ACT UP as a Structure of Feeling

In April of 2009, near the end of National Football League (NFL) quarterback Michael Vick's prison term for dog fighting, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell proposed Vick might resume his career if he could demonstrate “genuine remorse” for his actions. At the same time, Vick was mapping out a plan, with the help of public relations professionals, for how he would perform in interviews and public appearances. The result was an orchestrated campaign whereby Vick was both imposed upon by and performed through a surveillance-based program of social testing designed to prove that he was forgivable on the grounds of genuine remorse. I maintain that the Vick case represents the power of popular institutions like sports leagues to shape and test conditional standards for forgiving through frameworks of surveillance, therapy, and confession that affirm racialized ideals about social order and authentic interior reform. Through an analysis of the NFL's monitoring and surveillance program, as well as a series of highly publicized interviews, I demonstrate the importance of distancing forgiveness from politics, and examine potential alternatives to conditional forgiveness from within rhetorical studies.     

The persuasive effects of statistical evidence in the presence of exemplars

This paper explores the impact of statistical evidence by varying it while pairing it with a constant set of exemplars. The resulting design includes a condition in which the statistical information and the exemplars advocate the same position (consistent condition), one in which statistical information and the exemplars advocate different positions (inconsistent condition), and a third condition in which only exemplars are presented (control condition). The data indicate that statistical evidence has a substantial effect on judgments, and that the impact of statistical evidence on attitudes is indirect. Specifically, it is mediated by judgments.     

Communicating Forgiveness in Friendships and Dating Relationships

This study examines the postcrisis experience of Odwalla, an organic juice and natural products company, following a 1996 E. coli outbreak. Specifically, the four consistent characteristics of renewal were observed in Odwalla's extended recovery process. These characteristics include: provisional as opposed to strategic, prospective rather than retrospective, capitalizing on the opportunities embedded in the crisis, and renewal as a leader-based communication form. The study identified Odwalla's initial success and the complexity-fraught extended recovery period that followed. Odwalla overcame these complexities with a consistent focus on renewal and an emphasis on the characteristics appropriate to meeting the extended recovery process' shifting demands.     

The Emotional Side of Forgiveness: A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Role of Anger and Compassion and Face Threat in Interpersonal Forgiveness and Reconciliation

This study examined the dynamic interplays between emotions (i.e., anger and compassion), face threat, forgiveness, and reconciliation in relational transgressions in U.S. and Chinese cultures. Results indicated that Chinese participants reported more relationship-oriented forgiveness than U.S. participants, but no distinction was uncovered in self-oriented forgiveness. Results also showed that, relative to preforgiveness, there was less postforgiveness anger but more postforgiveness compassion in both cultures. Anger had a negative association, but compassion had a positive association, with forgiveness and reconciliation in both cultures. Perceived face threat first evoked initial emotions, which influenced forgiveness and counterinfluenced reactive emotions, which then affected reconciliation.     

Forgiveness as an educational goal with at-risk adolescents

An educational intervention using forgiveness as the goal was implemented with 10 at-risk adolescents attending an alternative school in a Midwestern city. The adolescents ranged in age from 15 to 19 years of age. A randomized experimental and active control group pre- and post-test design was used. Twenty-one participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (forgiveness education class) or the control group (personal communications class). Classes met daily for 31 sessions for approximately 23 hours of education. Enright’s process model of forgiveness was used as the focus of the intervention. Dependent variables included forgiveness, self-esteem, hope, depression, and state-trait anxiety scales. After the education, the experimental group gained more than the control group in forgiveness and hope, and decreased significantly more than the control group in anxiety and depression. Verbal reports from the experimental participants following the education also illustrate the positive impact forgiveness had on the students.     

A longitudinal study of the role of children’s altruism and forgiveness in the relation between parental aggressive discipline and anxiety of preschoolers in China

Using data collected over a 1-year period on a stratified random sample of 368 parents with children studying in nurseries (mean age = 3.97 years), this study assessed the predictive effects of parental corporal punishment, parental psychological aggression, preschoolers’ altruism, and preschoolers’ forgiveness on preschoolers’ anxiety symptoms in Hong Kong, China. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that parental psychological aggression, preschoolers’ altruism and preschoolers’ forgiveness at Time 1 significantly predicted preschoolers’ anxiety at Time 2, when controlling for the initial level of preschoolers’ anxiety and important demographic variables that co-vary with preschoolers’ anxiety. Moreover, preschoolers’ altruism moderated the predictive effect of parental psychological aggression on preschoolers’ anxiety symptoms. The study has several significant contributions. First, the study supports the predictive effect of parental aggressive discipline on preschoolers’ anxiety. Second, we provide evidence that preschoolers’ altruism and forgiveness negatively predict preschoolers’ anxiety symptoms. Third, preschoolers’ altruism and forgiveness are shown to protect them against parental psychological aggression. A dual-focus approach to intervention and prevention is proposed to reduce aggressive discipline by parents as well as to enhance altruism and forgiveness in children. Parent training programs could be provided to teach parents positive discipline strategies. Home-based or school-based interventions could be designed for preschool children to foster and enhance their altruism and forgiveness.     

An Investigation of Forgiveness-seeking Communication and Relational Outcomes

Therapists and theologians claim that the process of forgiveness is essential to the restoration of damaged relationships, but this possibility has received limited empirical attention. Furthermore, the role of an offender's communicative behavior in the forgiveness process remains understudied. This project first analyzed an inductively derived list of communication behaviors to develop a taxonomy of forgiveness-seeking approaches used by 186 romantic partners. These were interpreted with reference to face-management, uncertainty reduction, and rule-negotiation approaches to relationship recovery. Associations between the types of forgiveness-seeking communication and several different measures of post-transgression relationship change were examined. Results indicated that relationships recovered significantly when offending partners used behaviors labeled as explicit acknowledgment, nonverbal assurance, and compensation. Significant communicative effects remained after the effects of transgression severity were controlled. Results are interpreted as partially supportive of the assumption that forgiveness-seeking communication facilitates recovery from relational damage.     

“We Must Not Think Evil of This Man”: A Case Study of Amish and English Forgiveness

Previous research on forgiveness has taken place with little accounting for contextual influence, assuming a rather universal definition and practice across different contexts. Using discourse analysis, this study explores the social construction of forgiveness in media texts by comparing discussions of Amish and English forgiveness. The results of this study problematize a singular, uniform notion of forgiveness, instead framing it as a contextually bounded, discursive phenomenon. This study suggests that an alternative approach to studying forgiveness can shed light on otherwise overlooked dimensions of the forgiveness process.