Assessment, Statistics, and Research

Following a painful experience like those reported by women in the “me too” movement, many may work to forgive their offender to free themselves from the ongoing internal struggle caused by rehearsing the event and nursing anger. Forgiveness, of course, should not be construed as excusing, pardoning, or tolerating abuse. Neither should survivors' forgiveness of their offenders reduce the responsibility of government and business leaders to act justly and provide safeguards against future offenses. When people begin to work on forgiveness toward offenders for particularly horrific offenses like rape and murder, they may find strong emotions like anger and the desire for revenge make it seem impossible to overcome. Ev Worthington (Virginia Commonwealth University) and his colleagues have published two measures of forgiveness that divide forgiveness into two parts: Emotional and Decisional. This makes sense to me as a clinician, a scientist, and a person who, like many,...