School of Education faculty member Robert Enright recently appeared on the BBC Radio 4 podcast “Sideways” to discuss the science of forgiveness.
Enright, who holds the Aristotelian Professorship in Forgiveness Science in the School of Education’s Department of Educational Psychology, joined the podcast for a recent episode about the complicated dynamics of a grudge between longtime friends.
“We have to be careful that we don’t become so enamored of that grudge that we take it into our heart and say, ‘I want this as part of my identity,’” Enright said in the episode. “That can make us anxious, it can make us depressed.”
Hosted by journalist and author Matthew Syed, “Sideways” is a narrative podcast that explores a wide range of issues, from relationship dynamics to pop culture.
Enright also recently appeared on the CNN podcast, “Chasing Life.”
Enright, who has been a faculty member at UW-Madison since 1978, wrote the first scientific journal article on person-to-person forgiveness and the first cross-cultural studies of interpersonal forgiveness. Over the past four decades, his work has produced widely-used models for forgiveness therapy and school curriculum guides that have been used in at least 30 countries. He is a five-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, with nominations from more than a dozen individuals and entities in the United States and abroad. In 2022, he was lauded by the American Psychological Foundation as a “game changer in modern psychology,” earning the Gold Medal Award for Impact in Psychology. He is also the founder of the International Forgiveness Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Madison that has worked to expand the reach of forgiveness research since 1994.
Listen to the full BBC podcast episode here.