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Medical Video: How to Forgive When it Hurts
Some people can very easily forgive others who have hurt themselves in the past, and later move on open a new page in his life. But maybe for most of us who think or remind us about that person or what they are doing so many times, making peace feels like a torture.
Our memories immediately turn back to the painful things they did to us and reflect on how unjust it is, how we hope they never do it, how evil they have done it to us, wondering how they can betray us, etc.
From a neuropsychological point of view, the act of judging a moral situation is very complex and is very much related to the element of intentionality - does the offender really mean to do the bad thing or not? And it turns out, one study found that there is a small part of our brain that is active for the sake of awakening us to try to forgive that person, when we know that the "crime" he did was completely unintentional.
There are differences in the brains of people who are easier to forgive
Collaborative studies between the University of Vienna in Austria, Trieste University in Italy, and Boston College in Massachusetts found that people who have more advanced anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS) are reported to be more forgiving of others who have made mistakes accidentally - for example , when your car lined up the motorbike on the road curves is awkward. The anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS) is a small portion of the cerebrum located on the head of the side (temple). More specifically, the more a person develops aSTS area, the less likely he will continue to blame the perpetrator.
Various previous studies have documented that increased activation at STS is involved in one's social perceptions, which, among others, are related to facts versus nonsense and theory of mind. Mind theory, aka "mentalization", is the ability to understand the mental state of oneself and others, which underlies a certain behavior. This can be seen as a form of imaginative mental activity that allows us to see and interpret human behavior based on intentional elements (for example, needs, desires, feelings, beliefs, goals, and reasons). Sometimes, mentalization is also described as an attempt to "understand misunderstandings."
What is the reason?
Making a mature moral judgment about a person's wrong actions involves not only remembering the damage done (for example, the bumper of the car is dislodged, the mirror is broken), but also the intentions of the offender and his mental state (for example, does he really target you as a victim of revenge, driving under the influence of alcohol, hurrying, or just stomping on the gas). However, if there is a clear contradiction between the two, intention seems to take precedence over the results of his actions.
Indrajeet Patil, the lead author of the study, explained in more detail that behavioral studies have shown that when intentions and results of an action are contradictory, such as in the case of serious hazards that are sometimes unintentional (for example, the motorist's intention is only to find the fastest way to go home, but instead it crashes), someone tends to mainly focus on the person's intentions when formulating a decision - whether to report it to the police, or to be peaceful on the spot.
Knowing that not everyone can easily forgive others and make the right decisions, the research team tried to discuss this problem from an anatomical point of view, to gain an understanding of whether differences in the volume and structure of certain brain areas might explain variations in moral judgment.
This study reveals that ASTS has long been known to be involved in the ability to reflect on others' mental states (thoughts, beliefs, desires, etc.) to themselves to explain and predict other people's behavior based on your conclusions. In short, studying the conditions you face makes more sense.
According to the study's conclusions, individuals who have more gray matter composition in STST are better able to rationalize the behavior of those who make mistakes, and thus understand the element of accidental danger.
Simply put, after you find out that the motorbike is fully conscious, but also supported by chaotic traffic and his carefulness rather than accidentally crashing his motorbike to make strangers harm, you become easier to understand the situation and conditions, and tend to be able easily forgive his negligence.
