The Role of Victim Embarrassment in Explaining Why Apologies Affect Reported (But Not Actual) Forgiveness

Abstract

This research examines the mediating role of victims’ embarrassment in explaining why apologies from transgressors sometimes affect victims’ reported forgiveness, but not actual forgiveness toward transgressors. Victims sometimes insincerely communicate forgiveness following a transgressor’s apology because they feel put on the spot and embarrassed and try to escape the awkwardness of such situations. The results of an online experiment supported our hypothesis by showing that victim embarrassment mediated the relation between a transgressor’s apology and victims’ reported forgiveness but not between a transgressor’s apology and victims’ experienced forgiveness.

Keywords

apology embarrassment forgiveness

Following a transgression, victims often feel that they are owed an apology from the transgressor to make up for the offense (Baumeister, Exline, & Sommer, 1998), and a growing body of empirical evidence suggests that apologies do increase reports of forgiveness (Fehr, Gelfand, & Nag, 2010). Despite the desire for an apology, the process of apologizing can be uncomfortable for victims because it puts them on the spot and embarrasses them. Embarrassment is the aversive emotional state of feeling awkward, put on the spot, and evaluated in social interactions that typically involve violations of social norms (Buss, 1980; Goffman, 1956; Keltner & Buswell, 1997). We argue that victims caught in this aversive situation may try to escape their embarrassment and manage the impressions of others by explicitly reporting that they have forgiven the transgressor. Given that such direct expressions are easily communicated by the victim and easily detected by the transgressor, they can be adaptive and end the embarrassing situation for the victim. One danger of such explicit claims of forgiveness is that they may be insincere and therefore victims may continue to harbor negative feelings and grudges toward transgressors after they report that they have forgiven them (Baumeister et al., 1998). Another danger of communicating forgiveness when it is not truly felt is that it might be perceived by the transgressor as deceptive.

Self-conscious emotions, such as embarrassment have likely evolved to ensure adherence to social conventions and expectations that govern our capacity to initiate, develop, and maintain relationships (Keltner, 1995; Miller & Leary, 1992). According to Keltner (1995), embarrassment works as an alarm and repair mechanism by helping individuals cope with awkward social situations. Individuals are expected to maintain a certain level of poise in social encounters and when they are made to feel awkward, put on the spot, or evaluated, they lose their poise, become flustered, and feel embarrassed (Goffman, 1955, 1956). Given that embarrassment is averse, individuals try to flee from it by interacting in polite and charitable ways (Apsler, 1975; Semin & Manstead, 1982).

Although apologies are often used by transgressors to benefit victims, facilitate forgiveness, and repair damaged relationships (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Lee, Park, Imai, & Dolan, 2012; Metts & Cupach, 1989), they can ironically make victims feel embarrassed (Buss, 1980; Goffman, 1956; Keltner, 1995; Tavuchis, 1991). Threats to one’s face can occur when one individual in an interpersonal interaction violates the face needs of another involved in the interaction (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Park & Guan, 2009). Based on this, victims may feel that they are being evaluated by the transgressor in terms of what they should do following an apology (Bennett & Dewberry, 1994). Victims who are presented with an apology may also feel pressured to forgive because their forgiveness is being solicited, but they may not be ready to forgive. Although there seems to be a clear set of norms about how transgressors and victims are suppose to interact following a transgression (Goffman, 1955), the conventions associated with how victims are supposed to interact when they are not ready to forgive are more opaque (Bennett & Dewberry, 1994; Harth, Hornsey, & Barlow, 2011). If people are uncertain about the rules of social engagement, such as when the victim does not accept the offer of apology and does not feel forgiving, they will feel put on the spot, and embarrassment will result (Edelmann, 1981). In addition, people including victims of transgressions do not enjoy witnessing others having to address someone they have wronged and therefore they feel awkward in such predicaments (Goffman, 1955; Tavuchis, 1991).

