Does that make you feel better? Probably not:
De Cremer and his colleagues used an experiment to examine how people think about apologies. Volunteers sat at a computer and were given 10 euros to either keep or give to a partner, with whom they communicated via computer. The money was tripled so that the partner received 30 euros. Then the partner could choose how much to give back-but he or she only gave back five euros. Some of the volunteers were given an apology for this cheap offer, while others were told to imagine they’d been given an apology.
The people who imagined an apology valued it more than people who actually received an apology. This suggests that people are pretty poor forecasters when it comes down to what is needed to resolve conflicts. Although they want an apology and thus rate it as highly valuable, the actual apology is less satisfying than predicted.
Story here. I did not read the full study so please be warned that may actually be based on a sample of 14 Dutch teenagers.
Not that I have a cynical view of psychological lab research reported in the popular press…
5 Responses
I loathe apologies on blogs. I want to reserve the right NOT to be apologised to. I see them as a total waste of time for the writer and the reader.
I don’t EXPECT the writer to write, I’m just glad when they do. Apology seems like an act of vanity — “Oh, so sorry I deprived you of wonderful me.”
So Chris, I’m glad to see your tongue firmly in the cheek.
I think I’m almost allergic to apologies in life in general. “Live life as though apology is impossible.”
Or, as my mother would say, “Any fool can be sorry afterwards.”
Was that tough love? Maybe.
So, I hope your paper is going well!
No, I meant the blog post, not your comment Liberia.
I’m serious, Rebecca.
Phew! I read the headline and thought you were serious for a moment! Glad to see that’s not the case.
OF IMMORAL CONGRESSMEN AND THIRD WORLD DICTATORS
Chris, sorry this is unrelated to the current topic. Please allow me the use of your blog to vent. Thanks in advance for the opportunity. What i want to touch on is Duvalier’s impudent return to Haiti and the role of former United States’ legislators in the accompanying circus of the past few days in Port au Prince. Consider these excerpts from a news report about Duvalier’s only press conference since his unexpected and contemptous return to the country he so heinously abused on the heels of his equally(or more) evil father.
BEGIN EXCERPT HERE:((((((((((“He did not field any questions during Friday’s address, leaving that to three American consultants – including former U.S. congressman and presidential candidate Bob Barr – and one of his Haitian lawyers.”
“As he shuffled off, the Americans – Barr, longtime Duvalier family adviser and attorney Ed Marger and Snellville, Georgia, attorney Mike Puglise – arrived with Haitian lawyer Reynold Georges to take questions while a band waving Duvalier’s red-and-black party flag played outside.
Barr called Duvalier’s speech “profoundly moving.”
Marger, who handled most of the queries, said they were there to help Duvalier collect undelivered reconstruction funds promised by the United States and other countries at the March 31, 2010, U.N. donors’ conference. He said Duvalier could manage them more effectively than former U.S. President Bill Clinton and distribute them more justly than current Haitian President Rene Preval.
The men said they would be paid if Duvalier is able to collect those funds.))))))))END EXCERPTS HERE
Do former Congressmen serving as lobbyists and PA people for dictatorships around the world have no shame? Do their collective DNA lack a single cell of morality? Just reading Congressman Barr’s pronouncements above with regard to Dictator Duvalier makes me sick to my stomach. These are the some of the reasons why intellectuals in most parts of the world find American foreign presence and policies despicable, lacking all morality and extremely hollow when professed as a moral alternative to other civilizations. Who around the world does just about anything for money and personal gain?
A few months ago it was United States Congressmen doing the PA rounds in rallying support for Gbagbo’s unconstitutional regime; as retained lobbyists, some United States Congressmen currently feed their families and entertain their significant others with money from the evil dictatorship of Nguema in Equatorial Guinea. In everything else, African dictators and others of their ilk around the world are like the plague except when it comes to their money. By the evidence, Congressmen (that finest breed of Americans) have no qualms about receiving money from lepers (dictators).
Who in their right mind is going to hand over Haiti reconstruction money to Dicatator Duvalier to disburse if even the money existed? Former Congressman Barr and others ought to have their heads examined if they really hope to get paid from Haitian reconstruction money after it is handed over to Duvalier, or better still served a full bowl of cholera bacteria-tainted porridge so that they can begin to experience the full horror and misery of the long suffering people of Haiti.