Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet

Granting Forgiveness or Harboring Grudges: Implications for Emotion, Physiology, and Health

Interpersonal offenses frequently mar relationships. Theorists have argued that the responses victims adopt toward their offenders have ramifications not only for their cognition, but also for their emotion, physiology, and health. This study examined the immediate emotional and physiological effects that occurred when participants (35 females, 36 males) rehearsed hurtful memories and nursed grudges (i.e., were unforgiving) compared with when they cultivated empathic perspective taking and imagined granting forgiveness (i.e., were forgiving) toward real-life offenders. Unforgiving thoughts prompted more aversive emotion, and significantly higher corrugator (brow) electromyogram (EMG), skin conductance, heart rate, and blood pressure changes from baseline. The EMG, skin conductance, and heart rate effects persisted after imagery into the recovery periods. Forgiving thoughts prompted greater perceived control and comparatively lower physiological stress responses. The results dovetail with the psychophysiology literature and suggest possible mechanisms through which chronic unforgiving responses may erode health whereas forgiving responses may enhance it.

Forgiveness, Health, and Well-Being: A Review of Evidence for Emotional Versus Decisional Forgiveness, Dispositional Forgivingness, and Reduced Unforgiveness

The extant data linking forgiveness to health and well-being point to the role of emotional forgiveness, particularly when it becomes a pattern in dispositional forgivingness. Both are important antagonists to the negative affect of unforgiveness and agonists for positive affect. One key distinction emerging in the literature is between decisional and emotional forgiveness. Decisional forgiveness is a behavioral intention to resist an unforgiving stance and to respond differently toward a transgressor. Emotional forgiveness is the replacement of negative unforgiving emotions with positive other-oriented emotions. Emotional forgiveness involves psychophysiological changes, and it has more direct health and well-being consequences. While some benefits of forgiveness and forgivingness emerge merely because they reduce unforgiveness, some benefits appear to be more forgiveness specific. We review research on peripheral and central nervous system correlates of forgiveness, as well as existing interventions to promote forgiveness within divergent health settings. Finally, we propose a research agenda.

Play it again Sam: Repeated exposure to emotionally evocative music polarises liking and smiling responses, and influences other affective reports, facial EMG, and heart rate.

This study assessed exposure effects on liking, self-reported affect, and physiology in response to music. Music stimuli varied in valence (positive or negative) and arousal (high or low), in a 2×2 within-subjects design (N=67). Six quasi-randomly ordered, counterbalanced exposures to music produced response polarisation. With exposure, negative music was liked even less, whereas positive music was liked even more. Zygomatic (smile) EMG also showed response polarisation: with exposure, participants smiled most during positive arousing music, and least during negative arousing music. Heart rate, corrugator (brow) and orbicularis oculi (under the eye) EMG reactivity patterns were consistent with possible increased fluency in processing the music with exposure. We address theoretical accounts of exposure and response polarisation and suggest directions for future research.

Not So Innocent : Does Seeing One's Own Capability for Wrongdoing Predict Forgiveness?

People are more forgiving toward transgressors if they see themselves as capable of committing similar offenses, as demonstrated in 7 studies. Methods included hypothetical scenarios, actual recalled offenses, individual and group processes, and correlational and experimental designs. Three factors mediated the link between personal capability and forgiveness: seeing the others offense as less severe, greater empathic understanding, and perceiving oneself as similar to the transgressor. In terms of predicting forgiveness, it was important that peoples own offenses were similar to the target offense in terms of both severity and type. The personal capability effect was independent of other established predictors of forgiveness and was more pronounced among men than women.

Forgiveness and Health: Review and Reflections on a Matter of Faith, Feelings, and Physiology

Empirical research on the links between forgiveness and both mental and physical health is burgeoning. This article reviews current research, with reflections on how Christians might engage this literature. It considers Christian and psychological conceptualizations of forgiveness, reviews the published literature on forgiveness and mental and physical health, addresses theoretical and interpretive issues, and reflects on ways that Christians may thoughtfully consider the contributions and limitations of empirical research on forgiveness and health.Empirical research on the links between forgiveness and both mental and physical health is burgeoning. This article reviews current research, with reflections on how Christians might engage this li...

Traumatic intrusive imagery as an emotional memory phenomenon: A review of research and explanatory information processing theories

Intrusive imagery is both a common response to trauma and a hallmark of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. However, its features and underlying mechanisms have not been reviewed systematically. This paper delineates the characteristics of intrusions and critically reviews the literature, conceptualizing intrusive imagery as an emotional memory phenomenon. This approach integrates otherwise separate research arenas in emotion and memory, psychobiology, pharmacology, and physiology, which converge to suggest that intrusive imagery is driven primarily by affective arousal and sympathetic nervous system reactivity. These basic and applied research findings are addressed directly by three information processing theories, which are reviewed and critiqued for their heuristic value in accounting for intrusions. Directions for research, treatment, and assessment are presented.

