Acceptance Of Apology Research Articles

How transgressor's moral identity leads to high-quality apologies: The positive effects of guilt.

Comprehensive apologies are effective strategies to solve interpersonal conflict and promote reconciliation. However, transgressors tend to avoid providing comprehensive apologies because it is more threatening to do so. As a result, transgressors usually offer perfunctory apologies and hinder their own chances of being forgiven. Given the importance of promoting high-quality apologies, we investigate the role of moral identity in increasing apology comprehensiveness. Across three studies using a combination of experimental and correlational designs with autobiographical recall paradigm, we demonstrate that transgressors high in moral identity feel guiltier after committing a transgression. As a result, they offer more comprehensive apologies. Moreover, the effects of guilt on transgressors' apologizing are conditional on the perceived apology effectiveness. Guilt is particularly important to boost apology quality when perceived apology effectiveness is low. In such cases, guilt leads transgressors to make more reparative efforts towards reconciliation despite the low possibility of apology's acceptance.

I withdraw and apologise but…: Ghanaian parliamentary apologies, the issue of sincerity and acceptance

Employing a corpus-assisted discourse studies approach, this paper investigates apologies in a parliamentary context, using as data Hansards of the Parliament of Ghana (2005–2018). It identifies various apologetic expressions in the data, examines the display of (in)sincerity and apology acceptance as well as socio-pragmatic factors influencing the acceptance of the apologies. The apology terms identified include apology, (be) sorry, regret, forgive, pardon, excuse, did not mean to, (it is/was not my/I have no) intention to and the newly identified term withdraw. The paper shows that parliamentarians display sincerity by combining the following elements of sincerity in different ways: acknowledgement of the offence, show of remorse or regret, acceptance of responsibility for the offence, offer of repair, and expression of forbearance, without any ifs, buts or any manner of undoings, obfuscations, among others. It is found that sincerity can be compromised by giving a caution/warning/justification, giving a condition, throwing a challenge, showing superficiality and giving an explanation. The study also reveals that several contextual variables account for the acceptance, or otherwise, of an apology. It concludes that in the parliamentary context, sincerity is not a necessary condition for the acceptance of apologies.

Individual differences in apology acceptance and forgiveness: the influence of handedness

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the current study was to determine if the relationship between interhemispheric interaction and cognitive flexibility extends to explanations of forgiveness and apology acceptance. A growing body of research indicates that consistency of handedness may be reflective of an individual’s degree of interhemispheric interaction and access to processes of the right hemisphere. As such, individual differences in processing that require interhemispheric interaction, such as belief updating, are associated with consistency of handedness. Participants completed the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) and read descriptions of interpersonal transgressions, then rated their willingness to forgive before and after an apology was offered. There was a main effect such that the presence of apology increased forgiveness. However, inconsistent handedness was associated with greater forgiveness prior to apology compared to consistent handedness. A second study was conducted to determine if the individual differences in forgiveness were mediated by different dimensions of empathy (personal distress, perspective taking, empathic concern and fantasy). Participants completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Forgiveness Scale and the EHI. Results revealed those with inconsistent handedness who scored lower on personal distress reported decreased negative thoughts about transgressors compared to those with consistent handedness.

An explanation of apology acceptance based on lay peoples’ insights

Apologies play an important role in forgiveness, but the pathway from apology to forgiveness is unclear. Many researchers use Goffman’s model of the corrective interchange, or models derived from it to guide their research. This model is based on the assumption that offenders apologise to victims who accept these apologies and that this leads to forgiveness. The acceptance of the apology is therefore central in this model, so we undertook a systematic literature review to determine how researchers conceptualise and measure apology acceptance and found a lack of clarity around the construct. We addressed this theoretical uncertainty by exploring whether lay people distinguish between apology acceptance and forgiveness, and if they do, how they describe apology acceptance. We use contemporary neuro-cognitive theories that explain social and moral decision-making and behaviour to integrate the themes we identified to develop a preliminary theoretical explanation of how the apology acceptance stage fits into Goffman’s model.

Apologizing in Mandarin Chinese: A Study on Developmental Patterns

This study of the pragmatic development of the speech act of apology compares perception and production data from Mandarin-speaking participants in different age groups. Using a cross-sectional approach, subjects from 4 age groups (3rd grade, 6th grade, 10th grade and college freshmen) were selected to represent children, early adolescents, adolescents, and young adults groups. Data were collected using the perception assessment task and the discourse completion task. Differences across age groups were statistically significant in the perception of the obligation to apologize and the likelihood of apology acceptance but not statistically significant in the perception of the severity of the offense indicating the ability to judge offense severity develops earlier than the ability to assess what action to take after the offense and how people will respond to the apology. Developmental changes in apology production were also found through quantitative analysis of production data.

