Research Paper on How People Are Affected by Forgiveness

“How does the act of forgiving affect the psychological well-being of a person?” This question allows for a wide range of research opportunities to discover how people are affected by forgiveness. Different approaches to this question can result in many different answers. Using two disciplines, the social sciences and the natural sciences, many different formats of research can be done to answer this question.

The social sciences work to describe, predict, and understand humans. When researchers in this discipline work to answer questions such as, “How does the act of forgiving affect the psychological well-being of a person?”, they often base their research on communication, psychology, linguistics, and anthropology, among others. When conducting this research, the social sciences discipline often uses observation and experimentation to collect both qualitative and quantitative data.

They ask exploratory and explanatory questions to help understand why and how people might react the way that they do when it comes to forgiveness. From an anthropological standpoint, researchers might ask questions about what ways forgiveness has had an effect on the well-being of people in the past . From a communication standpoint they might consider questions about if different ways of making apologies might affect the ways a person forgives, considering things such as body language, word choice, or tone of voice.  A researcher working from a psychology view might consider how the behavior of the forgiver changes before and after they choose to forgive. 

Researchers who work from a social sciences perspective would likely look at past situations of people's mental well-being when they choose not to forgive someone, when they choose to forgive someone, as well as the well-being of people who are mentally healthy who have not had to make that choice. Comparing all of these situations would help to give the researchers a baseline to compare their upcoming research to. When conducting their own research, they likely would consult people who are currently experiencing this situation or have in the past. Because they do a large amount of research through observation, this would give them the opportunity to observe the well-being of people who are experiencing forgiveness firsthand. They might also consult other social scientists who work in other fields, such as anthropologists and psychologists, to gain perspective from their experiences. 

The social sciences discipline contributes a theoretical approach that other disciplines don’t always have. By working from communication and anthropolicial backgrounds, social sciences can contribute information that has been gathered by observing the ways that people communicate through history with the benefit of being able to see if time changes the response. They have the benefit of working directly with people, which often makes their research come directly from the source. It gives them the ability to observe and learn in a different way than the other disciplines are able to. 

The investigation into the question of how forgiveness can affect emotional well-being can also be limited by using only the social sciences discipline. Because research is often through a theoretical approach, there is less research based on proof from the physical sciences. So while research done by the social sciences is carefully gathered through observation and experimentation, there is not always as much clear proof of the effects as there might have been if the research had been done through a different discipline. Having more proof to back up the research that is done can only ever benefit the study, so including other disciplines that conduct research in other ways would be beneficial. 

The natural sciences discipline works to describe, predict, and understand natural phenomena. When researchers in this discipline work to answer questions such as, “How does the act of forgiving affect the psychological well-being of a person?”, they  use observation and experimentation to gather evidence. Some of the areas that they use to do this research include, biology, chemistry, physics, and earth sciences. These areas of inquiry allow them to do research and gather evidence that focuses on proof more than theory. 

Researchers in the natural science discipline would ask questions that allow them to create experiments that would help them gather concrete data. They might ask questions from a biology and chemistry standpoint by questioning how certain chemicals in the brain change before, during, and after the act of forgiveness. They might ask questions about how certain chemicals in people's brains affect their moods or overall health. 

When conducting research on the effects of forgiveness on people's psychological well-being, researchers within the natural sciences discipline would consult several sources. They would consult studies and other research to create a baseline of what “normal” looks like when it comes to a person's well-being. They might look at brain scans or chemical levels in the average brain. They would consult biologists and chemists to learn what different changes can mean. They would also likely consult subjects who have experienced forgiveness or chosen not to forgive. These sources would all give researchers critical information about how to conduct their research and how to collect and interpret the resulting data. 

The natural sciences discipline would contribute greatly to this investigation in ways that other disciplines might not be able to contribute. Because the natural sciences focus on proof more than theory, the research would have a lot more information to back it up. Another contribution that the natural sciences makes is the areas of inquiry that are used. Because chemistry and biology are used in this discipline, researchers are able to gather concrete evidence about the ways that a brain or its chemicals might change as a result of deciding whether or not to forgive someone. 

However, the natural sciences can also limit the investigation into the psychological effects of forgiveness. When researchers are looking only into these specific scientific areas, they bypass the other ways that the effects might be seen. Theoretical approaches are not used in this discipline, but they could analyze other parts of a psychological change. Things such as personality or mood changes are not always seen when the research is done from a natural sciences standpoint. Another limit could come from not looking into the communication between the person who is forgiving and the person being forgiven. Details of the apology could potentially affect the outcome of the forgiveness and that might be overlooked in this discipline. The effects of the way that people are communicating is an important factor for the research to take into account. 

The value of using each of these disciplines can be seen in how many ways they each have to conduct different types of research. Each approach can look into different details and use different subdivisions to learn about the same question. These different styles give researchers the opportunity to focus more on theoretical information or information that is based more on proof. They could look into historical cases of forgiveness and its effects on people’s psychological well-being, or they could look into scientific brain scans of changing chemical levels in people’s brains. The opportunities to learn are broadened so much more when more than one discipline of study is used to conduct research. It also opens up opportunities for people to study in ways that they are more skilled in. By using several disciplines, more can be achieved when researching questions such as “How does the act of forgiving affect the psychological well-being of a person?"