8 ms·

Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

140 points by stollercyrus 13y ago

mathattack 13y ago
I had heard people say this about Reagan. He took accountability for things that were arguably out of his control, and people later didn't blame him for things that were. To me the lesson is accepting blame for a problem doesn't just take "Whose fault is this?" off of the table, but it increases the trust in finding a solution.
- comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
  Yes, the act of making an apology will be perceived as implying that the speaker is more than willing to help improve the situation, regardless of how we got there, thus what you said.
- pmarca 13y ago
  By "taking accountability" you mean he said he was taking accountability without actually suffering any consequences. That's not taking accountability, that's lying about it. Same with Harry Truman "the buck stops here" -- OK, which of the many terrible things that have happened under your watch are you going to quit over?
jtheory 13y ago
This makes a lot of sense to me - it's not even because the apology is logical, but because it's a gesture that shows the speaker is thinking of the other's welfare. There's a rule I have followed for many years when doing customer service - if the person is upset, apologize. It doesn't matter if you can't give them what they're asking for, or if they made a silly mistake. Just - make them feel better, then do what you sensibly can. It really works well... I don't get many angry complaints anyway, but this tends to defuse them immediately.
- corresation 13y ago
  This makes a lot of sense to me - it's not even because the apology is logical, but because it's a gesture that shows the speaker is thinking of the other's welfare. I recommend the book "Everything Is Obvious(^1): How Common Sense Fails Us" ^1 Once you know the answer. It talks about the human tendency of arranging observations and beliefs to fit what we're told, solidifying our belief that this is just common sense. I had just read it so apologies if I shoehorn off of your post to reference it. It also paints a very negative brush about most sociology/behavior type experiments, making me immediately skeptical of this one. I wonder if it's reproducible, and what specific regional cultural issues play into it. As a personal note, I get very wary of anyone who apologies for things outside of their control.
  - rickhanlonii 13y ago
    > making me immediately skeptical of this one From a fellow reader of Everything is Obvious, same here. It seems obvious (heh) to me that it's not the _apology_ that caused an increase in trust, but the addition of neutral or better contact. In all of the experiments, the control group did one action (e.g. asked for a cell phone or played their move) and the test group did something over and above that action which was a neutral or better action (a superfluous apology). I see no reason to think that the same results could not be reproduced if the control said "you have nice shoes" or "that was a nice move". That is, the conclusion should instead be that an additional amount of neutral or better contact with a person causes them to trust you more than they would without the statement--the contact does not have to necessarily be an apology. In fact, the article admits as much in second to last paragraph: >How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised (sic) for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker.
- Theodores 13y ago
  I agree with you completely regarding computer support and customer service - put your hands up and apologise to the customer/client for whatever the hold-up/mistake/bug is, then to get on with the matter in hand and fix things. However, management types can discourage you from doing this as it is an acceptance that there is some liability for whatever it is that has gone wrong. There is a fear of unintended consequences from the instinctive apology. The same applies with a road traffic accident - to apologise to the other party might be what you want to do (even if you were not entirely at fault) however the insurance company will not be best pleased. As a consequence we are conditioned to only apologise under duress or for things that are inconsequential. Maybe it is this that affects how we react when someone randomly apologises - it is quite an unusual gift worthy of reciprocation.
nimble 13y ago
Shouldn't the control group have had a non-apology comment about the weather or something? Instead of comparing, "Sorry for the weather. May I use your phone?" to "May I use your phone?", it would seem much preferable to compare it to "Lousy weather we've been having. May I use your phone?"
- snoldak924 13y ago
  That's exactly what I thought when I read the article. I'm not quite sure how that was missed during the design of the experiment.
  - yetanotherphd 13y ago
    Unfortunately in many disciplines, bold conclusions are favored over careful interpretation.
    - Flimm 13y ago
      Bold conclusions are more interesting, hence they hit hacker news more often.
- r00fus 13y ago
  Also, in the UK, the term "Sorry" is a rather common replacement for "Excuse me", in fact, some might consider it more polite. Aside from the non-apology weather control group, they could have introduced another control that used different construction on the apology: "Apologize for the dreadful weather", etc.
- consonants 13y ago
  I don't want to jump to conclusions as that is a glaringly obvious control and I find it hard to believe a researcher worth their salt would leave out such a control group. Does anyone have a link to the full paper? edit: grammar
  - tedks 13y ago
ultimatedelman 13y ago
tl;dr - a flawed study concluded something that may not necessarily be true
- surement 13y ago
  what's flawed about the study?
  - ultimatedelman 13y ago
    if you read the article all the way through, at the end they mention the study was flawed because of the lack of a control
    - Falling3 13y ago
      I said the same thing, but it appears that the article is actually flawed... The paper for the study defines the control groups.
carsongross 13y ago
One wonders what the self-referential feedback loop will become when the scientific study of practical sociopathy becomes widely understood and adopted. Although perhaps I'm naive to think it could be widely understood.
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dtx 13y ago
