Four Reasons to Give Someone a Second Chance........ Forgiveness and second chances: New research shows who benefits and why

 
When you’ve been hurt, betrayed, or disappointed by someone you care about, it’s hard to imagine giving that person another chance. Yet, forgiveness is a value that we’re taught that is
basic to human relationships. Giving up on people because they’ve let you down, whether it’s your favorite sports team, a political figure, or your best friend, seems antithetical to that value.
Even though we’re taught to forgive and then give someone an opportunity to make up for past wrongs, not everyone is capable of doing so. In a July 2016 article, University of Bremen (Germany) psychologist Katja Hanke teamed up with University of Lisbon’s Christin-Melanie Vauclar to conduct a massive analysis of nearly 42,000 participants from 30 countries on cross-cultural variations in the personality trait of forgiveness. Presumably, in countries that emphasize the virtue of forgiveness, people will be more likely to espouse this trait within their own personalities.

As Hanke and Vauclar point out, we tend to think of forgiveness in interpersonal terms. Someone steps on your foot, and it really hurts, but to the best of your knowledge, it wasn’t an intentional act. When the person apologizes, you accept it as such, and don’t hold a grudge or try to strike back. Forgiveness also has a larger intergroup context, however. According to this international team, “forgiveness seems to be a critical element in breaking cycles of counterviolence in postconflict societies” (p. 217). In other words, perhaps it’s forgiveness that can lead to healing and reconciliation among nations.

From the level of the individual, then, to the level of the society, forgiveness seems to matter in preserving harmony. Analyzing the data from 168 separate studies, Hanke and Vauclar examined the relative ranking of forgiveness as a value from among a list of 18. Scoring just within the top half (8 out of 18 in rank). It was beaten out by such other virtues as honesty (#1), responsibility (#2), and loving (#3) but outranked imaginative (#17) and obedient (#18). The U.S. ranked #4 in forgiveness as a value, and Egypt was #1. Poland, Chile, India and Israel all came in at the bottom of the list.
The authors proposed that country-level factors that seem to influence the espousing of forgiveness as a value were related to almost Maslow-like qualities such as feelings of stability and safety. These “postmaterialistic” qualities are aided and abetted by time away from conflict. In countries with high levels of concern about safety due to the presence of conflict (such as Israel), forgiveness may fall behind values that reflect the need for protection.

Once a culture becomes more forgiving, however, there are payoffs for the citizens of that culture. As shown in the overall analysis across studies, there was a positive relationship between the average well-being of people in that culture and the extent to which they value forgiveness. To put it simply, being forgiving seems to relate to being happier. Whether happier people are more forgiving (and happier because their countries are stable) or whether forgiveness leads to happiness and stability can’t be answered by the correlational study. Whatever the causal chain, forgiveness and happiness seem linked.
Now we get to the reasons that forgiveness, and the associated willingness to give second chances, can benefit you. With luck, you live in a culture that places forgiveness high on the value hierarchy. Your accidental toe-stubbing of a stranger in the street won’t lead to insults or physical assault, and everyone will feel better as a result of showing some humanity. What else can second chances do for you? These 4 reasons should help convince you to give others another shot when they’ve failed at the first one:

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1. That factor of subjective well-being. You’ll feel happier when you’ve forgiven someone else. The cross-national study supported what research on individuals has shown, and suggests that being magnanimous pays off for your own emotional benefits.
2. People can change. Moving along now to other research suggesting why you should give second chances is the idea that personality isn’t set in stone. People can learn from their mistakes and when you give them that second opportunity, you’ll allow them to demonstrate this.
3. It’s practical and saves emotional energy. Starting out brand-new with someone you don’t know may lead you to the same spot you were in before. You gave your auto repair person the job of fixing a defective valve and now it’s broken again. You could hire someone else to fix the fix, but that person will know less than the mechnic who gave it the first go-around. Similarly, your previous romantic partner may have committed acts that caused you to break up, but if you start with someone new, you’re back to ground zero. Once your anger subsides, pushing the “reset” button can allow you to return with greater insight and appreciation for the relationship.
4. You’d like people to treat you the same way. Now we’ll turn the tables and imagine that it’s you who needs the second chance. Wouldn’t you feel better if you were given an opportunity to try again? Whether it’s the car you’ve been hired to fix or the relationship that took a temporary turn for the worse (due to your own mistakes), it’s nice to know that someone is willing to give you a chance to redeem yourself.

As individuals, when we have the opportunity to show forgiveness to those we interact with, it can improve our own outlook on ourselves and the world. Giving second chances allows you to express this basic, and fulfilling, human value.

Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2016
Reference
Hanke, K., & Vauclair, C. (2016). Investigating the human value 'forgiveness' across 30 countries: A cross-cultural meta-analytical approach. Cross-Cultural Research: The Journal Of Comparative Social Science, 50(3), 215-230. doi:10.1177/1069397116641085