A squad of researchers has determine to cut into into the human psyche in rules of order to solve an age - honest-to-goodness , mystify trouble : what ’s the best room to make an apology ? fit in to their study , write in the journalNegotiation and Conflict Management Research , the unadulterated apologia moderate six elements , but acknowledging and accepting responsibility for at least part of the comprehend misconduct is by far the most important .
The second most important factor was an offering of reparation . " One concern about apologies is that lecture is cheesy , ” Roy Lewicki from The Ohio State University ’s Fisher College of Business , and take source of the study , said in astatement . “ But by tell , ' I ’ll fix what is wrong , ' you ’re committing to take action to undo the damage . ”
Lewicki and his team enroll 333 adults from a range of background , each of whom was asked to read through a scenario in which they were the manager of an accounting system department that was looking to engage a unexampled employee . At the previous job for one finical conjectural candidate , they filed an wrong revenue enhancement recurrence , but apologized when they were confronted with it .
Each apologia varied , and hold in one , three , or all six components of what the researchers think usually exist in apologies :
1 . formulation of ruefulness
2 . Explanation of what go wrong
3 . citation of responsibleness
4 . Declaration of repentance
5 . crack of repair
6 . Request for forgiveness
After being informed which components each apology contain , the participant were then asked to rate , on a numerical scale of measurement , how effective , credible , and suitable each apologia was . This study unwrap that , in world-wide , the more components that were included , the more in force the apology was .
avoid province is the worst possible estimation . Purino / Shutterstock
In a second study , the researchers call for 422 undergraduate students to learn through the same scenario included in the first . This time , however , instead of being told which components each apologia contained , they were leave in the iniquity . In improver , each apologia could arrest anywhere from one to six of the components .
Once again , the apologies with the most components were seen to be more effective . Significantly , however , both studies agreed that asking for forgiveness was seen as the least important aspect , whereas accept responsibility was seen as the most important .
Intriguingly , in both studies , half of the participants were told the tax return mistake was made incidentally , whereas the other one-half were told it was knowingly file incorrectly . Regardless of which they were tell , the value of each apologetic component remained the same . Ultimately , though , the participant who had do misleadingly was less likely to be rent than the one that was merely incompetent .
It ’s significant to note that this field of study only involved learn apologetic statement , so the soundbox language andemotioninherent in verbal apologies – which is at least as important as the content of the excuse itself – was unable to be taken into account .
For this , we ’re trusted the authors can only apologize .