Although the study is flawed as pointed out by the author itself, it's good to see such studies and results coming out of a good test base rather than mere spewing of opinions as seen in many articles lately. Even if there is a minute chance that this study exhibits anything concrete, it can't hurt to apologize to expect a positive outcome.
- roryokane 13y ago
  It can hurt to apologize just in case. Maybe not in the case of strangers, but if you do it repeatedly with acquaintances, they could hypothetically start hearing all of your apologies as fake, even the sincere ones.
  - jtheory 13y ago
    True, if it's a knee-jerk action. If you get in the habit of empathizing with the people around you, though, and you do it well, that will continue to be valuable.
chatman 13y ago
If you ever wondered where the tax payers' money is going, it is going to fund Alison Brooks' "research".
- tunesmith 13y ago
  I'm sorry about that. Can I have an upvote?
  - nthj 13y ago
    I feel manipulated but I couldn't help giving you an upvote anyway.
- dbecker 13y ago
  Do you have any evidence for that? She works at a private institution, and she lists no grants on her CV.
tedks 13y ago
Direct link to the original paper on the author's webpage (8pg, PDF): http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%20Schweitzer%202013_d2f61dc9-ec1b-485d-a815-2cf25746de50.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%...
DanBC 13y ago
I find it weird when they use percentages for groups that are smaller than 100. 9% of a group of 32 people makes it feel like 2 people and a torso handed over their phone without the rain apology. (I'm aware this is my poor math skill, and it's something I'm working on.) I don't know if the sub has been edited, but it mentions lack of controls: > How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker. It doesn't seem to mention randomization either. EDIT: > This is significant because past research shows how mindlessly we often act in social situations. For example, back in the late 70s, Ellen Langer and her colleagues found that people were just as likely to give way at a photo-copier if a queue-jumper uttered the nonsensical excuse "because I need to make copies" as when he uttered "because I'm in a rush." Compare this to situations in the UK where if a shopkeeper returns nearly all your change, but keeps a penny, the customer will often wail until they get it, and make a fuss about it.
- mistercow 13y ago
  >I find it weird when they use percentages for groups that are smaller than 100. 9% of a group of 32 people makes it feel like 2 people and a torso handed over their phone without the rain apology. I suppose it's slightly odd, but the point is to make it so you can compare results across similar studies and also understand how it would generalize to the general population. >It doesn't seem to mention randomization either. The study does (see the citation at the end). The blinding and randomization were done in the field study by not telling the person asking the questions what the hypothesis was, and by instructing him to alternate which script he followed.
- deleted 13y ago
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- demallien 13y ago
  You know, I've never been able to convince myself that the quantization error is correctly taken into account by standard statistical error bars / power of study.
derefr 13y ago
Reminds me of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality quote: "Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything." Which is to say, if I hear someone apologizing for the weather, one likely presumption would be that they're just assuming fault as a matter of etiquette, or some latent self-hating tendency... but another, more interesting, possibility is that they're apologizing for not having gotten around to the step in their world domination plans where they build a global climate-regulation system yet. Because they would if they could, they will as soon as they can, and it's only their own laziness and ignorance of proper power/wealth/intelligence-bootstrapping methods preventing them from being there already. That, in my opinion, is precisely the type of person you should trust to Get Things Done, even when those things would seem, to most people, to be currently "out of their hands." In other words, feeling responsibility for everything around you is a necessary prerequisite for agency. You see this a lot in company owners. Why is the founder mopping the floor while everyone else is working? Because nobody else is doing it, it has to get done, and the buck stops with him. He's responsible for everything, even the weather.
- nzadrozny 13y ago
  Or, along those lines but less world-dominating, "Sorry for [choosing a time and location for our meeting that resulted in exposing you to] the rain." Same point, though. The superfluous apology lends an implied sense of influence and responsibility.
  - sandieman 13y ago
    I'm sorry for this thread. Can I borrow your phone?
  - noonespecial 13y ago
    Or even an implicit acknowledgment that I do indeed have the power to call you out into the rain.
- smsm42 13y ago
  For me that's the most irritating feature of hpmor's protagonist. I understand that's probably intentional - so it's working. I wouldn't really trust more a person that claims exclusive agency - I'd probably trust him much less as if he doesn't respect me enough to assign me agency - how can I be sure he respects me enough to not violate my trust? You don't feel to bad if you make a promise to an NPC character in a video-game and break it, right?
segmondy 13y ago
What instead of apologising for the rain, the apologized for the annoyance, "I'm sorry for bothering you, Can I please borrow your phone?" They should have tried that instead. If a stranger comes up to me and just says, "Can I borrow your phone?" without a preceding Excuse Me or Please, they will not get it, except if they are completely in distress.
click170 13y ago
I can't help but wonder about their attire. consider for a moment your reaction to a person in a suite and tie who asked to borrow your phone. I posit that you would be more likely to agree and hand over your phone if the person is in a suit and tie compared to someone who you thought didn't look as well off.
pertinhower 13y ago
Coupled with the many recent articles highlighting the unreliability of studies like this, I'd say this research is worth exactly squat. Example questions for practicing skeptics: The actor either (a) asked for a phone or (b) apologized for the rain, then asked for a phone. Could it be that the study simply demonstrates that saying some other pleasant thing before asking for something makes the request more effective? Must it be an apology? Must it be about something the person has no control over?
