Forgiveness can be difficult. When someone does something wrong to you, it
often takes time and effort to get beyond what they did and to forgive. A common observation, though, is that older
people (in their 70s and 80s) are much more forgiving than young and
middle-aged adults.
Why is this?
There are a number of factors that influence forgiveness
that come together to make older adults more forgiving than younger ones.
First, people who are religious tend to forgive others more
often than those who are not religious.
Older adults tend to be more religious than younger ones. As older adults become more religious, they become
more forgiving.
Second, studies suggest that older adults experience fewer
really negative interactions with other people than younger adults. In addition, because of their life
experience, older adults don’t get as upset about these negative interactions
as younger adults. These factors combine
to make it easier for older adults to forgive others than younger adults.
A third factor, explored in a paper by Marianne Steiner,
Mathias Allemand, and Michael McCullough in the April 2012 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
focuses on personality factors.
This work focuses on two observations.
First, the tendency to forgive is related to the personality
dimensions of agreeableness and neuroticism.
Agreeableness is how much someone feels the need to do and say things
that help them get along with others.
Neuroticism is the degree to which someone feels negative emotions like
stress, anxiety, fear, and sadness in response to life events. As you might expect, people high in
agreeableness tend to be more forgiving than those low in agreeableness. People high in neuroticism tend to be less
forgiving than those low in neuroticism.
Second, there is a drift in people’s level of agreeableness
and neuroticism as they get older. Older
adults tend to get more agreeable and less neurotic as they age.
In two studies, the Steiner, Allemand, and McCullough
examined personality characteristics and forgiveness in adults ranging in age
from 19-84. In these studies, the older
adults were indeed higher in agreeableness and lower in neuroticism than the
younger adults. In addition, people who
were more agreeable were also more forgiving than those who were less
agreeable. People who were more neurotic
were less forgiving than those who were more neurotic. Overall, this led older adults to be more
forgiving than younger adults.
So, if you don’t happen to be an older adult, how can you
help yourself to be more forgiving? One
lesson to be learned from older adults is that most negative life events are
less severe than they look up close.
People clearly say and do all kinds of mean things, but few people are
truly mean deep down. Holding a grudge
against those people just provides you with fewer opportunities to see their
good side.
To help you put negative events into perspective, try
thinking about them from the vantage point of an older adult. Think about being 80 years old and looking
back on your life right now. Ask
yourself whether the bad thing that just happened will really matter after all
of those years have gone by. Often, you
will find that they really don’t matter much.
That can help to make it easier to forgive in the here and now.
