Exploring the Psychological Dynamics of Revenge vs. Forgiveness

This essay delves into the psychological underpinnings of revenge and forgiveness, particularly within the context of close relationships. It explores the motivations behind both responses to pain and betrayal, examining the evolutionary and social-psychological perspectives on revenge as a deterrent and forgiveness as a conflict resolution strategy. The essay distinguishes between revenge and punishment, analyzing the emotional and behavioral consequences of each. It discusses situations where forgiveness is applicable and explores the factors influencing an individual's decision to seek revenge or offer forgiveness, including background, culture, and emotional stability. The essay highlights the potential for revenge to represent the worst aspects of human nature, while forgiveness embodies the best, concluding that the level of harm inflicted significantly impacts the choice between these contrasting responses. The essay references several academic sources to support its claims.

Essay

Table of Contents
“Why do some people take revenge on their partners while others forgive and forget?”...............1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................1
Essay plan....................................................................................................................................1
Body of the Essay........................................................................................................................1
Revenge and Punishment............................................................................................................2
Forgiveness ................................................................................................................................2
Forgiveness can work in a range of situations............................................................................3
Reason for taking revenge or forgiving & Conclusion ..............................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

“Why do some people take revenge on their partners while others
forgive and forget?”
Introduction
It is not possible to forget the person or incident that caused us pain, it is a very natural
reaction to want to hurt the individual who hurts you. This tendency comes from the primitive
part of the brain known as cerebellum, which is created to flight or fight. It is important to
understand why some individuals let go or forgive things and people who hurt them and others
develop a urge to take revenge. Revenge is the desire to get even when someone does wrong
with a person (McCullough, 2001). It is very natural to feel angry, however revenge decreases
an individual to there worst self. It puts them on the same level with those malicious individuals
who claim to detest. There are few passionate couples who actually tried to kill each other after
breakup. It is important and interesting to understand how a person who loves his or her partner
start thinking to hurt them just for a revenge (Struthers and et.al., 2018). On the other hand it is
also essential to understand ways through which people forgive and forget the individuals who
caused them pain and depression.
Essay plan
In this essay I will describe about revenge and forgiveness, the reason for thinking in two
different ways while an individual is in pain or hurt. I will discuss various situation in which
forgiveness can work where an individual have every right to be angry. The various function and
features of forgiveness as well as revenge will be also discussed in this essay. In order to identify
why it is impossible to forgive and forget in close relationships, I will also explain theories
related to the role of punishment in close relations among two partners.
Body of the Essay
Close or strong relationships are the major source of intense emotions among most of the
individuals, form the happiness of attachment and love to the suffering of loss and betrayal.
Partners in a relationship have the capacity to make each other deeply miserable and deeply
happy. Intentionally or unintentionally people hurt their partners or loved ones and will in turn
get hurt by them (Maier and et.al., 2018). There are some individuals who ignore or sustain their
pain and tries to move on by forgiving or forgetting the hurt caused by their partners whereas
few of them develops a high urge to take revenge by hurting back their loved ones. It is
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important to understand features and functions of forgiveness & revenge to identify who they
affect an individual to take decision to let go things or hurt back the person they love.
Revenge and Punishment
The word revenge and punishment tend to be utilized similarly, but they be distinguished
theoretically. According to the Fitness and Peterson (2008), punishing refers “to subject to pain
or penalty, confinement, loss, death etc. for some transgression, offence or fault” with
punishment being that which is imposed as a penalty”. On the other hand, Revenge can be
defined as retaliation for wrongs or injuries, vindictiveness to exact expiation on behalf of an
individual for a wrong mainly in a revengeful or bitter feeling. Punishment implies a rational and
legitimate , if not moral, right to impose hark on a person whereas revenge implies uncontrolled
and spite expression of emotions such as hate and resentment. The urge for revenge is very
strong and powerful which can leads to mass slayings, tortures and even race murder.
Evolutionary theorists argue that the desire for revenge has served an adaptive function over
human history. It discourages behaviour that potentially interferes with reproductive and
