GROVE CITY, Pa. – In 2000, members of the Grove City College Department of Psychology began research on the topic of forgiveness. Eight years later, they are publishing their final report.

Dr. Kevin Seybold, psychology department chair, and Professor of Psychology Dr. Gary Welton wrote “Forgiveness in the Trenches: Empathy, Perspective Taking, and Anger.” Dr. Peter Hill, a former Grove City College psychology professor and now a professor at Biola University in California, also contributed. “Forgiveness in the Trenches” will be published in the “Journal of Psychology and Christianity.”

The professors conducted the research in response to a call from the Templeton Foundation for more research on forgiveness in real life.

Their research was funded by Templeton’s “Campaign for Forgiveness Research” and studied domestic couples in the process of terminating their relationships who were referred by the court system to a mediation center to work out the terms of their separation.

The professors performed their research at the Dispute Settlement Center of Western New York in Buffalo. New York has a state-wide program where domestic separations requiring outside assistance are evaluated by the district attorney’s office, which decides whether the couple requires the court’s assistance or only a mediator. If a mediator will suffice, the couple goes to one of New York’s Community Dispute Resolution Centers, where a mediator helps negotiate a separation that is agreeable to both parties. Every county in New York has its own center.

The Center administered the survey for the professors, asking couples after their mediated session if they would be willing to complete a series of survey-type questionnaires that measured how much empathy, cognitive perspective taking and anger was felt after the mediated session.

The grant money was used to pay subjects to participate in the survey. The professors analyzed 63 complete cases, where both parties filled out the survey properly after their mediation hearing.

Welton did his graduate study in Buffalo, and while there he performed a number of studies as well as volunteered time at the Center. When the professors decided to propose their study, they decided to go back to the Center and do their research there.

“Where [forgiveness research] is weak is in the real world, real time,” Welton said. At the Center, the Grove City College professors were able to perform real-time research. “You get the intense emotions that you miss from … other strategies,” Welton said. Additionally, professors made interesting discoveries, including the fact that forgiveness scores were “surprisingly high.”

“The research would suggest that the No. 1 important predictor of forgiveness is empathy,” Welton added, “being able to understand what the other person is going through in terms of the emotional reaction. …. [But] it’s not just the emotional reaction. The cognitive understanding of the other person is also important.”

“Forgiveness in the Trenches” is the eighth paper by the Grove City professors that was published in a reviewed journal or presented at a professional conference in relation to their research.