麻豆传媒

IN THE past week, I鈥檝e caught myself apologising to a stranger who was staring at her phone and nearly bumped into me, to a passenger who had placed his bag on the only available seat on the bus, and to a waiter for serving me the wrong drink. In this, I am not alone. A third of British adults think they apologise excessively in everyday conversations and a . It is with good reason that academics from science, history and politics have the 鈥溾��.

You might think there鈥檚 nothing wrong with just being polite, but the media tells us all this over-apologising is damaging our self-esteem, undermining us in the workplace, and could even be bad for our health. So as an ardent over-apologiser, should I do something about it? The answer is complex and depends on what the apology is for, but it鈥檚 starting to become clear that saying sorry can have surprising upsides.

Much of the recent discussion on over-apologising has focused on the idea that women are particularly prone to it. One survey on the problem found that 44 per cent of women thought that they tend to apologise too much, whereas just 5 per cent of them thought this was true of men. Men on the other hand tended to think that women and men both 鈥済ot it about right鈥�.

When of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, began her post-graduate studies in psychology 11 years ago, she was confronted with similar ideas. 鈥淚 kept coming across this stereotype. Big claims were being made with no real evidence: people were saying that men never apologise because they鈥檙e unwilling to admit fault and their egos get in the way, whereas women apologise for everything without even thinking about it. I felt there needed to be some science to back this up,鈥� she says. So Schumann asked a group of Canadian students to keep a daily diary of any events that could have potentially deserved an apology, and whether they said sorry.

The , but that鈥檚 as far as the stereotype went. The reason women apologised more was because they committed more offences that they felt were deserving of an apology than men did. In fact, both genders were equally likely to apologise when they perceived an offence had been committed, it鈥檚 just that women apologised for things that men wouldn鈥檛.

Schumann and her team call this the threshold hypothesis, which has been confirmed by other studies. 鈥淢en have a higher threshold for what might deserve an apology 鈥� or, to put it another way, women are more sensitive to what might require an apology,鈥� she says. This makes me wonder if I might be over-sensitive when thinking about which actions require an apology.

But even if women are apologising for more things than men, is it as big a problem as we are being led to believe? For instance, last year saw the launch of an email plug-in aimed predominantly at women, called , which scans draft messages to highlight diffident or apologetic words and phrases. The idea is to intercept such language because it weakens your authority, lowers your self-esteem, and damages your image in the workplace.

These assumptions might stem less from research and more from our cognitive biases. For a start, it can often feel very hard to apologise, even if we know the relationship will benefit. Research has also shown that people make 鈥渇orecasting鈥� errors about the potentially negative effects of apologising. 鈥淚t is possible that people wrongly expect less benefit and more costs from apologising,鈥� says at Flinders University in South Australia, 鈥渟o they fail to see or predict the positive psychological outcomes of apologies, and may be more preoccupied with the possible costs.鈥�

Wenzel and his colleagues wanted to understand why people might refuse to show contrition despite the obvious benefits.

Unthinkingly apologetic

They found that when people refused to apologise for something they did that upset someone else, they reported feeling more powerful and felt that they鈥檇 stuck to their values more. As a result, they also .

鈥淥ur research shows what may be behind our refusals to apologise 鈥� a defensiveness of our ego, our desire to maintain our power and control, and our sense of having integrity and acting in a way that is consistent with our values,鈥� says Wenzel.

But what surprised the team was the finding that when people did apologise, they got the same benefits 鈥� an increased sense of power and the feeling they were sticking to their values 鈥� compared with when no action was taken. This also makes sense, says Wenzel, because with apologies, offenders can express their commitment to the values they violated, and uphold the idea that they are good and moral people. They may also regain a sense of power and control, 鈥渂ecause they are taking action to repair the wrong they have committed 鈥� or, a more sinister possibility, because they manage to manipulate their victims鈥�, says Wenzel.

So apologising can bring the same psychological benefits as outright refusal to do so, but importantly for those of us who have a tendency to ruminate, deciding on either option is better for you than doing nothing at all.

It may have more wide-reaching health benefits too. Preliminary findings from Schumann鈥檚 lab suggest that apologising can make people feel less ashamed, which in turn motivates them to behave more healthily. 鈥淚f people apologise, instead of ruminating or performing a self-distraction task, they feel a reduction in shame and that leads to greater intentions to engage in healthy behaviours such as eating healthily, exercising and sleeping enough,鈥� she says.

There could even be material benefits to saying sorry; it can make you appear more approachable and trustworthy to strangers, according to work by at Harvard Business School.

