Forgiveness is an emotion-focused coping strategy that can reduce health risks and promote health resilience: theory, review, and hypotheses

2004/05/27 by Everett L. Worthington, Michael Scherer · 1 citation
Psychology · #Forgiveness and Related Behaviors #Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health #Migration, Health and Trauma

paper · doi:10.1080/0887044042000196674

openalex publication_date 2004/05/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Experimental evidence suggests that when people are transgressed against interpersonally, they often react by experiencing unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is conceptualized as a stress reaction. Forgiveness is one (of many) ways people reduce unforgiveness. Forgiveness is conceptualized as an emotional juxtaposition of positive emotions (i.e., empathy, sympathy, compassion, or love) against the negative emotions of unforgiveness. Forgiveness can thus be used as an emotion-focused coping strategy to reduce a stressful reaction to a transgression. Direct empirical research suggests that forgiveness is related to health outcomes and to mediating physiological processes in such a way as to support the conceptualization that forgiveness is an emotion-focused coping strategy. Indirect mechanisms might also affect the forgiveness-health relationship. Namely, forgiveness might affect health by working through social support, relationship quality, and religion.

Citations

• The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.
• The grateful disposition: A conceptual and empirical topography.

Cited by

• Longitudinal associations of dispositional forgivingness with multidimensional well-being: a two-wave outcome-wide analysis in the Global Flourishing Study

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