Apology Culture

Introduction and Overview of Previous Research
The purpose of this research experiment is to analyze the effectiveness of an apology and find if the likelihood of apology acceptance differs based on culture and different perspective taking conditions. This is important in resolving interpersonal conflicts in an effective and trusting way, and determines which method is perceived as the most sincere. There are three main hypotheses in this study. First, those who are asked to take on the perspective of the wrongdoer are more likely to feel hypocritical, more likely to make favorable attributions and experience positive emotions and less likely to experience negative emotions, and more likely to forgive the wrongdoer. The second hypothesis is …show more content…
So if participants feel more hypocritical, it leads them to “generate more favorable attributions and to experience more positive and less negative emotions towards the wrongdoer”. Lastly, feeling hypocritical should lead to more forgiveness, but causes relationship resolving motives for collectivists (Japanese) and justice seeking motives for individualists (Americans). To come up with these hypotheses, the researchers looked at past literature on forgiveness. There are studies that support the act of perspective taking leading to prosocial behaviors, such as altruism. Cross cultural psychologists have argued that in collective cultures such as Japan, there are strict social rules that dictate what behavior is appropriate, while internal attributes govern behavior in individualistic societies such as the US. This is why Americans …show more content…
They summarized that although there were some variations between the cultures, hypocrisy induced dissonance promotes the forgiveness process. One possible limitation was that there was no direct measure of the perceived sincerity of the apology. And if the apology was perceived as insincere, no perspective taking condition would have changed the likelihood of apology acceptance. I didn’t see any obvious limitations to the study, but they stated that Japanese were more interested in repairing the relationship but less likely to forgive. These two points are conflicting, and they didn’t reconcile this with an explanation. I thought the biggest strength of the study was the cultures they chose to compare, and the biggest weakness was that they lumped the second and third perspective taking conditions into one