See below- the  work at Havard and Baylor are doing around human flourishing and mental health/ wellbeing is pretty cool (one of my Ivy league exceptions…) especially in the context of an RCT… my guess is that no one does forgiveness really well (myself included…): REACH model: Recall the hurt; Empathize with the offender; realize forgiveness is an Altruistic gift; Commit to forgive; and Hold on to forgiveness during the return of anger. Might be good to think about in terms of cultural relevance (universals and particulars- is the idea of forgiveness universal? They did the RCT it in (Columbia, South Africa, Ukraine, Indonesia, and Hong Kong) Or particular to a culture?) and implications for those with disabilites as well…MDB

 

 

From: VanderWeele, Tyler J. <tvanderw@hsph.harvard.edu>
Date: Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at 3:12 PM
To: Burke, Mack <Mack_Burke@baylor.edu>
Subject: Forgiveness Campaigns

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This research update discusses the results of our forgiveness workbook randomized trial and forming local and international forgiveness campaigns.

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Research Update: May 2024

 

Dear Friends,

This research update from the Human Flourishing Program discusses the results of our recent forgiveness workbook randomized trial and the workbook’s potential to form the foundation of local, national, and international forgiveness campaigns.

 

Need for Forgiveness

 

These past months, our country and our world have witnessed numerous forms of conflict and tension, disagreement and violence. It is easy to become angry, and often there is just cause to do so. Anger itself can be channeled towards justice but, ultimately, seeking justice should involve a restoration and promotion of the good. To do that effectively, we also need to re-orient our own motivations and actions to seek the good of others, even those who have hurt us. Forgiveness is a practice to bring this about.
 
Forgiveness involves replacing ill-will towards an offender with good-will. Because of the wrongs we have experienced, our thoughts and feelings about others may be bitter, angry, or even hateful, but with forgiveness – without forgetting or discounting the past offense – we come to want good things for the offenders, to hope that they will flourish. This doesn’t necessarily mean foregoing just punishment for their wrongdoing; after all, justice or redress might be the very thing needed in order change, or it might be necessary to keep others safe from harm. Nonetheless, forgiving the wrongdoer does mean that you won’t seek such punishment out of a desire for vengeance, and that your pursuit of it will be tempered by a sense of mercy, flowing from your desire for his or her good.
 

 

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Bringing About Forgiveness

 

For many of us, however, forgiveness is a tall order. Resentment, rumination, and a desire for vengeance often return. Recognizing this, clinical psychologists have in recent decades drawn upon both psychological research and also deep religious and cultural traditions concerning forgiveness to better understand how forgiveness can be brought about.
 
One such approach is Everett Worthington’s REACH model: Recall the hurt; Empathize with the offender; realize forgiveness is an Altruistic gift; Commit to forgive; and Hold on to forgiveness during the return of anger. The effectiveness of this forgiveness model has been studied in dozens of randomized trials in clinical settings. However, truly promoting global forgiveness requires approaches that are more easily disseminated. To try to bring this about, over the past years, we have worked with Dr. Worthington and others to evaluate the effectiveness of a self-directed workbook version of the REACH forgiveness approach.

 

Our Forgiveness Randomized Trial

 

Our forgiveness workbook randomized trial was carried about with about 4500 participants in 5 relatively high conflict countries: Columbia, South Africa, Ukraine, Indonesia, and Hong Kong. We’ve given further details of the trial design and the REACH forgiveness model in an earlier post. However, we are happy to now report that the results of that trial were just recently published in BMJ Public Health. The self-directed forgiveness workbook, which takes about 2-3 hours to complete, did effectively promote forgiveness. But it also effectively reduced depression and anxiety, and improved flourishing. Given the important effects of the forgiveness workbook, and its easy costless dissemination, we believe the workbook could be used as a cornerstone of local, national, and even international campaigns to promote forgiveness. The workbook is now available in translation into the primary languages of more than two-thirds of the world’s population.

 

Forgiveness Campaigns

 

We need forgiveness. Right now, much of the news and social media we consume add fuel to the fires of tension and hatred. Some of this reporting is important. But if we are going to bring about greater societal flourishing, we need to re-orient ourselves to seek the good of others, of those with whom we disagree, or by whom we are offended. Bringing about more global forgiveness could be greatly facilitated by campaigns designed to promote forgiveness.
 
To better understand how to most effectively carry out such campaigns, we have worked with researchers at Universidad del Sinú in Columbia to examine changes in forgiveness, anxiety, depression, and flourishing both before and after a 4-week forgiveness campaign, and how such changes potentially varied by campaign activity. While such pre-/post- designs do not have the same level of rigor as randomized trials, they can be helpful in assessing how activities and campaigns might be effective in practice, and the results of this campaign study were just recently published in the International Journal of Public Health.
 
The forgiveness campaign included 16 different campus-wide activities ranging from the dissemination of the REACH forgiveness workbook to forgiveness movies, webinars, journals, and social media marathons, to forgiveness walls and trees and group activities. Participants were free to engage in as many of these as desired and data was collected on about 2800 participants. Overall forgiveness, depression, anxiety, and flourishing all improved during the course of the campaign, though there was considerable variability in improvements, and in participation, by activity. In general, the greater the number of activities, the greater the improvement. Amongst the various activities, the REACH workbook and the forgiveness animated videos had both high participation rates and strong association with improvements in forgiveness. More details are available in the paper, but we hope that the study will help inform future forgiveness campaign efforts. And we are continuing our partnership with Andrea Bechara and Maria Fatima Bechara at Universidad del Sinú, and their new Flow Center, to better understand promoting campus-wide flourishing.

 

Potential for Future Forgiveness

 

Given the effectiveness of the REACH workbook intervention and its free accessibility in so many different languages, efforts can, and arguably should, be made to disseminate it. This could be done in the context of psychiatric care and clinical counseling for those struggling with anger who want to forgive, but are having trouble doing so. The workbooks could be disseminated at the community level as an important preventive mental health resource. The workbooks could be disseminated within religious communities to help facilitate the forgiveness that such groups already value. The workbooks could be disseminated in schools, and universities, and workplaces, possibly accompanied by videos, lectures, and group activities to promote forgiveness. If we truly desire to be oriented towards seeking the good of others, even amidst conflict, we need such efforts to promote forgiveness, and to thereby bring healing, and better flourishing, for all.

 

Tyler J. VanderWeele, 
John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Director, Human Flourishing Program, Harvard University

 

 
A permanent link to this research note is available here:
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/human-flourishing/202405/the-importance-of-forgiveness-campaigns]
You are welcome to distribute or re-post the link to this research update elsewhere.
 
The Human Flourishing Program grants reporters and journalists permission to re-use and quote any of the above material, provided proper attribution is given.

 

Key References and Related Articles

 

 

Program Updates

 

Forgiving What You Can't Forget Podcast

 

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In this podcast, Tyler VanderWeele discusses the benefits and challenges of forgiveness along with Laura Thompson (clinical and consulting psychologist) and Matthew Ichihashi Potts (Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church). 

 

New Collaboration with FLOW

 

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We are excited to highlight one of our collaborative partners, FLOW, a happiness center at Sinú University in Montería,  Colombia. FLOW offers free yoga and mindfulness classes to the Unisinuano community in order to increase access to physical and mental well-being resources. Our work together focuses on positive education. 

 

Our Mission

 


The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science aims to study and promote human flourishing, and to develop systematic approaches to the synthesis of knowledge across disciplines. You can sign up here for a monthly research e-mail from the Human Flourishing Program, or click here to follow us on Twitter. For past postings please see our Psychology Today Human Flourishing Blog.
 

 

 

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