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Denial makes the world go round - International Herald Tribune
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May 9, 7:32pm
1 review
psychology, denial, forgiveness
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/20/healthscience/20deni.php
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From the page: ""The closer you look, the more clearly you see that denial is part of the uneasy bargain we strike to be social creatures," said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and the author of the coming book "Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct." "We really do want to be moral people, but the fact is that we cut corners to get individual advantage, and we rely on the room that denial gives us to get by, to wiggle out of speeding tickets, and to forgive others for doing the same."
The capacity for denial appears to have evolved in part to offset early humans' hypersensitivity to violations of trust. In small kin groups, identifying liars and two-faced cheats was a matter of survival. A few bad rumors could mean a loss of status or even expulsion from the group, a death sentence.
In a series of recent studies, a team of researchers led by Dr. Peter H. Kim of the University of Southern California and Donald L. Ferrin of the University of Buffalo, now at Singapore Management University, had groups of business students rate the trustworthiness of a job applicant after learning that the person had committed an infraction at a previous job. Participants watched a film of a job interview in which the applicant was confronted with the problem and either denied or apologized for it.
If the infraction was described as a mistake and the applicant apologized, viewers gave him the benefit of the doubt and said they would trust him with job responsibilities. But if the infraction was described as fraud and the person apologized, viewers' trust evaporated — and even having evidence that he had been cleared of misconduct did not entirely restore that trust.
"We concluded there is this skewed incentive system," Kim said. "If you are guilty of an integrity-based violation and you apologize, that hurts you more than if you are dishonest and deny it.""
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Men Have A Harder Time Forgiving Than Women Do
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Mar 16, 7:38am
1 review
psychology, forgiveness, gender-differences
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303145228.htm
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From the page: "In seven forgiveness-related studies Exline conducted between 1998 through 2005 with more than 1,400 college students, gender differences between men and women consistently emerged. When asked to recall offenses they had committed personally, men became less vengeful toward people who had offended them. Women reflecting on personal offenses, and beginning at a lower baseline for vengeance, exhibited no differences in levels of unforgiving. When women had to recall a similar offense in relation to the other's offense, women felt guilty and tended to magnify the other's offense.
"The gender difference is not anything that we predicted. We actually got aggravated, because we kept getting it over and over again in our studies," said Exline. "We kept trying to explain it away, but it kept repeating in the experiments.""
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Learning To Forgive May Improve Well-Being
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Mar 16, 7:33am
2 reviews
health, neuroscience, forgiveness
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080104122807.htm
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From the page: "Holding a grudge appears to affect the cardiovascular and nervous systems. In one study, people who focused on a personal grudge had elevated blood pressure and heart rates, as well as increased muscle tension and feelings of being less in control. When asked to imagine forgiving the person who had hurt them, the participants said they felt more positive and relaxed and thus, the changes dissipated. Other studies have shown that forgiveness has positive effects on psychological health, too."
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