- freework 13y ago
  Thats what I thought when I read the article too. I feel the same percentage of people would give their phone up if you said "So how about those [local sports team]".
hawkharris 13y ago
It seems to me that this study says very little about the effects of superfluous apologies and more about the social etiquette of greeting someone before you ask for a favor. The study's confederate could have said "Good morning," "Hello there" -- anything other than simply making a request -- and achieved a better response rate.
bfell 13y ago
There could be an element of trustworthiness associated with apologizing for anything since you are inherently taking responsibility for something. But also it could have been that leading in with a request (with no foreplay, regardless of the type) may have come across as being brash.
bcoates 13y ago
I think it's going to far to call the study seriously flawed: The core claim presented "we find that superfluous apologies increase trust in the apologizer" is being properly controlled (superfluous apology, acknowledgment, or neutral greeting followed by a trust test). Suggesting that the mechanism for that result is caused by ice-breaking effects, or by delaying the time between the introduction and the request, or by conforming to some unknown social norm are follow up experiments you'd want to perform... but there's always a follow up question, it doesn't make the initial discovery flawed.
- yannk 13y ago
  The last paragraph states: "How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker."
  - Falling3 13y ago
    That's just not sufficient. I didn't even make it to the last paragraph and many readers won't make it past the headline. Up until that paragraph, the author seems to be building us up towards accepting the results. Why bother writing an article on such a flawed study?
    - ledge 13y ago
      For the sake of linkbait, surely. Blog author even calls this study "the most compelling evidence", only to correctly recognize that it's total shit in the final paragraph. I'm all for writing an article on a bad study (sort of like a bad album review), but the opinion of the author should be clear from the outset.
      - 13y ago
madaxe 13y ago
Interesting. I apologise incessantly for everything and everyone, to everyone. I've never put much thought into why I have this behaviour, but it's possible I stumbled on the same phenomenon as these folks purely due to pressure.
- yannk 13y ago
  I'm sorry you feel pressurized
- Amadou 13y ago
  Excessive apologizing tends to come off as obsequious. If other people notice that you are an over-apologizer it could easily make them dislike you.
impendia 13y ago
I have observed this behavior very often in others. For example, recently I showed up to a yoga class, and there was construction going on the street outside, so that it was mildly inconvenient to get to the parking lot. The yoga instructor apologized profusely for the inconvenience. I didn't understand why I'd want to be apologized to for this: not only was it outside her control, but the inconvenience was trivial. I felt slightly less at ease after such an apology. But looking around at others, it was quite obvious that this gesture had had the intended effect. I guess, in this regard, I am the odd one out.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  It's just a way of demonstrating that as your host for the event they are concerned about your wellbeing and comfort. That said I usually respond to such statements with "don't worry it's not your fault". Reflecting that seems a bit strange too.
timthorn 13y ago
> In the first, 178 students thought they were playing a financial game with a partner located in another room. Really? I took part in studies like this when I was a student, and I knew full well I was playing a computer, despite being told otherwise. You don't need to be a psychology geek to have heard of their standard operating procedures.
d0m 13y ago
>> Crucially, for half of them he preceded his request with the superfluous apology: "I'm sorry about the rain!" The other half of the time he just came straight out with his request: "Can I borrow your cell phone?" Couldn't it just be the chit-chat? I mean "Hey, how are you? Can I borrow your phone" versus "Can I borrow your phone", would probably give better results too :-/?
Wgl_ 13y ago
Is the "useless" apology doing the job or did it work as an icebreaker ? I remember old studies which said you have far more chance getting 20 cents asking for the time first.
georgemcbay 13y ago
I apologize for things out of my control fairly frequently as a way of displaying (genuine) empathy for people in bad situations. Not so much for superficial things like everyday rain but say if someone is looking forward to an interview and doesn't get the job, I'll say something like "Sorry you didn't get the job". I don't do this to build trust, but I guess it makes some sort of sense that if someone displays a consistent level of empathy towards the problems of others it would make them more trustworthy in general compared to someone who doesn't.
shakingarrow 13y ago
If the person you are apologizing to is an outsider who is visiting your city or a traveler, then by apologizing for the rain, you show sympathy towards the outsider and you look like a caring native, in this scenario it would have good positive impact though the apology might seem random. I wonder how many people in the sample set were outsiders.
zupatol 13y ago
Do people really understand this as an apology? Being sorry has two meanings in english, right? It can also mean that you share someone else's pain. If someone told me he's sorry about the rain, I would think what he really means is that he's sorry for me having to stand in the rain.
- nilved 13y ago
  Which probably still has a positive, if subconscious, effect on your opinion of him.
- tunesmith 13y ago
  That double meaning has been milked to no end by politicians and PR companies. They're parenthetically saying, "I feel sooo bad for you that you are feeling inappropriately wronged by my proper actions."
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latortuga 13y ago
Relating this to Cialdini's Influence, I'd wager this is due to reciprocity. Whether real or not, when you apologize, you're making a concession which triggers the "click, whirr" effect described in the book. Persuasion is a fascinating topic.
suchow 13y ago