In sum, apologies can make victims of transgressions feel evaluated, put on the spot, and awkward, which, in turn, trigger feelings of embarrassment. To cope with the embarrassment associated with an apology some victims may simply act politely by reporting forgiveness even if it is not genuine. This is adaptive because they protect their self-image by quickly escaping the embarrassing situation and repair their social bond by reassuring the transgressor through normative expressions such as “I forgive you.” However, there is also a danger in making such explicit claims of forgiveness because they may not reflect a victim’s genuine state of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the process by which victims’ negative evaluations and motivation (e.g., avoidance) toward transgressors are transformed into positive evaluations and motivation (e.g., approach; Carlisle et al., 2012). According to Exline and Baumeister (2000), expressions of forgiveness can be communicated explicitly via direct reports of forgiveness (e.g., saying “I forgive you”) and implicitly via indirect expressions of forgiveness (e.g., approach motivation). We argue that direct expressions of forgiveness, such as reported forgiveness, will be more affected by a victim’s embarrassment because they can be easily offered by the victim (Payne, Burkley, & Stokes, 2008), detected by transgressors (Tracy & Robins, 2008), and used by the victim as a quick escape from embarrassing situations (Neto & Mullet, 2004). In contrast, indirect expressions of forgiveness, such as approach motivation, are more difficult to detect and alter and thus do not provide a quick escape for victims.

Based on previous research demonstrating the positive benefit of apology on reports of forgiveness (e.g., Fehr et al., 2010), we predicted that a transgressor’s apology would lead to greater reports of forgiveness compared with no apology. Importantly, we predicted that the extent to which victims felt embarrassment would only mediate the apology → forgiveness process when assessed with direct expressions of forgiveness but not indirect expressions of forgiveness. To test these predictions, we manipulated victim embarrassment and transgressor apology and examined their combined effects on direct and indirect expressions of forgiveness (Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005).

Method

Participants

The participants were 78 undergraduate psychology students enrolled in a large Canadian university. They participated in exchange for 1% toward their grade in their introductory psychology course. The participants were 20.55 years old on average (SD = 5.05).

Materials and Procedure

The entire study was administered online. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four embarrassment (2: no, yes) by apology (2: no, yes) conditions. Once participants gave informed consent to participate, they were asked to imagine themselves as a victim of a transgression. Transgressions are defined as violations of social norms (e.g., Exline, Baumeister, Zell, Kraft, & Witvliet, 2008). Participants imagined that a person they were interacting with online, Melissa, was communicating personal information about them to her friend after being explicitly instructed by the researcher not to do so (i.e., violation of social norm/transgression). The participants were to imagine that they had arrived early for the study. Another student, Melissa (the transgressor), was also waiting outside of the study location for the experimenter to show up and so the participants decided to quickly use the bathroom which was located across from the study location. The participants were then to imagine that they were a little late and so they either forgot to wash their hands, or they quickly washed their hands, before they exited the bathroom. Once they exited the bathroom Melissa was still waiting.

During the study, participants were to ask and answer a series of question about each other using an instant messaging program. Here, the researcher stressed that it was important that they did not carry on any other instant messaging conversations during the study because it was dealing with personal information about the participants. However, during the exchange, the participants received a message from Melissa that was intended for one of Melissa’s friends who she had been interacting with during the study. In the embarrassment condition, the participant received the following text:

hey linds, i’m stuck here at york for into to psych. i’m not suppose to be interacting with anyone else, lol. In the study we’re suupose to be finding out personal info about each other. It’s okay. but omg, the person i’m talking to doesn’t even wash their hands after using the bathroom. eww, right?

In the no embarrassment condition, the participants received the following text:

hey linds, i’m stuck here at york for into to psych. i’m not suppose to be interacting with anyone else, lol. In the study we’re suupose to be finding out personal info about each other. It’s okay. at least the person i’m talking to washes their hands after using the bathroom.