Investigation of the effects of the social power and social distance on the realization of apology between Jordanian and English cultures

The current study investigated the influence of context-external variables; social power (High, Equal and Low) and social distance (Familiar and Unfamiliar) on the perception of Jordanian and English speech act of apology. Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and Scaled Response Questionnaire (SRQ) were used to elicit data from three groups: 40 Jordanian L2 speakers in Malaysia, 40 Jordanian non-English speakers in Malaysia and 40 English native speakers from British Council in Jordan. The three groups of respondents were asked to assess four context-internal variables i.e. the severity of the offence, the possibility of the offender apology, the difficulty of the apology by the offender and the likelihood of apology acceptance by the offended party. Results of the study were accomplished using one way ANOVA and Tukey HSD post hoc statistical tests. The findings revealed that Jordanians have high sensitivity toward hierarchical power and social distance more than English native speakers. Moreover, results revealed that there are negative sociopragmatic transfers from L1 to L2 by JL2Ss based on their four-context internal variables perception. Findings could be used to increase the cultural awareness toward some similarities and differences between both cultures

Emergence of cooperation via intention recognition, commitment and apology – A research summary

The mechanisms of emergence and evolution of cooperation in populations of abstract individuals, with diverse behavioral strategies in co-presence, have been undergoing mathematical study via evolutionary game theory, inspired in part on evolutionary psychology. Their systematic study resorts to simulation techniques, thus enabling the study of aforesaid mechanisms under a variety of conditions, parameters and alternative virtual games. The theoretical and experimental results have continually been surprising, rewarding and promising. In our recent work, we initiated the introduction, in such groups of individuals, of cognitive abilities inspired on techniques and theories of Artificial Intelligence, namely those pertaining to Intention Recognition, Commitment and Apology (separately and jointly), encompassing errors in decision-making and communication noise. As a result, both the emergence and stability of cooperation become reinforced comparatively to the absence of such cognitive abilities. This holds separately for Intention Recognition, for Commitment and for Apology, and even more so when they are jointly engaged. Our presentation aims to sensitize the reader to these evolutionary game theory based issues, results and prospects, which are accruing in importance for the modeling of minds with machines, with impact on our understanding of the evolution of mutual tolerance and cooperation. Recognition of someone's intentions, which may include imagining the recognition others have of our own intentions, and may comprise not just some error tolerance, but also a penalty for unfulfilled commitment though allowing for apology, can lead to evolutionary stable win/win equilibriums within groups of individuals, and perhaps amongst groups. The recognition and the manifestation of intentions, plus the assumption of commitment-even whilst paying a cost for putting it in place-and the acceptance of apology, are all facilitators in that respect, each of them singly and, above all, in collusion.

Offer and Acceptance of Apology in Victim-Offender Mediation

Past research on restorative justice (RJ) has highlighted the importance of apology for both victims and offenders and the prevalence of apology during the RJ process. The present study moves this work further by examining the nature of the apologies that are offered during victim-offender mediation, as well as the individual-, case-, and mediation-level factors that can affect the offer and acceptance of apology. In addition, we measure the implications that the offer and acceptance of apology can have on satisfaction with the mediation outcome. We conducted a content analysis of 57 records of mediations occurring between 2008 and 2010 at a UK mediation centre. Perpetrators said “I’m sorry” in over one-third of cases, and full apologies were offered in nearly one-fifth of cases. Apologies were accepted in over 90% of cases, although forgiveness was much less common. The offer of apology was most closely associated with the type of incident/offence, and number of previous mediations in a case. There was also some support for the relationship between the offer of apology and victim age, perpetrator gender, formal sanction, and the number of participants attending the mediation meeting. None of the factors studied were associated with the acceptance of apology. The offer of apology was associated with satisfaction with the mediation outcome, and in all of the cases where the apology was accepted, the victim was satisfied with the mediation outcome. The findings thus shed light on the role that apology can play in the effectiveness of RJ.

Dispreferred actions and other interactional breaches as devices for occasioning audience laughter in television “sitcoms”

The present paper uses conversation analysis to examine a hitherto unexplored aspect of the interactional production of humour. Taking sequences of talk from the American television sitcom Friends, it analyses the way breaches of the “generic orders of conversational organization”, including preference organization and turn-taking, function as devices for occasioning audience laughter. The analysis further reveals that it is not just breaches themselves that make laughter relevant, but the juxtaposition of normatively “appropriate” and “inappropriate” methods for doing dispreferred turns within the same course of action (e.g. contrasted invitation–declination and apology–acceptance adjacency pairs). Although the data are fictional, they are constructed by people who apply mundane knowledge about talk's organization and rely on their audience to do the same in response. This modern, mediated form of “breaching experiment” provides a vehicle for understanding the activities through which everyday social life is practically accomplished.

A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Effects of Apology and Perspective Taking on Forgiveness

Guided by Robinson’s general belief that polite language yields trust from others, the authors examined the likelihood of apology acceptance in two cultures (Japan and the United States).Prior to reading a scenario in which they were to imagine being mistreated by their classmates, the participants were randomly assigned to one of three perspective-taking conditions: (a) recall times when they mistreated or hurt others in the past; (b) imagine how the victimized classmate would think, feel, and behave in the scenario; or (c) imagine the situation as the personal victim. Participants then read the scenario, which was followed by an elaborate apology from the classmate. Results from both cultures indicated that, compared with the participants in the control condition, the participants in the recall-self-as-wrongdoer condition were significantly more likely to accept the apology from the classmate and forgive the transgression. Expected and unexpected cultural differences also were found.