The word "sorry" does not always signify an apology. For example, when a person says "Sorry about the rain," they do not usually mean "I am sorry for having caused the rain." Instead, they mean "The rain caused me sorrow." It's of little surprise that recognizing a shared sorrow increases feelings of trust. A: "Sorry about your leg." B: "It's okay, it's not your fault." It's sympathy, not an admission of guilt.
rickhanlonii 13y ago
> How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised (sic) for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker. This is a devastating objection to the findings of the study. Here's a link to the study: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%20Schweitzer%202013_d2f61dc9-ec1b-485d-a815-2cf25746de50.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%...
- vectorjohn 13y ago
  The addition of "(sic)" is non-useful, as that is an accepted spelling in British English, which is where this post comes from. Try searching, I don't know, anywhere else on that page. It was not a mistake.
  - rickhanlonii 13y ago
    It's not uncommon to use "sic" to denote a british spelling of a word, though the usage in that instance is debated.
michaelwww 13y ago
It's about being polite. Just walking up to someone and blurting out "Can I borrow your cellphone?" is rude. "I'm sorry to bother you, but can I ask you a question?" gives the listener time to adjust and the opportunity to say "no"
smsm42 13y ago
I wouldn't even classify "sorry for the rain" as an apology. I'd understand it as "I understand you have just suffered an inconvenience, and I express my sad feeling about that fact, thus showing that your feelings have an importance for me and you possess a status of an important person in my eyes". That is not the same as taking responsibility for the fact that it rains, which apology presumes. English is not my native language, but as far as I understand from many years using it as a communication medium, "I am sorry" is used in the former sense (expressing sympathy) at least as frequent, if not more frequent, than in the latter (apology: a written or spoken expression of one's regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another). Of course, if you express the sympathy and show that the other person is important to you, people tend to reciprocate. I would be surprised if it didn't happen. However, if somebody really meant it in the sense that he feels genuine remorse or regret for the rain, I'd not trust such person - obviously I'm dealing with a dangerously delusional person that thinks he's either controlling the weather or should be. I'd suggest him to find a good mental health provider.
- stevewillows 13y ago
  It's a non-apology - - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology
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joshfraser 13y ago
OkTrends (the awesome blog from OkCupid) showed data that suggests that using the word "sorry" in your initial message dramatically increases your odds of getting a response. http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exactly-what-to-say-in-a-first-message/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exact...
namank 13y ago
Superfluous? Ok, so the face value of "sorry" implies apology but putting the situation in context it seems less a question of culpability and more of a shared sense of frustration against/for a common goal. How does it make you feel when you are peeved off at the rain and someone comes up to you to share in the misery? It's about a shared sense of understanding more than anything else. If some people choose to take advantage of this for ulterior purposes - well, that's the very definition of emotional manipulation.
slacka 13y ago
When I was studying psychology we often ran into negotiating tactics like this. Another is if you need a small favor, ask for something huge when they turn you down, they will almost always agree to the small favor. For example, after asking your parents for a car for your birthday, they'll be more likely to agree to get you that game for your xbox.
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kriro 13y ago
The experiment seems a little flawed. At the very least I would have expected a third run with a chitchat sentence first (my working hypothesis would be that chitchat sentence and apology for rain would be equally trustworthy, both more than straight up asking). There's quite a difference between directly asking to use someone's phone and introducing yourself first. The copier queue gets mentioned at the end but the article reads more like "apologize for something that you cannot control=trust" while I'd suspect it's really "talk about something else=trust"
AndrewDucker 13y ago
This completely ignores the fact that the word "Sorry" is not always an apology. "Sorry your dog died." is an expression of _sympathy_ for your dog's death, not an admission of guilt. In fact, the first definition on Google for "define sorry" is "feeling sad or distressed through sympathy with someone else's misfortune" And yes, I'd be more likely to lend my phone to someone who had shown signs of sympathy to me first.
moomin 13y ago
Seriously, does that sound like an even vaguely scientific study? How do they know the effect is due to what was said as opposed to _saying anything polite_ first?
keithpeter 13y ago
"Forty-seven per cent of strangers offered their phone when the actor apologised for the rain first, compared with just nine per cent when there was no apology." UK: I have never seen anyone ask to borrow someone else's mobile phone over here. Is that a common behaviour in the US? I have to say that if someone asked to borrow mine, I'd refuse, especially if they said something inane first. That could just be my crabbed and ungenerous nature but I think not somehow...
hmsimha 13y ago
If they really wanted to test a superfluous apology, they could have the actor lead with something more like "I'm sorry for your loss." I suspect very few people would then loan out their phone, unless they were under the impression they were being mugged.
mercer 13y ago
Interesting. This is quite similar to the phenomenon where asking for a favor and giving a pointless reason increases the chance that people will do as you ask. I can't find the research for this, but from what I remember one experiment involved someone going to the front of the line of people waiting at a copy machine at university, and asking if they could go first. Simply appending 'because I need to copy some things' would increase the chance that people would let you go first, despite the fact that it's a pointless justification.
pmarca 13y ago
That's not getting people to trust you. That's being a beta. That's getting people to know they can dominate you.

