Psychology (Functional Area: Social and Personality)
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Browsing Psychology (Functional Area: Social and Personality) by Subject "Apologies"
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Item Open Access The Effects of Post-Trangression Responses on Apology(2015-08-28) Guilfoyle, Joshua Robert; Struthers, C. WardIndividuals struggle with offering an apology following a transgression. The present research examined how victims’ post-transgression response (PTR; forgiveness, grudge, revenge) interacts with PTR expression (direct and indirect) to affect offenders’ willingness to apologize. Additionally, social pain and self-control were tested as mediators within this relationship. Results demonstrated that victims’ PTRs interacted with PTR expression to differentially affect offenders’ apologies. Indirect forgiveness and direct unforgiveness were more likely to facilitate apologies compared to direct forgiveness and indirect unforgiveness. Moderated-mediation analyses demonstrated that social pain mediated the relation between victim PTRs and PTR expression on apology. Specifically, when expressed directly, unforgiving responses led offenders to experience greater social pain, which in turn, prompted them to apologize. Those who received indirect forgiveness compared to direct forgiveness experienced greater social pain, which in turn, led to higher apology. Self-control did not mediate the relation. Implications for victims’ PTRs and offenders’ apologies are discussed.Item Open Access Who's sorry now? An Investigation of How Gender Shapes the Appearance and Judgment of Apologetic Faces(2021-03-08) George, Meghan Louise; Steele, JenniferResearch suggests that successful apologies include key verbal components such as admitting responsibility and asking for forgiveness. However, there is limited research examining the nonverbal aspects of apology and specifically whether people have a mental representation of apologetic faces. In three studies, reverse correlation was used to examine mental representations and judgments of apologetic faces that differed by gender. In each study, a visual template of an apologetic face was created using the responses of participants who completed a perceptual judgement task designed to estimate peoples mental representations. In a second phase, a separate group of participants rated the apologetic face as well as the base face from which it was created on various apology- and gender-related characteristics. In each study, the generated apologetic face was consistently rated as being more apologetic, regretful, and remorseful than the base face, suggesting that peoples mental representation of an apologetic face can be approximated using reverse correlation. Sadness was the highest rated characteristic for each face and ratings of sadness significantly predicted ratings of apology for three of the four visual templates created, suggesting that sadness is an important nonverbal aspect of an apologetic face. Submissiveness also emerged as a significant predictor of apology for three of the four faces; by contrast, trustworthiness, was not found to be a consistent characteristic seen in these apologetic templates. Male and female perceivers did not differ significantly in their ratings, and this was true regardless of the gender of the generator and target face. However, women generated an apologetic face from a female base face that was later judged to be significantly more apologetic than the apologetic face generated by men. These results suggest that men and women agree on their evaluations of apologetic faces, despite differences in their mental representations. This work is the first to demonstrate that people hold mental representations of an apologetic face, and that sadness is a key characteristic perceived in faces generated to appear apologetic. Coupled with the literature on verbal apologies, the current research contributes to our practical and theoretical understanding of apology.