宽恕与健康:心理学视角的分析

Forgiveness and health:Analysis from psychological view

目的:从心理学的视角分析宽恕对人的影响,并对宽恕影响身体健康的可能机制进行综述。资料来源:应用计算机检索PsycINFO1990-01/2005-12期间的宽恕与健康关系的文章,检索词包括“forgiveness;health;psychology;mecha-nism”等,并限定文章语言种类为English。同时手工查阅英文书籍相关章节。资料选择:对资料进行初审,选取与主题相关的文献,并开始查找全文。纳入标准:从心理学角度,对宽恕与健康(心理、生理)关系进行探讨的文章。排除文献中重复的研究综述,从伦理学、宗教学角度的考察该主题的文章。资料提炼:共搜索到29篇与主题相关的文章。排除8篇,其中重复的研究综述4篇,从其他学科的角度来看宽恕与健康的关系4篇。选择13篇进行综述。资料综合:宽恕通常将被界定为停止抗争且无条件地把对方作为“人”加以认同和接纳。与宽恕相关的心理学包括愤怒、A型行为、自恋、抑郁和自我效能等;宽恕影响身体健康,可以从生理及心理社会机制进行分析:个体通过增加宽恕他人和自己,以及要求和接受宽恕的频率,可能有助于减少痛苦(愤怒、谴责及报复性的想法和感受)的持续时间,降低疾病风险。宽恕可能孕育更高的安全感,及更为积极的自我评价和乐观思想,减少患病的风险。宽恕可以培养更强的能力感和自我效能感,以减少疾病的发作或者致病因,宽恕可以提供更高水平的社会和情绪支持,有助于促进身体健康。结论:宽恕与身体健康状态之间存在着关联,从心理社会和生理机制方面可以揭示其对健康的影响。

OBJECTIVE： To analyze the effect of forgiveness on people from the psychological view, and summarize the possible mechanism of the effect of forgiveness on physical health. DATA SOURCES： A computer-based online search of PsycINFO was undertaken to identify the articles related to forgiveness and health published in English between January 1990 and December 2005 with the key words of ＂forgiveness; health; psychology; mechanism＂. At the same time, related English books were retrieved manually. STUDY SELECTION： The data were checked up preliminarily, and the literatures related to the subjects were selected and their full-texts were searched. Inclusive criteria： the research papers about the relation between forgiveness and health （mental and physical） on the review of psychology. Exclusive criteria： the repetitive review articles, and the research from other ethnics and theology. DATA EXTRACTION： Totally 29 articles about this subject were col- lected. Of the 8 exclusive papers, 4 ones were repetitive studies, and the other 4 ones discussed the relation between forgiveness and health from other subjects. Thirteen articles were selected for reviewing. DATA SYNTHESIS： Forgiveness is often interpreted as a kind of identification and acceptation to the conflict, which is considered as ＂human being＂. There are many psychological conceptions related to forgiveness such as anger, Type A behavior, narcissism, depression, and self-efficacy. The effect of forgiveness on physical health can be analyzed from the physical and mental social mechanism： It is helpful for individuals to increase the frequencies of forgiveness to others and oneself and requirement to others for forgiveness, which can decrease duration of pain （anger, condemn and retaliative thoughts and feelings） and illness risks. Forgiveness gestates higher sense of safety, active self-evaluation and optimistic thoughts and decreases risk factors of illness. It can also cultivate stronger sense of competence and self-efficiency to decrease the onset of diseases or causes. Forgiveness can provide higher-level social and emotional support, which is helpful to improve physical health. CONCLUSION： Forgiveness is related to physical health to some extent, which can be reflected from physiological and psychosocial mechanisms.