COM 312: Chapter 9: Managing Conflict Through Forgiveness

Levels of forgiveness:

1. Forgive because its healthy for us. 2. Forgive because we have empathy for the other. 3. Forgive for the sake of the relationship 4. Forgive because we begin to the see offender as like me. 5. Forgive because we begin to see that we, too, are capable of hurting (and have hurt) others, and have ourselves recieved forgiveness.

Smedes process:

1. Hurt 2. Hate 3. Healing 4. Coming together

Levels of Reconciliation:

1. No reconiliation at all. 2. Conditional Reconciliation 3. Processual Reconciliation 4. Restoration (trust is rebuilt and relationship recreated)

Forgiveness-Seeking Process:

1. Offender experiences feeling of shame and guilt for the offense. 2. Offender makes a decision to seek forgiveness 3. Offender expresses remose and repentance 4. Offender waits for fogiveness

Why can't we forgive sometimes?

1. The offender hasn't apologized or asked for forgiveness 2. Enjoy victim status 3. Don' t want to be perceived as weak. 4. See it as stupid or naive.

Forgiveness Process:

1. Transgressor offers the explanation for the offensive behavior, offers an account and an apology, and asks for forgiveness. 2. The other accepts (or doesn't accept) the offender's apology. 3. Forgiveness may or may not be communicated 4. Transforming the relationship if a desire to a different kind or to a different level of intimacy 5. Acting in forgiving and reconciling ways.

Revenge:

A behavior based on the notion of an eye for an eye.

Reconciliation:

A behavioral process in which we take actions to restore a relationship or create a new one following forgiveness.

Forgiveness:

A process that consists of letting go of negative thoughts/feelings/behaviors (ex: desire for revenge and or retaliation) toward someone who has hurt you, and replacing them with positive thoughts/feelings/behaviors towards that person. A change from negative to positive cognition, affect, behavior, toward someones that has hurt you.

Truth Bias:

Assume that friends tell us the truth.

Transforming the meaning:

Changing the way we view the event in light of other vents in our lives.

Core Relational Rules:

Define our expectations about the way we should behave toward others as well as the way they should behave towards us.

Relational Transgressions:

Extremely problematic situations in which core rules of a relationship are violated, leaving high emotional residues.

Example of negative emotions (

From annoyance to hatred

Example of negative behaviors

From ignoring or being cold to serious revenge seeking

Example of Positive behaviors

From making eye-contact or smiling or taking an active interest in the other's welfare.

Example of positive emotions:

From slightly liking to selfless love; including such feelings as compassion, caring, concern, and charity.

Example of Negative Thoughts:

Judging the person as inadequate to evil incarnate

Forgiveness is not:

Pardoning Condoning Excusing Reconciliation Forgetting Letting time heal the situation Abandoning resentment Possessing positive feelings towards an offender Saying I forgive you Making a decision to forgive Just moving on

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies:

People act toward us in a way that we expect.

Emotional Residues:

People experience lingering emotional responses to the memory of the transgression.

Why forgive others or yourself?

Psychological health, emotional health, physical health benefits. Higher levels of social adjustment and recovery. Lowers feelings of guilt, anxiety and depression. Loneliness is lowered. Higher self esteeem Low stress and blood pressure

Victimization:

The feeling of being a victim that leads to a state of forgiveness

The quality of forgiveness may be depedent on various factors:

The severity of the offense The prior relationship The offender's response to the offense And the forgivers prior practice of forgiveness

Helping Orientation:

When forming romantic relationships we assume that they love us and desire to help rather than hurt us, as we do to them.

Example of positive thoughts:

Wishing the perosn well to considerations of unconditional worth and personhood