Note that the typos in the instant messages were intended to make the messages seem consistent with commonly sent messages and therefore more realistic. To assess the manipulation of the embarrassment independent variable, participants responded to the following item, after reading Melissa’s message to her friend I felt humiliated (1 = not at all, 7 = very much so). To check the severity of the transgression, we assessed the extent to which the participants perceived the transgression as severe (1 = not at all, 7 = very much so). The participants were then presented with a video of Melissa either apologizing or not. In the apology condition Melissa said the following: “Hey listen, I’m so sorry I sent that message to you. It was really immature and I feel horrible about it. I wish I hadn’t done it.” In the no apology condition nothing is said. Three items were used to assess the manipulation of apology. The participants responded on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much so) to three items, for example, how apologetic was Melissa for what happened? Participants then responded to the direct (reported) measure of forgiveness, “To what extent could you imagine saying I forgive you to Melissa to simply escape the situation?” Participants responded on a 7-point scale from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much so. For our indirect measure of forgiveness (i.e., approach motivation) we used the line bisection task (LBT; Nash, McGregor, & Inzlicht, 2010). Given that forgiveness has been described as a transformation in victim motivation toward a transgressor from negative motivation (avoidance) to positive motivation (approach), we decided to use the extent to which participants had adopted an approach-oriented motivational mindset as an indirect measure of forgiveness. Research has shown that approach motivational mindsets associated with focusing on, and moving toward, desirable goals or outcomes are characterized by greater activation of the left hemisphere of the brain (Drake & Meyers, 2006; Friedman & Forster, 2005). We used a computer-based version of the LBT as an indirect measure of relative hemispheric activation (Elliot, 2008; Nash et al., 2010). Specifically, participants used a mouse to click what they perceived was the center of a series of 20 horizontal lines presented one at a time in different locations on the computer monitor. The LBT works on the principle that if a person has an attention bias toward the right visual field then she or he will perceive the right half of each line as longer than it actually is. Consequently such individuals will select a midpoint of each line that is to the right of the line’s actual midpoint. Bias toward the right visual field has been associated with neural activity in the contralateral left hemisphere of the brain (Nash et al., 2010). Motivational researchers have used the LBT as an implicit measure of approach motivation (e.g., Drake & Meyers, 2006; Friedman & Forster, 2005). More recently, Nash et al. (2010) found a positive relation between the LBT and left prefrontal hemisphericity assessed by the electroencephalography (EEG), which is associated with approach motivation (Elliot, 2008). Accordingly, we expected participants who had forgiven the transgressor to be approach oriented, and therefore, to make more rightward errors on the LBT.

Results

Manipulation Check Analysis

An embarrassment (2) by apology (2) ANOVA was conducted on the manipulation check items to assess the successful manipulation of the independent variables. A significant main effect for embarrassment on the embarrassment manipulation check was found, F(1, 74) = 8.34, p < .01, η² = .09. No other significant effects were found for the embarrassment manipulation check. A significant apology effect was also found for the apology manipulation check, F(1, 74) = 22.12, p < .01, η² = .23. No other significant effects were found for the apology manipulation check. Inspection of the manipulation check means indicated that both independent variables were manipulated as intended: no embarrassment M = 2.89, SD = 2.10, embarrassment M = 4.28, SD = 1.72; no apology M = 3.02, SD = 1.22, apology M = 4.43, SD = 1.43. No significant main or interaction effects were found for the severity manipulation check variable, all Fs < 1.0. Thus, our manipulation of embarrassment and apology had no effect on the participants’ perceived severity of the event. All participants perceived the event to be moderately severe, M = 3.10, SD = 1.43.

Main Analysis

We predicted a main effect for apology on reported forgiveness. This hypothesis was confirmed, F(1, 74) = 5.15, p < .05, η² = .06. Participants in the apology condition indicated greater reported forgiveness, M = 3.52, SD = 2.02, compared with participants in the no apology condition, M = 2.54, SD = 1.76. In addition, a simple main effect for apology on reported forgiveness for the embarrassment condition was also predicted. In contrast, we predicted a simple main effect for apology on expressed forgiveness for the no embarrassment condition. Given our specific directional predictions concerned simple main effects of apology at each level of victim embarrassment, we conducted one-tailed simple main effect tests. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found a significant simple effect for apology on reported forgiveness for participants in the embarrassment condition, t(38) = 1.67, p < .05. Participants in the apology condition expressed a greater willingness to tell the transgressor that they forgave her to escape the situation, M = 3.16, SD = 1.77, compared with participants in the no apology condition, M = 2.13, SD = 1.85. No significant effect for apology was found for participants in the no embarrassment condition on reported forgiveness, t(38) = 1.54, p > .05. A significant simple effect for apology was predicted and found on the indirect measure of forgiveness in the no embarrassment condition, t(36) = 1.88, p < .05. The apology condition produced higher line bisection scores (i.e., greater forgiveness), M = 29.96, SD = 29.02, than did the no apology condition, M = 12.41, SD = 22.02. No significant simple effect for apology was found for the embarrassment condition, t(36) = −0.89, p > .05.

