a vital source of information not only for researchers and theoreticians, but for a broad range of psychiatrists and psychologists, educators, and social workers in more than 60 countries around the world.

The Forgiveness Education curricula developed by Dr. Enright and the IFI for pre-k through 12th grade students is based on children’s story books. Those stories teach about forgiveness and other moral virtues and equip children with the knowledge of how to forgive a specific person who offends if they choose to do so. Lessons begin by educating participants about the five concepts that underlay forgiveness: inherent worth, kindness, respect, generosity, and agape love. During the program, participants read and discuss several age and culture-appropriate stories that display forgiveness between characters such as in The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo and in Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss.

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My partner and I have different political views.  I try to be respectful of his views, but he definitely is not respectful of my views or of me in particular.  Help!  How can I forgive him and start a productive dialogue about this?

I think you need to talk with your partner about what it means to be a person.  Are people more than their political positions?  If so, what is this “more” that goes beyond the political?  Does he see these other important qualities in you?  I think he needs to broaden his perspective that human beings, in their importance, transcend politics.  This is not easy to learn and so he and you will have to work on this more transcendent perspective.  As you forgive, try to see these larger human qualities in your partner.  Such a wider perspective likely will help you in the forgiveness process.

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What if I think that a person does not deserve to be forgiven?  Should I then not go ahead with forgiveness?

There is a difference between your belief that a person does not deserve forgiveness and your willingness to go ahead or not with forgiving.  I would say that all people are worthy of being forgiven because all people possess inherent worth. All people are special, unique, and irreplaceable.  Yet, forgiveness can take time and so if you are not ready to forgive, this is your choice.  I would say that your not going ahead with forgiving has more to do with your own inner world (your willingness to forgive) than it has to do with who this other person is as a person, worthy of forgiveness.

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