140 points by stollercyrus 13y ago

I had heard people say this about Reagan. He took accountability for things that were arguably out of his control, and people later didn't blame him for things that were. To me the lesson is accepting blame for a problem doesn't just take "Whose fault is this?" off of the table, but it increases the trust in finding a solution.

comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
Yes, the act of making an apology will be perceived as implying that the speaker is more than willing to help improve the situation, regardless of how we got there, thus what you said.
pmarca 13y ago
By "taking accountability" you mean he said he was taking accountability without actually suffering any consequences. That's not taking accountability, that's lying about it. Same with Harry Truman "the buck stops here" -- OK, which of the many terrible things that have happened under your watch are you going to quit over?

jtheory 13y ago

This makes a lot of sense to me - it's not even because the apology is logical, but because it's a gesture that shows the speaker is thinking of the other's welfare. There's a rule I have followed for many years when doing customer service - if the person is upset, apologize. It doesn't matter if you can't give them what they're asking for, or if they made a silly mistake. Just - make them feel better, then do what you sensibly can. It really works well... I don't get many angry complaints anyway, but this tends to defuse them immediately.

corresation 13y ago
This makes a lot of sense to me - it's not even because the apology is logical, but because it's a gesture that shows the speaker is thinking of the other's welfare. I recommend the book "Everything Is Obvious(^1): How Common Sense Fails Us" ^1 Once you know the answer. It talks about the human tendency of arranging observations and beliefs to fit what we're told, solidifying our belief that this is just common sense. I had just read it so apologies if I shoehorn off of your post to reference it. It also paints a very negative brush about most sociology/behavior type experiments, making me immediately skeptical of this one. I wonder if it's reproducible, and what specific regional cultural issues play into it. As a personal note, I get very wary of anyone who apologies for things outside of their control.
- rickhanlonii 13y ago
  > making me immediately skeptical of this one From a fellow reader of Everything is Obvious, same here. It seems obvious (heh) to me that it's not the _apology_ that caused an increase in trust, but the addition of neutral or better contact. In all of the experiments, the control group did one action (e.g. asked for a cell phone or played their move) and the test group did something over and above that action which was a neutral or better action (a superfluous apology). I see no reason to think that the same results could not be reproduced if the control said "you have nice shoes" or "that was a nice move". That is, the conclusion should instead be that an additional amount of neutral or better contact with a person causes them to trust you more than they would without the statement--the contact does not have to necessarily be an apology. In fact, the article admits as much in second to last paragraph: >How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised (sic) for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker.
Theodores 13y ago
I agree with you completely regarding computer support and customer service - put your hands up and apologise to the customer/client for whatever the hold-up/mistake/bug is, then to get on with the matter in hand and fix things. However, management types can discourage you from doing this as it is an acceptance that there is some liability for whatever it is that has gone wrong. There is a fear of unintended consequences from the instinctive apology. The same applies with a road traffic accident - to apologise to the other party might be what you want to do (even if you were not entirely at fault) however the insurance company will not be best pleased. As a consequence we are conditioned to only apologise under duress or for things that are inconsequential. Maybe it is this that affects how we react when someone randomly apologises - it is quite an unusual gift worthy of reciprocation.

