Applying the intentional forgetting process to forgiveness

The current research tests the hypothesis that the cognitive process of intentional forgetting can be applied to promote forgiveness. In three experiments, participants read stories set in second person point of view sentence by sentence. Each story included a target conflict sentence. After each sentence, participants saw a cue indicating forget or remember (Experiment 1, n = 89) or important or not important (Experiment 2, n = 123) or control cue (Experiment 3, n = 198). Findings revealed that, among participants who remembered the transgression, being told to intentionally forget the transgression led to increased forgiveness (Experiments 1 & 3). However, being told that the transgression was not important had no effect on forgiveness (Experiment 2). Overall, results are consistent with the hypothesis that an active process of intentional forgetting (as opposed to a passive process of disregarding unimportant information) can promote forgiveness. The interpersonal and clinical applications of these findings are discussed. © 2015 Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights