Long-winded apologies seem more sincere, study suggests
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Version 0 of 1. Researchers find people interpret verbose statements of atonement as more genuine than concise ones Sorry may be the hardest word, but it is also rather on the short side. And that means it may not be enough to get out of trouble, a study suggests. Researchers found that the more verbose the language used in atonement, the more sincere it comes across. The paper, published in the peer-reviewed British Journal of Psychology journal, found the effort that goes into an apology – or, at least, that appears to go into one – is key to showing how sorry someone is. It may go some way to explaining why Stephen Fry, having offended some at Marylebone Cricket Club with his description of a club “stinking of privilege and classism” last year, offered his apology for having gone “off into a wildly overdone – absolutely – prose picture of the image that some have of the club”. Dr Shiri Lev-Ari, from Royal Holloway, University of London, who conducted the research, said: “Individuals produce longer words in their apologies than in their non-apologetic communication, presumably to express the effort they are willing to exert to express their remorse and/or correct the situation. Correspondingly, individuals interpret apologies with longer words as more apologetic.” She added: “An apology may appear more genuine if it costs someone more to say it – and that can mean the time taken to say or type long words.” Her study put together three versions of effectively identical apologies and tested how people responded to each. For example, it used: “I did not mean to answer in a hostile way” with “I did not mean to reply in a combative style” and “I did not mean to respond in a confrontational manner.” It found the wordiest versions elicited the best response from those to whom the apologies were offered. It also studied samples of tweets from celebrities and other individuals – including where they were apologising and where they were tweeting other types of statement. They found people tended to be more long-winded in their apologies; suggesting at least some recognition that that was what was called for. On average, apology messages from celebrities contained five times more words than their usual tweets, while those from other people tended to be about twice as long as their standard message. |