nimble 13y ago

Shouldn't the control group have had a non-apology comment about the weather or something? Instead of comparing, "Sorry for the weather. May I use your phone?" to "May I use your phone?", it would seem much preferable to compare it to "Lousy weather we've been having. May I use your phone?"

snoldak924 13y ago
That's exactly what I thought when I read the article. I'm not quite sure how that was missed during the design of the experiment.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  Unfortunately in many disciplines, bold conclusions are favored over careful interpretation.
  - Flimm 13y ago
    Bold conclusions are more interesting, hence they hit hacker news more often.
r00fus 13y ago
Also, in the UK, the term "Sorry" is a rather common replacement for "Excuse me", in fact, some might consider it more polite. Aside from the non-apology weather control group, they could have introduced another control that used different construction on the apology: "Apologize for the dreadful weather", etc.
consonants 13y ago
I don't want to jump to conclusions as that is a glaringly obvious control and I find it hard to believe a researcher worth their salt would leave out such a control group. Does anyone have a link to the full paper? edit: grammar
- tedks 13y ago

ultimatedelman 13y ago

tl;dr - a flawed study concluded something that may not necessarily be true

surement 13y ago
what's flawed about the study?
- ultimatedelman 13y ago
  if you read the article all the way through, at the end they mention the study was flawed because of the lack of a control
  - Falling3 13y ago
    I said the same thing, but it appears that the article is actually flawed... The paper for the study defines the control groups.

carsongross 13y ago

One wonders what the self-referential feedback loop will become when the scientific study of practical sociopathy becomes widely understood and adopted. Although perhaps I'm naive to think it could be widely understood.

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dtx 13y ago

Although the study is flawed as pointed out by the author itself, it's good to see such studies and results coming out of a good test base rather than mere spewing of opinions as seen in many articles lately. Even if there is a minute chance that this study exhibits anything concrete, it can't hurt to apologize to expect a positive outcome.

roryokane 13y ago
It can hurt to apologize just in case. Maybe not in the case of strangers, but if you do it repeatedly with acquaintances, they could hypothetically start hearing all of your apologies as fake, even the sincere ones.
- jtheory 13y ago
  True, if it's a knee-jerk action. If you get in the habit of empathizing with the people around you, though, and you do it well, that will continue to be valuable.

chatman 13y ago

If you ever wondered where the tax payers' money is going, it is going to fund Alison Brooks' "research".

tunesmith 13y ago
I'm sorry about that. Can I have an upvote?
- nthj 13y ago
  I feel manipulated but I couldn't help giving you an upvote anyway.
dbecker 13y ago
Do you have any evidence for that? She works at a private institution, and she lists no grants on her CV.

tedks 13y ago

Direct link to the original paper on the author's webpage (8pg, PDF): http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%20Schweitzer%202013_d2f61dc9-ec1b-485d-a815-2cf25746de50.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%...

DanBC 13y ago

I find it weird when they use percentages for groups that are smaller than 100. 9% of a group of 32 people makes it feel like 2 people and a torso handed over their phone without the rain apology. (I'm aware this is my poor math skill, and it's something I'm working on.) I don't know if the sub has been edited, but it mentions lack of controls: > How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker. It doesn't seem to mention randomization either. EDIT: > This is significant because past research shows how mindlessly we often act in social situations. For example, back in the late 70s, Ellen Langer and her colleagues found that people were just as likely to give way at a photo-copier if a queue-jumper uttered the nonsensical excuse "because I need to make copies" as when he uttered "because I'm in a rush." Compare this to situations in the UK where if a shopkeeper returns nearly all your change, but keeps a penny, the customer will often wail until they get it, and make a fuss about it.

mistercow 13y ago
>I find it weird when they use percentages for groups that are smaller than 100. 9% of a group of 32 people makes it feel like 2 people and a torso handed over their phone without the rain apology. I suppose it's slightly odd, but the point is to make it so you can compare results across similar studies and also understand how it would generalize to the general population. >It doesn't seem to mention randomization either. The study does (see the citation at the end). The blinding and randomization were done in the field study by not telling the person asking the questions what the hypothesis was, and by instructing him to alternate which script he followed.
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demallien 13y ago
You know, I've never been able to convince myself that the quantization error is correctly taken into account by standard statistical error bars / power of study.

derefr 13y ago

Reminds me of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality quote: "Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything." Which is to say, if I hear someone apologizing for the weather, one likely presumption would be that they're just assuming fault as a matter of etiquette, or some latent self-hating tendency... but another, more interesting, possibility is that they're apologizing for not having gotten around to the step in their world domination plans where they build a global climate-regulation system yet. Because they would if they could, they will as soon as they can, and it's only their own laziness and ignorance of proper power/wealth/intelligence-bootstrapping methods preventing them from being there already. That, in my opinion, is precisely the type of person you should trust to Get Things Done, even when those things would seem, to most people, to be currently "out of their hands." In other words, feeling responsibility for everything around you is a necessary prerequisite for agency. You see this a lot in company owners. Why is the founder mopping the floor while everyone else is working? Because nobody else is doing it, it has to get done, and the buck stops with him. He's responsible for everything, even the weather.

nzadrozny 13y ago
Or, along those lines but less world-dominating, "Sorry for [choosing a time and location for our meeting that resulted in exposing you to] the rain." Same point, though. The superfluous apology lends an implied sense of influence and responsibility.
- sandieman 13y ago
  I'm sorry for this thread. Can I borrow your phone?
- noonespecial 13y ago
  Or even an implicit acknowledgment that I do indeed have the power to call you out into the rain.
smsm42 13y ago
For me that's the most irritating feature of hpmor's protagonist. I understand that's probably intentional - so it's working. I wouldn't really trust more a person that claims exclusive agency - I'd probably trust him much less as if he doesn't respect me enough to assign me agency - how can I be sure he respects me enough to not violate my trust? You don't feel to bad if you make a promise to an NPC character in a video-game and break it, right?

segmondy 13y ago

What instead of apologising for the rain, the apologized for the annoyance, "I'm sorry for bothering you, Can I please borrow your phone?" They should have tried that instead. If a stranger comes up to me and just says, "Can I borrow your phone?" without a preceding Excuse Me or Please, they will not get it, except if they are completely in distress.

click170 13y ago

I can't help but wonder about their attire. consider for a moment your reaction to a person in a suite and tie who asked to borrow your phone. I posit that you would be more likely to agree and hand over your phone if the person is in a suit and tie compared to someone who you thought didn't look as well off.

pertinhower 13y ago

Coupled with the many recent articles highlighting the unreliability of studies like this, I'd say this research is worth exactly squat. Example questions for practicing skeptics: The actor either (a) asked for a phone or (b) apologized for the rain, then asked for a phone. Could it be that the study simply demonstrates that saying some other pleasant thing before asking for something makes the request more effective? Must it be an apology? Must it be about something the person has no control over?

freework 13y ago
Thats what I thought when I read the article too. I feel the same percentage of people would give their phone up if you said "So how about those [local sports team]".

hawkharris 13y ago

It seems to me that this study says very little about the effects of superfluous apologies and more about the social etiquette of greeting someone before you ask for a favor. The study's confederate could have said "Good morning," "Hello there" -- anything other than simply making a request -- and achieved a better response rate.

bfell 13y ago

There could be an element of trustworthiness associated with apologizing for anything since you are inherently taking responsibility for something. But also it could have been that leading in with a request (with no foreplay, regardless of the type) may have come across as being brash.

bcoates 13y ago

I think it's going to far to call the study seriously flawed: The core claim presented "we find that superfluous apologies increase trust in the apologizer" is being properly controlled (superfluous apology, acknowledgment, or neutral greeting followed by a trust test). Suggesting that the mechanism for that result is caused by ice-breaking effects, or by delaying the time between the introduction and the request, or by conforming to some unknown social norm are follow up experiments you'd want to perform... but there's always a follow up question, it doesn't make the initial discovery flawed.

yannk 13y ago
The last paragraph states: "How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker."
- Falling3 13y ago
  That's just not sufficient. I didn't even make it to the last paragraph and many readers won't make it past the headline. Up until that paragraph, the author seems to be building us up towards accepting the results. Why bother writing an article on such a flawed study?
  - ledge 13y ago
    For the sake of linkbait, surely. Blog author even calls this study "the most compelling evidence", only to correctly recognize that it's total shit in the final paragraph. I'm all for writing an article on a bad study (sort of like a bad album review), but the opinion of the author should be clear from the outset.
    - 13y ago

madaxe 13y ago

Interesting. I apologise incessantly for everything and everyone, to everyone. I've never put much thought into why I have this behaviour, but it's possible I stumbled on the same phenomenon as these folks purely due to pressure.