survival goals. Righteous anger and similar urge to take reparative action, then it is potentially
adaptive response to conditions in which people are not getting what they want or in which
individuals get what they do not want. Overall revenge can be rationalized as a bad behaviour
deterrence mechanism. Although, the urge to get even with a person who has given pain to us is
also a very powerful emotional desire that once satisfied, may arouse feeling of control and
pleasure & a sense that justice has been done.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness can be referred to a suite of pro-social motivation changes that occurs after a
individual has incurred a misconduct. People who are imposed to forgive their transgressors tend
to be more emotionally stable, more agreeable, more spiritually or religiously inclined than
individuals who do not tent to forgive their transgressors. According to functional perspective
forgiveness has been defined as a both a adaptive and desirable conflict resolution strategy & as
a non-adaptive and foolish strategy depending on the context or orientation of the researcher.
According to Boon(2017) forgiving is to open oneself to the likelihood of exploitation and
present a lack of fitness in the pitiless struggle for survival. Most of psychologists also stated that
forgiveness is different from con-donation that implies to justify the transgression, pardon which
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is more apposite to the legal realm and excusing which implies recognition that the transgressor
had a strong reason for committing wrongdoing (Goldring and Strelan, 2017).
Forgiveness can work in a range of situations
There are various situations in which a person has all the rights to be angry, forgiveness
can work in these situations that develops a kinder mindset whether or not an individual decide
to confront somebody. The situations can be elaborated as following -
A good friend acts inconsiderately when he or she is having a bad day – It is necessary to
understand that nobody is perfect, in this situation it is important to give break to the friend
forgiving the lapse.
A coworker takes credit for your ideas – Do damage control whether it means mentioning this
situation to the coworker, human resources, boss and do not trust their ideas in the future ( Bies
and et.al., 2018). However, it is important to forgive coworker for being insecure, greedy and
mean spirited individual that he or she stoop so low as to steal from us.
Reason for taking revenge or forgiving & Conclusion
There is myth in today's culture that revenge gives relief to people from their pain and
hurt or make them feel better as well as helps in getting over the relationship. A vengeful lack of
forgiveness will also lead to less personal growth and awareness for an individual. People think
they achieve self satisfaction by hurting a person who was reason for their pain. On the other
hand, Forgiveness can be lot more easier if people remember that each and every individual can
make mistakes (DiVietro and Kiper, 2018). When a person gets angry with his or her partner due
to certain mistake they have done, it is difficult for that person to accept their apologies. It also
becomes hard to maintain positive feelings about partners and it also affects ability of a person to
enjoy a relationship. It is stated by many psychologists that forgiving is a better revenge than
giving harm or pain to our loved ones. But still many passionate lovers do not think before
harming their partners whom they loved once. The background, culture, education and emotional
stability are major factors that affect a person's decision to forgive or take revenge (Zheng and
et.al., 2018.). Revenge can demonstrate a worst version of human nature where as forgiveness
represents best of human nature. It also depends upon the level of harm or pain a partner gives to
a person that influence him or her to choose between revenge or forgiveness.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Boon, S., Rasmussen, K., Deveau, V., & Alibhai, A. (2017). Resisting revenge: An investigation
of reasons for foregoing revenge in romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, DOI:
10.1111/pere.12193.
Fitness, J., & Peterson, J. (2008). Punishment and forgiveness in close relationships: An
evolutionary, social-psychological perspective. In J. P. Forgas & J. Fitness (Eds.), Social
relationships: Cognitive, affective, and motivational perspectives (pp. 255-269). New
York: Psychology Press.
McCullough, M. (2001). Forgiveness: Who does it and how do they do it? Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 10, pp 194-197.
Struthers, C.W.and et.al., 2018. The effects of social power and apology on victims'
posttransgression responses. Journal of experimental psychology. Applied.
Maier, M.J. and et.al., 2018. Forgiveness and cognitive control–Provoking revenge via theta-
burst-stimulation of the DLPFC. NeuroImage, 183, pp.769-775.
Bies, R.J. and et.al., 2018. Their interplay with forgiveness in organizations.The Routledge
Companion to Trust.
Goldring, J. and Strelan, P., 2017. The forgiveness implicit association test. Personality and
Individual Differences, 108, pp.69-78.
DiVietro, S. and Kiper, J. eds., 2018. Perspectives on Forgiveness: Contrasting Approaches to
Concepts of Forgiveness and Revenge. Brill.
Zheng, M.X., and et.al., 2018. When expressing forgiveness backfires in the workplace: victim
power moderates the effect of expressing forgiveness on transgressor
compliance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 27(1), pp.70-87.
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