In one study, three groups of participants were told to imagine they were waiting for a flight that had been delayed, and that a passenger from a different flight had approached them. They then watched a short video in which that passenger asks to borrow their mobile phone 鈥� in two videos, the passenger apologised before asking the favour, in the third, he did not. The passenger was by the groups who watched the videos with the apologies. In another experiment, Wood Brooks found that even apologising for the weather increased perceptions of trust. This is worth knowing if your phone runs out of battery and you find yourself at the mercy of a stranger.

Apologising, then, isn鈥檛 necessarily such a bad habit, at least when the apology is genuine. But what about when the apology isn鈥檛 even conscious, let alone sincere? While writing her book , anthropologist at the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, UK, decided to get 鈥渟eriously bruised in the interests of science鈥�. She wanted to find out whether people would apologise if she bumped into them 鈥� what she viewed as the epitome of an English propensity to over-apologise.

So she travelled the country, and later internationally, pretending to accidentally bump into people and counting how many apologised to her. Like Schumann, she didn鈥檛 find that gender made a difference. But nationality did: in England, about 80 per cent of her unwitting victims apologised to her, more than any other nationality 鈥� except for Japanese people, who were too adept at sidestepping attempted collisions for conclusions to be drawn.

What Fox learned from the experience was not that English people apologise more than other nationalities 鈥� they just say 鈥渟orry鈥� more. Or rather, a monosyllabic 鈥渟ry鈥�. 鈥淚t was mechanical, an automatic 鈥榮orry鈥� that was usually barely audible,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t becomes meaningless.鈥� This doesn鈥檛 fit the standard definition of an apology as an expression of remorse for what one has done, Fox says. 鈥淚鈥檝e caught myself saying 鈥榮orry鈥� after bumping into a stationary shopping trolley in a supermarket 鈥� clearly you cannot say that these count as apologies.鈥�

So although she found that the English blurted out an apologetic word more often than did people of other nationalities, that doesn鈥檛 mean she found the English more courteous: 鈥淧eople of other nationalities would say, 鈥榗areful!鈥� or 鈥榳atch out!鈥� and put an arm out to steady me or check I was OK before moving on. We aren鈥檛 any nicer or more polite than other countries 鈥� it鈥檚 just a different kind of politeness.鈥�

This idea that apologies aren鈥檛 all created equal builds on findings from work done by , who studies linguistics at Umea University in Sweden. He spent some five years studying the British National Corpus, a databank of language collected in the 1990s. It is made up of about 10 million words transcribed from recordings made by 200 individuals walking around with tape recorders, as well as from TV and radio programmes and parliamentary debates.

Deutschmann analysed this material for apologetic forms, hoping to look at the impact of gender. He had to change his angle, however. 鈥淲omen and men, if you look at it statistically, use more or less the same number of apologies in the material that I looked at,鈥� he says. More significant was the social situation: , not just the recipient of the apology: 鈥淚t was more of a show, perhaps not to the person they were apologising to, but to the audience present,鈥� he says.

Deutschmann also found that the apologies that seem genuine on the surface aren鈥檛 always intended as such (see 鈥�Types of apology鈥�). 鈥淰ery often, apologies were used as a respectable vehicle for an attack, for example 鈥渆xcuse me鈥� was used to contradict or belittle someone.

Boasts can also be dressed up as apologies, such as when a person said: 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry about the soup 鈥� normally I would cook a proper stock.鈥�

Perhaps surprisingly, Deutschmann found that young people were more likely to issue a sincere apology than older people. 鈥淭here was definitely a more genuine kind of politeness among younger people, contrary to a lot of claims that they are more rude. They swore a lot as well, but they did also make a lot of genuine apologies,鈥� he says.

It is not yet clear whether the benefits of apologising apply to all types, or just genuine apologies. But if your aim in apologising is straightforward forgiveness, there is an approach you can be confident in taking.

Last year, at Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University and his colleagues set out to discover the ingredients of a perfect apology by looking at how 755 people reacted to different apologies. They found that : an expression of regret, an explanation of what went wrong and an acknowledgment of responsibility, followed by a declaration of repentance, an offer of repair and a request for forgiveness.

The most crucial of these are to acknowledge responsibility and make an offer of repair, with the request for forgiveness seen as the most dispensable. It is simple really, says , a linguist at Southern Oregon University and author of Sorry About That. 鈥淚t鈥檚 what your mother told you to do when you did something wrong: look the person in the eye, name what you did wrong, be sincere, and explain how you鈥檙e going to make some restitution.鈥�

This has made me rethink my own behaviour. I鈥檓 no longer going to worry about saying sorry too much. But learning about the different types of apology has made me more conscious of the way I use them. From now on, I will reserve my heartfelt apologies for occasions when I have caused someone suffering and feel genuine remorse. And for when I want to borrow a stranger鈥檚 phone.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭he easiest word鈥