Do congruent apologies facilitate forgiveness?

Abstract

Research largely supports the apology–forgiveness cycle, a process in which perpetrators’ post-transgression apologies are reciprocated with victims’ forgiveness. This cycle is often facilitated by the mere provision of an apology. Yet, there are times in which apologies may be rejected. We hypothesised that when apologies matched victims’ apology preferences (i.e., congruent apologies), victims would be more likely to accept them and self-report higher levels of forgiveness. Using an autobiographical transgression-recall approach, participants ( n = 102) provided self-report ratings on the apology they preferred receiving, the severity of the transgression, the type of apology they actually received from perpetrators, whether or not they accepted the apology offered to them, and forgiveness. Victims were more likely to accept apologies and report higher levels of forgiveness when perpetrators offered apologies that were congruent with victims’ preferred apologies, particularly apologies that met victims’ needs for empathy. The findings not only provide support for the apology–forgiveness cycle but also signify the importance of delivering apologies that meet the psychological needs of victims.

Religious coping with interpersonal hurts: Psychosocial correlates of the brief RCOPE in four non-Western countries.

“…The measure consists of 18 items that capture motivations (i.e., revenge, avoidance, benevolence) theorized to underlie forgiveness (or a lack thereof). Similar to prior studies (e.g., Cowden et al, 2019a), we derived a composite index corresponding with state forgiveness by aggregating responses to each item after reverse scoring the items from the revenge and avoidance subscales.…”

Acts of contrition: Forgiveness and effective intergroup apologies for historical institutional abuse

“…That is, just as ‘apology’ is not a neutral word’ (Kerstens, 2008: 188), so too ‘forgiveness’ is strongly encoded with emotional connotations. Such ‘congruent apologies’ (Cowden et al, 2019), which correspond with victims/survivors’ needs and sentiments, have a higher capacity to generate forgiveness and thus appear to be integral to the apology–forgiveness cycle. In other words, while official public apologies by church or state are often subject to ‘sanitizing’ and depersonalized and ‘distancing’ processes by lawyers or advisers as suggested above, ultimately it is the overtly human and personal elements of intergroup apologies which work towards establishing both a connection to the wrongdoing and authenticity for victims/survivors.…”

Apology–forgiveness cycle in restorative justice, but how?

“…In cases where an apology precedes forgiveness in the apology-forgiveness cycle, central to this cycle may be that the apology matches the needs of victims. This is demonstrated by research by Cowden et al (2019). To examine what kind of an apology may facilitate forgiveness, they asked participants to recall a past transgression they experienced and evaluate the apology offered by their transgressor.…”

“…To examine what kind of an apology may facilitate forgiveness, they asked participants to recall a past transgression they experienced and evaluate the apology offered by their transgressor. Their findings revealed that the apology that was congruent with the ‘victims’ preferences for empathy, compensation, and acknowledgement of violated norms’ was more likely to promote forgiveness among victims (Cowden et al, 2019: 411). Since an apology has a variety of components such as taking responsibility, this finding leads to a question as to how offenders should apologise in a way that is consistent with the victims’ needs.…”