University of Miami professor gives lecture on the forgiveness instinct Oct. 22

Date: Oct. 22, 2008
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: Jepson Hall, Room 118

Dr. Michael McCullough, professor of psychology and religious studies at the University of Miami, gives a lecture on the forgiveness instinct on Wednesday, October 22 at 4:30 p.m. in Jepson Hall 118.

Throughout the history of western intellectual thought, scholars have tended to conceptualize the desire for revenge as a curse, or poison, or disease that infects human minds and then causes people to engage in behaviors that are personally harmful and socially disruptive. Consequently, it has been common to assume that forgiveness is a "cure" or an "antidote" that was consciously and intentionally designed to "treat" or "cure" the problem of revenge.

Based on his new book, Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct, McCollough discusses recent research from social psychology, neuroscience, behavioral economics and evolutionary biology to propose an alternative conceptualization of revenge and forgiveness: that revenge and forgiveness are both evolved behavioral adaptations that arose in human nature because of the distinct social problems that they helped ancestral humans to solve. McCullough outlines some of the cognitive computations upon which these behavioral systems operate, and shares some of his recent research on the social-psychological factors that can modulate the desire for revenge and accelerate the forgiveness process.

Posted September 29, 2008