{"id":398,"date":"2013-11-23T23:32:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T23:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/?p=398"},"modified":"2013-11-25T01:14:38","modified_gmt":"2013-11-25T01:14:38","slug":"effective-appology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/?p=398","title":{"rendered":"Effective Appology"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Five Ingredients of an Effective Apology<\/strong>
\nGuy Winch, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Apologies are important in any society. As children we are taught to say \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d pretty much as soon as we are able to construct a full sentence. Unfortunately, our skill level doesn\u2019t improve very much from there. More often than not apologies made by adults are just as insincere and unconvincing as those made when we were children.<\/p>\n

Why are we so bad at apologizing?<\/i><\/b> <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\"Oops\"<\/p>\n

Ask yourself (or someone else) why you (or they) are offering an apology in a given situation and the answer is likely to be one or more of the following:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m apologizing because I was wrong\/mistaken\/at fault\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne should\/is expected to apologize in such situations\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the right\/mature\/responsible thing to do\u201d<\/p>\n

And therein lays the problem. Because while such motivations are well and good, none of them reflect what the apology actually aims to achieve.<\/i><\/p>\n

Consider that if we\u2019re apologizing we must have done something to distress, hurt, offend, disappoint, frustrate, upset, anger<\/a>, startle, or disrupt another person\u2019s emotional equilibrium in some way.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the primary goal of our apology should be to ease that person\u2019s emotional burden and garner their authentic <\/i>forgiveness<\/i><\/a>. As a bonus (and an important one)\u2014and only if our apology is effective\u2014our own feelings of guilt or regret will ease.<\/i><\/p>\n

However, for apologies to be effective, they have to be focused on the other person\u2019s needs and feelings, not our own.<\/p>\n

This fundamental misunderstanding of who should be the focus of the apology is the reason so many politicians, athletes, and other celebrities sound blatantly insincere when offering them publically, and why so many of our own efforts are ineffective\u2014because we\u2019re not trying to make the other person feel better, we\u2019re trying to make ourselves feel better.<\/p>\n

The \u00a0Five Keys to Constructing an Effective Apology<\/i><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\"5_Keys\"<\/p>\n

Apologies are tools with which we take responsibility for the impact of our actions on others, ask their forgiveness, and by doing so, repair ruptures in our relationships, restore our social standing, and ease feelings of guilt.<\/p>\n

This formulation implies that for an apology to be effective it must have the 5 following key ingredients:<\/p>\n

1. A clear<\/i> \u2018I\u2019m sorry\u2019 statement.<\/p>\n

2. An expression of regret<\/i> for what happened.<\/p>\n

3. An acknowledgment t<\/i>hat social norms or expectations were violated.<\/p>\n

4. An empathy<\/i><\/a> statement <\/i>acknowledging the full impact of our actions upon another.<\/p>\n

5. A request for forgiveness<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The most important of these five ingredients and sadly, the one we tend to omit most often, is the empathy statement. In order for the other person to truly forgive us, they need to feel as though we \u2018get\u2019 the full implications of our actions on them.<\/p>\n

Doing so convincingly is harder than it might seem. Let\u2019s take the following example:<\/p>\n

Situation<\/span>: You had a horrible day at work, you\u2019re in a terrible mood, you get home late and feel too wiped out and irritable to go to your very good friend\u2019s birthday party. Besides, you figure your presence will only be a downer, so why ruin the event for everyone else? You wake up the next morning flooded with guilt and feel even worse when you realize you didn\u2019t even let them know you weren\u2019t coming.<\/p>\n

Apology<\/span>: What points do you need to cover in order to convey you \u2018get\u2019 the full impact of your actions on them?\u00a0 Take a moment now (before you continue reading) and make a list of points you would mention (refer back to points 1-5 listed above).<\/p>\n

Here are examples of each of the five key ingredients for an effective apology:<\/p>\n

\"5_Keys\"<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I am so incredibly sorry\u2026<\/li>\n
  2. I didn\u2019t make it to your birthday party last night.<\/li>\n
  3. I had a terrible day and was in such a bad mood I just went to bed\u2014but there\u2019s no excuse for not showing up and for not even calling to tell you I wasn\u2019t coming.<\/li>\n
  4. I can only imagine how (a) upset and (b) hurt, (c) disappointed, and (d) angry you must feel. (e) I know how much work you put into the party. (f) You must have been wondering when I would show up and (g) where I was. (h) I\u2019m sure people asked you where I was and (i) I feel terrible for putting you in such an awkward and embarrassing position. I hope you weren\u2019t worried (j) and that you were able to enjoy yourself but I feel awful that my (k) selfish behavior affected your (l) mood, (m) your night, or (n) the party in any way. I am so sorry I (o) wasn\u2019t there for you as a friend should be and that I (p) wasn\u2019t at your side to celebrate your birthday.<\/li>\n
  5. I know it might take you a while, but I just hope you\u2019ll be able to forgive me.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Although it might seem intimidating to \u2018own up\u2019 to bad behavior so completely, doing so will not only help mend important relationships and ease feelings guilt, but taking responsibility and doing the right thing can feel extremely empowering.<\/p>\n

    That said, be aware that effective apologies and especially empathy statements require practice\u2026everything in life has a learning curve, so be patient with yourself and others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Five Ingredients of an Effective Apology Guy Winch, Ph.D. Apologies are important in any society. As children we are taught to say \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d pretty much as soon as we are able to construct a full sentence. Unfortunately, our skill level doesn\u2019t improve very much from there. More often than not apologies made by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adult-living","category-emotions","category-life-lessons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}