素材記事： Can We Cultivate Forgiveness in Prison?
素材写真： Photo by Melanie Stander on Unsplash
This is quite an eye-opening academic article. While forgiveness research has been hot in the field of positive psychology for several years now, conducting applied experiments on it in maximum security prisons is a manifestation of America’s good old experimental spirit, which remains undiminished to this day.
And as stated, “Jackson understood forgiveness as a spiritual concept from growing up in the church, but it didn’t click until he was able ‘to connect the dots between the spiritual and the scientific part,’ he says.” Forgiveness, a theme of immense importance in Christian theology since ancient times, has traditionally been a “spiritual” theme. But in fact, it’s now also a subject of social science and cognitive science research. Humanity is making great strides.
“Why did they choose to harm others?” Yu wonders. “Prisoners themselves are victims before they committed a crime,” she says. “They bear that for their whole lives. … That’s the reason they chose to hurt others.” This must be a Copernican revolution for those holding conservative values.
While definitions of “evil” abound, the fundamental knowledge of human science is that bad people don’t just ‘exist’—they “become” bad. Yet this understanding still hasn’t fully permeated society.
I hope research on forgiveness, including addressing this lack of literacy, continues to advance rapidly.
なかなか目が覚めるような学術記事ですね。ポジティブ心理学のエリアでここ数年ホットな「forgiveness/赦し」の研究ですが、それを最大セキュリティ刑務所において応用実験をやってしまうところが、アメリカ合衆国の古き良き実験精神の発露と言えるし、そこは今なお損なわれていないですね。
そして、「Jackson understood forgiveness as a spiritual concept from growing up in the church, but it didn’t click until he was able “to connect the dots between the spiritual and the scientific part,” he says.」とあるように、キリスト教神学では大昔から重要テーマである赦しは、伝統的には「スピリチュアル」なテーマ。しかし実は、今や社会科学的、認知科学的な研究テーマでもあるんですよね。人類は大きく前進しています。
「“Why did they choose to harm others?” Yu wonders. “Prisoners themselves are victims before they committed a crime,” she says. “They bear that for their whole lives. … That’s the reason they chose to hurt others.”」が、保守的な価値観を持つ人々にはコペルニクス的展開でしょうね。
「悪い」の定義は数多あれど、悪い奴が「いる」のではなく、悪い奴に「なる」という人間科学の当然の知識ですが、まだなかなか社会では敷衍していない。
そのリテラシーのなさも含めてforgivenessの研究は、今後もどんどん進んでほしいと思います。
