A few months ago I was walking down the street when a guy bumped into me so hard I almost
fell over.
And in the middle of the collision I said, “Oh, sorry!”
A lot of us have been in situations where we say sorry when someone can’t hear what
we’re saying, when we sneeze, when we can’t make it to a meeting.
Then we apologise for apologising!
I’m a serial over apologiser and when I started to look into the science of saying
sorry, it became clear how this one word can affect everyone in some pretty unexpected
ways.
Some people are more likely to apologise than others – this is because we all have different
thresholds of what we consider offensive behaviour.
All kinds of things can affect this threshold – like culture (some will apologise when
they haven’t been as polite as their social norms suggest) or gender (research suggests
men apologise less frequently than women).
Generalisations aside, saying “sorry” can become an automatic reaction for many
of us.
And it can lead to some pretty bad effects.
Over apologising not only undermines your confidence and influence, it can lower your
own self-esteem.
And the continual “sorrys” lessen the impact of future apologies.
You can try to kick the habit by using a different expression like “thank you” or “okay”
or just not saying anything.
You might think that apologizing a lot will prevent hurt feelings, but research suggests
that apologies often have the exact opposite effect.
For example, in situations where you have to reject someone – whether that be from
lunch plans or going on a date or working together on a group assignment – you might
offer an apology as a nicety to try and make the other person feel better.
But research suggests that saying “I’m sorry” actually makes the other person feel
worse.
Yep, one group of researchers in the US examined the impact of using “sorry” in rejections
through a bunch of different experiments.
In a written test, when people replied to different scenarios – writing a message
that no, they couldn’t go to lunch or meet up after a party, people included an apology
around 40% of the time.
These messages were given to others who were asked to rate their feelings.
And instead of the apologies making them feel better, they reported that those responses
that included apologies only increased their hurt feelings.
Next, to see if these hurt feelings led to an increase in aggression, another test involved
responding to these scenarios in person.
And researchers included a measure of aggression that’s been used in a lot of studies – how
much hot sauce one person gives to another person who doesn’t like hot sauce.
So in this scenario, one participant was told the other participant didn’t like spicy
food.
The other participant rejected them, and then they had to serve them some hot sauce.
When the other participant included an apology in their rejection, they gave them more hot
sauce and rated that they felt more hurt.
The greater allocation of hot sauce was thought to be an aggressive response to hurt the person
apologising to them.
And their final study concluded that while those who receive an apology feel obligated
to express forgiveness they don’t actually feel more forgiveness for the person.
This all shows that social niceties can backfire and including a “sorry” in a rejection
can lead to hurt feelings.
Though, you should apologise when you’ve actually done something wrong, like accidentally
spilling coffee on somebody, not finishing work on time or something way worse.
In these cases, accept responsibility for what you’ve done and have a clear and explicit
verbal conversation (try to avoid texting or email).
Be direct and specific about what you are apologising for and you’ll come across as
more thoughtful and sincere.
“Sorry” is a valuable word – use it only when it’s really necessary and please,
kick the
habit of over apologising.
You’ll thank yourself for it!