Gender and Age Differences in Using Apology Strategies in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Apology has been an important topic in personal relationship studies over the past three decades. This study is based on Sugimoto’s empirically derived characterization of apology strategies and explores how Saudis of both genders and of different ages use apology strategies to demonstrate their politeness. The study’s three main objectives were to identify the most commonly employed apology strategies and to determine the significance of gender and of age on how people used apology strategies. Data collection relied on the Multiple Discourse Completion Task Questionnaire, which contains questions about different real-life scenarios and multiple answers that measure the use of apology strategies. It was distributed to 102 female and 93 male participants of different ages (between 18 and 50). The study established that the most used apology strategies are self-blame and then compensation, while the least used are blaming the victim and asking the victim not to be angry. The rest of the apology strategies occur at different frequencies. The study also found that women use apology strategies significantly more than men do. Women tend to use thanking, lack of intent, asking for forgiveness, and asking the victim not to be angry, whereas men use compensation, avoiding the victim, blaming the victim, promising not to repeat, and offending the victim more than women do. In addition, the study found significant differences in which apology strategies people of different ages used.