Why Evolution Made Forgiveness Difficult

Post date: Mar 25, 2015 4:39:36 PM

Nature endowed humanity with both revenge and forgiveness as tools of conflict resolution. But why does one seem so much harder than the other?

Forgiveness is emotionally difficult because evolution has endowed us with the psychological motivation to avoid being exploited by others, and the easiest way to prevent exploitation is to hit back or simply avoid the exploiter. Therefore, our discussion of forgiveness must begin by understanding that the urge to retaliate is very deeply rooted in evolutionary history.

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_evolution_made_forgiveness_difficult