Abstract
Apologizing is often seen as the appropriate response after a transgression for perpetrators. Yet, despite the positive effects that apologies elicit after situations of conflict, they are not always delivered easily. We argue that this is due—at least in part—to perpetrators overestimating the averseness of apologizing, thus committing a forecasting error. Across two laboratory experiments and one autobiographical recall study, we demonstrate that perpetrators overestimate the averseness they will experience when apologizing compared to the averseness they experience when they actually apologize. Moreover, we show that this effect is driven by a misconstrual of the effects of an apology. Perpetrators overestimate the potentially negative effects of apologizing while simultaneously underestimating the potentially positive effects of apologizing. This forecasting error may have a negative effect on the initiation of the reconciliation process, due to perpetrators believing that apologizing is more averse than it actually is.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aquino, K., Tripp, T. M., & Bies, R. J. (2001). How employees respond to personal offense: The effects of blame attribution, victim status, and offender status on revenge and reconciliation in the workplace. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 52–59. doi:10.1037//0021-9010.86.1.52.
Aquino, K., Tripp, T. M., & Bies, R. J. (2006). Getting even or moving on? Power, procedural justice, and types of offense as predictors of revenge, forgiveness, reconciliation, and avoidance in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 653–668. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.91.3.653.
Barkan, E., & Karn, A. (2006). Taking wrong turns seriously: Apologies and reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Basford, T. E., Offermann, L. R., & Behrend, T. S. (2013). Please accept my sincerest apologies: Examining follower reactions to leader apology. Journal of Business Ethics,. doi:10.1007/s10551-012-1613-y.
Baumeister, R. F. (1999). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New York, NY: Holt Paperback.
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5, 323–370. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.5.4.323.
Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Wotman, S. R. (1990). Victim and perpetrator accounts of interpersonal conflict: Autobiographical narratives about anger. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 994–1005. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.59.5.994.
Bennett, M., & Dewberry, C. (1994). “I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I?” A study of the identity implications and constraints that apologies create for their recipients. Current Psychology: Developmental, Learning, Personality, Social, 13, 10–20.
Bottom, W. P., Gibson, K., Daniels, S. E., & Murnighan, J. K. (2002). When talk is not cheap: Substantive penance and expression of intent in rebuilding cooperation. Organization Science, 13, 497–513. doi:10.1287/orsc.13.5.497.7816.
Byrne, A., Barling, J., & Dupré, K. E. (2014). Leader apologies and employee and leader well-being. Journal of Business Ethics, 121, 91–106. doi:10.1007/s10551-013-1685-3.
Cohen, J. R. (1999). Apologies and organizations: Exploring an example from medical practice. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 27, 1447–1482.
Cugueró-Escofet, N., Fortin, M., & Canela, M. (2013). Righting the wrong for third parties: How monetary compensation, procedure changes and apologies can restore justice for observers of injustice. Journal of Business Ethics,. doi:10.1007/s10551-013-1762-7.
De Cremer, D., Pillutla, M. M., & Reinders Folmer, C. P. (2011). How important is an apology to you? Forecasting errors in evaluating the value of apologies. Psychological Science, 22, 45–48. doi:10.1177/0956797610391101.
De Cremer, D., & Schouten, B. (2008). When apologies for injustice matter: The role of respect. European Psychologists, 13, 239–247. doi:10.1027/1016-9040.13.4.239.
Desmet, P., & Leunissen, J. M. (2014). How many pennies for your pain? Willingness to compensate as a function of expected future interaction and intentionality feedback. Journal of Economic Psychology, 43, 105–113.
Exline, J. J., Deshea, L., & Holeman, V. T. (2007). Is apology worth the risk? Predictors, outcomes and ways to avoid regret. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26, 479–504. doi:10.1521/jscp.2007.26.4.479.
Gilbert, D. T., Morewedge, C. K., Risen, J. L., & Wilson, T. D. (2004). Looking forward to looking backward: The misprediction of regret. Psychological Science, 15, 346–350. doi:10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00681.x.
Gill, K. (2000). The moral functions of an apology. The Philosophical Forum, 31, 11–27.
Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Kim, P. H., Ferrin, D. L., Cooper, C. D., & Dirks, K. T. (2004). Removing the shadow of suspicion: The effects of apology versus denial for repairing competence versus integrity-based trust violations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 104–118.
Lazare, A. (2004). On apology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Leunissen, J. M., De Cremer, D., & Reinders Folmer, C. P. (2012). An instrumental perspective on apologizing in bargaining: The importance of forgiveness. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33, 215–222. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2011.10.004.
Leunissen, J. M., De Cremer, D., Reinders Folmer, C. P., & Van Dijke, M. (2013). The apology mismatch: Asymmetries between victim’s need for apologies and perpetrator’s willingness to apologize. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 315–324. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.12.005.
McCullough, M. E., Worthington, E. L., & Rachal, K. C. (1997). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 321–336.
Ohbuchi, K., Kameda, M., & Agarie, N. (1989). Apology as aggression control: Its role in mediating appraisal of and response to harm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 219–227.
Okimoto, T. G., Wenzel, M., & Hedrick, K. (2013). Refusing to apologize can have psychological benefits (and we issue no mea culpa for this research finding). European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 22–31. doi:10.1002/ejsp.1901.
Palanski, M. E. (2012). Forgiveness and reconciliation in the workplace: A multi-level perspective and research agenda. Journal of Business Ethics, 109, 275–287.
Risen, J. L., & Gilovich, T. (2007). Target and observer differences in the acceptance of questionable apologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 418–433.
Shnabel, N., & Nadler, A. (2008). A needs-based model of reconciliation: Satisfying the differential emotional needs of victims and perpetrators as a key to promoting reconciliation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 116–132. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.94.1.116.
SimanTov-Nachlieli, I., & Shnabel, N. (2014). Feeling both as a victim and a perpetrator at the same time: Investigating duality within the needs-based model of reconciliation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 301–314. doi:10.1177/0146167213510746.
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22, 1359–1366. doi:10.1177/0956797611417632.
Strang, H., Sherman, L., Angel, C. M., Woods, D. J., Bennett, S., Newbury-Birch, D., et al. (2006). Victim evaluations of face-to-face restorative justice conferences: A quasi-experimental analysis. Journal of Social Issues, 62, 281–306. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2006.00451.x.
Tavuchis, N. (1991). Mea Culpa: A sociology of apology and reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Taylor, S. E. (1991). Asymmetrical effects of positive and negative events: The mobilization-minimization hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 67–85.
Tucker, S., Turner, N., Barling, J., Reid, E. M., & Elving, C. (2006). Apologies and transformational leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 63, 195–207. doi:10.1007/s10551-005-3571-0.
Wenzel, M., Okimoto, T. G., Feather, N. T., & Platow, M. J. (2010). Justice through consensus: Shared identity and the preference for a restorative notion of justice. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 909–930. doi:10.1002/ejsp.657.
Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2003). Affective forecasting. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 35, pp. 345–411). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(03)01006-2.
Wilson, T. D., Wheatley, T., Meyers, J. M., Gilbert, D. T., & Axsom, D. (2000). Focalism: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 821–836. doi:10.1037/W022-3514.78.5.821.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Leunissen, J.M., De Cremer, D., van Dijke, M. et al. Forecasting Errors in the Averseness of Apologizing. Soc Just Res 27, 322–339 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-014-0216-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-014-0216-4