I am currently doing a research on apology. Does anyone know if there are different types of apology for the same social behaivor? For example, someone was angry at you, and then he apologized. His apology could be for the anger per se (sorry that i was angry at you), or the apology could focus on the reason (sorry that I just feel you did not show respect to me). Are there these distinctions in the literature?
Goffman, the sociologist, did a great deal of work on what he called "remedial interchanges," and that included apologies. He suggested that there are pure apologies (I'm sorry), but that most include additional remediational content, such as responsibility denials (excuses) and attempts to reframe the action more positively (justifications). Roy Lewicki's chapter in Rod Kramer's book on trust updates that work and applies it to organizational contexts.
That's a good question, Jeff. I'm not sure whether there are different types of apologies, but there are aspects of apologies that moderate their effectiveness. It's a big literature, and I confess that I don't know it as well as I should. But here are some papers that might be helpful:
-- Russell
De Cremer, D., Schouten, B. C. (2008). When apologies for injustice matter: The role of respect. European Psychologist, 13, 239-247.
Fehr, R., & Gelfand, M. J. (2010). When apologies work: How matching apology comments to victims’ self-construals facilitates forgiveness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 113, 37-50.
Fehr, R., & Gelfand, M. J. (2010). The road to forgiveness: A meta-analytic synthesis of its situational and dispositional correlates. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 894-914.
Fehr, R., & Gelfand, M. J. (2012). The forgiving organization: A multilevel model of forgiveness at work. Academy of Management Review, 37, 664-688.
Frantz, C. M., & Bennigson, C. (2005). Better late than early: The influence of timing on apology effectiveness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 201-207.
Meier, A. J. (1998). Apologies: What do we know? International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8, 215-231.
Philpot, C. R., & Hornsey, M. J. (2008). What happens when groups say sorry: The effects of intergroup apologies on their recipients. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 474-487.
Risen, J. L., & Gilovich, T. (2007). Target and observer differences in the acceptance of questionable apologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 418-433.
Schlenker, B. R., & Darby, B. W. (1981). The use of apologies in social predicaments. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44, 271-278.
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