Discussion

In this article, we proposed that reported forgiveness may not always be what it seems following an apology from a transgressor. When transgressors apologize, victims of transgressions often feel embarrassed because they feel awkward, put on the spot, and the object of evaluation. In turn, the embarrassment experienced by victims appears to partly engender reports of, but not actual experienced forgiveness. We argued that victims may report forgiveness in these situations to escape the embarrassment associated with an apology. Reported forgiveness is more affected by the vagaries of a victim’s embarrassment than experienced forgiveness because it is easily offered by victims and easily detected by the transgressor and therefore it can be used as a coping strategy to escape from embarrassing situations.

Our findings replicate a great deal of previous research demonstrating a positive relation between apologies and reported forgiveness (Fehr et al., 2010). More interestingly perhaps, the results of this experiment extends the forgiveness literature by showing that apologies can also have an impact on victims’ embarrassment, which in turn, affects reported, but not experienced, forgiveness. Insofar as victims understand that saying “I forgive you” to escape embarrassing situations might be perceived as hypocritical and deceptive by transgressors speaks to the power of embarrassment and the desire to escape embarrassing situations and maintain social bonds.

One limitation of our research is that it cannot definitively address the authenticity of our participants’ direct and indirect forgiveness. It could be that embarrassment causes a bona fide decision to directly report forgiveness to the transgressor following an apology as well as a coping strategy to neutralize the embarrassing situation. Moreover, it may take approach motivation toward the transgressor time to catch up to explicit reports of forgiveness. Future research that examines the veridicality of forgiveness following apologies and victims’ embarrassment would help to clarify this issue.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their appreciation to the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

C. Ward Struthers is a professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, where he has worked since 1996. His research interests concern the social motivation of victims and transgressors following interpersonal offenses.

Alexander G. Santelli (PhD, York University) is an associate at The Strategic Counsel, a market research consulting firm in Toronto, Canada. Prior to his work as an organizational research consultant, his academic work focused on interpersonal conflict (e.g., forgiveness and apology), self-regulation, and value.

Careen Khoury is a doctoral candidate in social personality psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, under the supervision of Ward Struthers. Her research interests mainly focus on victims’ posttransgression responses following interpersonal offenses.

Melissa Pang is a graduate of the Undergraduate Honors Psychology Program at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her honors thesis, under the supervision of Ward Struthers, concerned the role of victim embarrassment in the forgiveness and repentance process following interpersonal transgressions.

Rebecca E. Young is currently a doctoral candidate in the Adult Clinical Psychology Program at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research concerns the social motivation of individuals toward those with mental health issues.

Yasaman Kashefi is a graduate of the Undergraduate Honors Psychology Program at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her honors thesis, under the supervision of Ward Struthers, examined how victim embarrassment influences the forgiveness process.

Zdravko Marjanovic is a lecturer of psychology at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. He earned his PhD in social personality psychology from York University in 2010. His current research interests concern prosocial behavior, health psychology, and measurement.

Curtis Phills completed his PhD in 2012 at York University in Toronto, Canada. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.

Kyle Nash is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basel in Basel, Switzerland. His research, grounded in the neuropsychology of motivation and conflict, examines basic neural, motivational, and affective mechanisms of personality and self-regulatory processes.

Noelia A. Vasquez is a PhD of the Graduate Psychology Program at York University in Toronto, Canada. She is currently working in the field of market research. Prior to her work as a market research consultant, her academic work focused on individuals’ temporal focus and self-regulation.

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