Harber Kent D, Wenberg Karen E
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University at Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2005 Jun;31(6):734-46. doi: 10.1177/0146167204272720.
Two studies tested whether emotional disclosure increases feelings of closeness toward offenders. In Study 1, participants recalled either someone who had offended them or a neutral acquaintance. "Disclosure" participants then expressed their thoughts and feelings regarding their targets, and "suppression" participants described their targets nonemotionally. As predicted, disclosure increased closeness toward offenders but not toward acquaintances. Study 2 extended these results by including a good friend to test whether disclosure selectively increases closeness toward offenders, and not simply toward any person who evokes strong feelings. This prediction was confirmed. Furthermore, the disclosure effect remained reliable even after controlling for mood. Studies 1 and 2 also showed that closeness toward offenders, but not toward friends or acquaintances, was positively related to the proportion of emotion-related words disclosed. Collectively, these findings suggest that confronting the emotions associated with an offense may be an important first step toward forgiveness.
两项研究测试了情感表露是否会增强对冒犯者的亲近感。在研究1中，参与者回忆了冒犯过他们的人或普通熟人。“表露”组参与者随后表达了他们对目标对象的想法和感受，而“压抑”组参与者则不带感情地描述了他们的目标对象。正如预期的那样，表露增加了对冒犯者的亲近感，但对熟人则没有。研究2通过纳入一位好朋友来扩展这些结果，以测试表露是否有选择地增加了对冒犯者的亲近感，而不仅仅是对任何引发强烈情感的人。这一预测得到了证实。此外，即使在控制了情绪之后，表露效应仍然可靠。研究1和研究2还表明，对冒犯者的亲近感，而非对朋友或熟人的亲近感，与表露的情感相关词汇的比例呈正相关。总体而言，这些发现表明，直面与冒犯相关的情绪可能是迈向宽恕的重要第一步。
