Sorry Isn't Good Enough We may demand them from transgressors, but apologies can be a let down.
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Bank chiefs, oil company executives and louche politicians seem as allergic to admitting guilt as the public is eager to extract contritions from them. If sometimes we seem to scrutinize people more for their failure to say, "I'm sorry," than for the transgressions themselves, it is partly due to the cultural wisdom that an apology is the first step in mending a broken relationship.
But how far does an apology really go in smoothing things over? Not as far as people think, suggests new research published in the January issue of Psychological Science.
"The expectations for an apology to make us feel better and even forget about the bad things that have happened are overestimated," says study co-author David De Cremer of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. After having a wrong committed against them people who imagined receiving an apology were more satisfied than people who actually got one, the study found.
"In light of fraud cases, the financial crisis, the moral escalation that people seem to witness in contemporary society, there is a cry for apologies, such that we seem to live in an apology culture," De Cremer says.
But our collective desire for apologies may not be a great indicator of their effect once delivered. Studies have shown that people are poor forecasters of their emotional responses to life and tend to overestimate future reactions to both positive and negative situations. (This is to say nothing of estimations of our altruistic behavior— also exaggerated.) A similar prediction error skews our perception of apologies.
To simulate betrayals of trust, the researchers set up games and rigged them. Participants were given €10 to either keep or transfer in whole to a partner, in which case, participants were told, the amount would be tripled and their partner would decide how to split the total. Once the transfers took place, participants were informed that their partners had decided to return only €5. Each participant then received a written apology in which his or her partner expressed remorse and acknowledged responsibility for the unfair trade. For comparison another group of participants played the trust game to the same outcome but were asked to imagine receiving an apology. A third group was asked to imagine the entire scenario, transgression and apology.
In their post-game analysis, participants who imagined the apology, regardless of whether the transgression was real or imagined, rated the apology as more "valuable" and "reconciling" than did participants who actually received one.
The researchers then asked whether we also overestimate our ability to trust our transgressors after accepting their apologies. In a follow-up study the same participants repeated the game with the same stingy but remorseful partners, this time getting to choose how much of the initial €10 to transfer. "Because participants were exploited in the first game, this amount is a behavioral measure of trust restoration," the authors explained in their paper. Participants imagining the entire scenario predicted they would transfer on average €5.20. Those who actually received an apology in the first game, however, were less trusting of their partners the second time around, handing over an average of €3.31.
The authors acknowledge that the value of apologies beyond laboratory settings are influenced by many more factors than those considered in the study, including the perceived sincerity of the apology and whether it is followed by tangible compensation for the transgression.
If apologies are not inherently as valuable as we believe, they are still effective in restoring social order because they trigger a highly scripted reconciliation process. Once an apology is offered, the pressure is then on "victims" to accept and move on. "Ironically, the failure to accept an apology transforms the victim into the transgressor," the authors wrote. They point out that children, less aware of social norms, often fail to graciously accept a repentance.
And an apology does not necessarily signal remorse, adds co-author Madan Pillutla of the London Business School. "Sometimes apologies are offered not to make amends with victims but to signal to an external audience that one is a good person." So, it's a tricky situation then, when your victim is in the audience.
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7 Comments
Add CommentApologies are a means of mitigating resposibility. Even if sincere and heartfelt, the true object is to recieve forgiveness from the offended party.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaking amends for my transgressions, to add some act of contrition, to attempt to make things right, whatever the personal cost, is what begins the healing process. "I'm sorry" becomes meaningless if said more than even once; repayment, restoration of some kind is far more beneficial than just "I'm sorry"
And it turns out that standing up and taking responsibilty and going to whatever lengths necessary to right the wrong does far more good for the offender than the offended.
There may be some benefit derived from being forgiven, and it is good to see wounds heal, but if I carry a resentment for past harms I am the one who is sick and troubled until I can learn to forgive.
Would you accept an apology from a psychopath? The people who destroyed the monetary system are self obsessed psychopaths. They will apologise to any one at the drop of a hat to gain a benefit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe current "no punishment", re-educate policy does not work with this bunch of thugs. Populations worldwide would be happier, had some of the defrauders been executed on a guillotine in public. Capital punishment does not punish the offender, it just relieves from the trials of living, but it does send a message loud and clear.
Every offender would apologise if he/she could get away with it. We need meaningful punishment to deter crime.
Mere lip service for apology never works. Anyone apologising for his/her mistake needs to really mean it to make the apology truly effective. This can only be done with immediate constructive follow up action to reduce the pain of the victim, make the vicitm feel comfortable and build the trust again. The corrective action taken must have far more impact than the initial mistake in order to be most effective. Higher the impact, more effective is the apology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps these findings will help to combat the ridiculous situations where brainless people demand apologies before relevant facts are known, and the ridiculous spinelessness of those who apologise before relevant facts are known.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's my understanding that an apology is accepted as an admission of guilt in court. The injured party pleads, "All I want is an apology." If you are naive enough to give it, could end up in court.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo wonder Japan refuses to apologize to Korea or China for World War II. Trying to remember, did we ever apologize for Heroshima?
Very well said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerfect timing with this article. We will be discussing the Apologia theory in my Crisis Communication Management class at Curry College and the various ways in which an apology can be used to defuse public antagonism and (with luck or careful planning) restore confidence in your organization and its products or services. But public trust must be there from the beginning, or this will be a long uphill slog. Thanks for some great additional discussion material! ~ Kirk Hazlett, Associate Professor of Communication, Curry College, Milton, MA
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