Compassion-focused reappraisal, benefit-focused reappraisal, and rumination after an interpersonal offense: Emotion-regulation implications for subjective emotion, linguistic responses, and physiology

This repeated measures psychophysiology experiment studied three responses to a past interpersonal offense (38 females and 33 males). We compared rumination with two offense reappraisal strategies. Compassion-focused reappraisal emphasized the offenders humanity, and interpreted the transgression as evidence of the offenders need for positive transformation. Benefit-focused reappraisal emphasized insights gained or strengths shown in facing the offense. Supporting the manipulations, compassion-focused reappraisal stimulated the most empathy and forgiveness, whereas benefit-focused reappraisal prompted the most benefit language and gratitude. Both reappraisals decreased aroused, negative emotion, and related facial muscle tension at the brow (corrugator). Both reappraisals increased happiness and positive emotion in ratings and linguistic analyses. Compassion stimulated the greatest social language, calmed tension under the eye (orbicularis oculi), and slowed heart beats (R–R intervals). A focus on benefits prompted the greatest joy, stimulated smiling (zygomatic) activity, and buffered the parasympathetic nervous system against ruminations adverse effects on heart rate variability (HRV).

Compassionate reappraisal and emotion suppression as alternatives to offense-focused rumination: Implications for forgiveness and psychophysiological well-being

This within subjects experiment (28 females, 26 males) examined three responses to a past interpersonal offender. We contrasted offense-focused rumination with two subsequent, counterbalanced coping strategies: compassionate reappraisal and emotion suppression. Compassionate reappraisal emphasized the offenders human qualities and need for positive change. Emotion suppression inhibited the experience and expression of negative offense-related emotions. Offense rumination was associated with negative emotion, faster heartbeats (i.e., shortened electrocardiogram R-R intervals), and lower heart rate variability (HRV; i.e., the high-frequency component of the R-R power spectrum). By contrast, both compassionate reappraisal and emotion suppression decreased negative emotion in ratings and linguistic analyses, calmed eye muscle tension (orbicularis oculi EMG, electromyography), and maintained HRV at baseline levels. Suppression inhibited negative emotion expression at the brow (corrugator EMG) and slowed cardiac R-R intervals, but without forgiveness effects. Only compassionate reappraisal significantly increased positive emotions, smiling (zygomatic EMG), and social language along with forgiveness.

A startling absence of emotion effects: Active attention to the startle probe as a motor task cue appears to eliminate modulation of the startle reflex by valence and arousal

Research has shown that during emotional imagery, valence and arousal each modulate the startle reflex. Here, two imagery-startle experiments required participants to attend to the startle probe as a simple reaction time cue. In experiment 1, four emotional conditions differing in valence and arousal were examined. Experiment 2, to accentuate potential valence effects, included two negative high arousal, a positive high arousal and a negative low arousal condition. Imagery effectively manipulated emotional valence and arousal, as indicated by heart rate and subjective ratings. Compared to baseline, imagery facilitated startle responses. However, valence and arousal failed to significantly affect startle magnitude in both experiments and startle latency in Experiment 1. Results suggest that emotional startle modulation is eclipsed when the probe is significant for task completion and/or cues a motor response. Findings suggest that an active, rather than defensive, response set may interfere with affective startle modulation, warranting further investigation.

Self-forgiveness and forgiveness-seeking in response to rumination: Cardiac and emotional responses of transgressors

Abstract Self-forgiveness and forgiveness-seeking are important and understudied aspects of forgiveness. We examined the cardiac and emotional patterns of healthy young adults (40 women, 40 men) who recalled an unresolved offense they had caused another person. Participants engaged in four imagery conditions: ruminating about the offense, being humbly repentant and engaging in self-forgiveness, seeking forgiveness from the victim and receiving forgiveness, and seeking forgiveness from the victim and being begrudged. Being repentant and begrudged forgiveness by one’s victim was associated with the same level of guilt as when ruminating, but significantly more negative emotion, less control, and less empathy than when ruminating, self-forgiving, and receiving forgiveness from the victim. Compared to ruminating about one’s wrongdoing, self-forgiving alleviated guilt and negative emotion, increased perceived control, decreased heart rate, and increased parasympathetic activation. Imagery of receiving forgiveness from the victim resulted in these same patterns and was equivalent to self-forgiveness across variables.