yannk 13y ago
I'm sorry you feel pressurized
Amadou 13y ago
Excessive apologizing tends to come off as obsequious. If other people notice that you are an over-apologizer it could easily make them dislike you.

impendia 13y ago

I have observed this behavior very often in others. For example, recently I showed up to a yoga class, and there was construction going on the street outside, so that it was mildly inconvenient to get to the parking lot. The yoga instructor apologized profusely for the inconvenience. I didn't understand why I'd want to be apologized to for this: not only was it outside her control, but the inconvenience was trivial. I felt slightly less at ease after such an apology. But looking around at others, it was quite obvious that this gesture had had the intended effect. I guess, in this regard, I am the odd one out.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
It's just a way of demonstrating that as your host for the event they are concerned about your wellbeing and comfort. That said I usually respond to such statements with "don't worry it's not your fault". Reflecting that seems a bit strange too.

timthorn 13y ago

> In the first, 178 students thought they were playing a financial game with a partner located in another room. Really? I took part in studies like this when I was a student, and I knew full well I was playing a computer, despite being told otherwise. You don't need to be a psychology geek to have heard of their standard operating procedures.

d0m 13y ago

>> Crucially, for half of them he preceded his request with the superfluous apology: "I'm sorry about the rain!" The other half of the time he just came straight out with his request: "Can I borrow your cell phone?" Couldn't it just be the chit-chat? I mean "Hey, how are you? Can I borrow your phone" versus "Can I borrow your phone", would probably give better results too :-/?

Wgl_ 13y ago

Is the "useless" apology doing the job or did it work as an icebreaker ? I remember old studies which said you have far more chance getting 20 cents asking for the time first.

georgemcbay 13y ago

I apologize for things out of my control fairly frequently as a way of displaying (genuine) empathy for people in bad situations. Not so much for superficial things like everyday rain but say if someone is looking forward to an interview and doesn't get the job, I'll say something like "Sorry you didn't get the job". I don't do this to build trust, but I guess it makes some sort of sense that if someone displays a consistent level of empathy towards the problems of others it would make them more trustworthy in general compared to someone who doesn't.

shakingarrow 13y ago

If the person you are apologizing to is an outsider who is visiting your city or a traveler, then by apologizing for the rain, you show sympathy towards the outsider and you look like a caring native, in this scenario it would have good positive impact though the apology might seem random. I wonder how many people in the sample set were outsiders.

zupatol 13y ago

Do people really understand this as an apology? Being sorry has two meanings in english, right? It can also mean that you share someone else's pain. If someone told me he's sorry about the rain, I would think what he really means is that he's sorry for me having to stand in the rain.

nilved 13y ago
Which probably still has a positive, if subconscious, effect on your opinion of him.
tunesmith 13y ago
That double meaning has been milked to no end by politicians and PR companies. They're parenthetically saying, "I feel sooo bad for you that you are feeling inappropriately wronged by my proper actions."

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latortuga 13y ago

Relating this to Cialdini's Influence, I'd wager this is due to reciprocity. Whether real or not, when you apologize, you're making a concession which triggers the "click, whirr" effect described in the book. Persuasion is a fascinating topic.

suchow 13y ago

The word "sorry" does not always signify an apology. For example, when a person says "Sorry about the rain," they do not usually mean "I am sorry for having caused the rain." Instead, they mean "The rain caused me sorrow." It's of little surprise that recognizing a shared sorrow increases feelings of trust. A: "Sorry about your leg." B: "It's okay, it's not your fault." It's sympathy, not an admission of guilt.

rickhanlonii 13y ago

> How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised (sic) for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker. This is a devastating objection to the findings of the study. Here's a link to the study: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%20Schweitzer%202013_d2f61dc9-ec1b-485d-a815-2cf25746de50.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%...

vectorjohn 13y ago
The addition of "(sic)" is non-useful, as that is an accepted spelling in British English, which is where this post comes from. Try searching, I don't know, anywhere else on that page. It was not a mistake.
- rickhanlonii 13y ago
  It's not uncommon to use "sic" to denote a british spelling of a word, though the usage in that instance is debated.

michaelwww 13y ago

It's about being polite. Just walking up to someone and blurting out "Can I borrow your cellphone?" is rude. "I'm sorry to bother you, but can I ask you a question?" gives the listener time to adjust and the opportunity to say "no"

smsm42 13y ago

I wouldn't even classify "sorry for the rain" as an apology. I'd understand it as "I understand you have just suffered an inconvenience, and I express my sad feeling about that fact, thus showing that your feelings have an importance for me and you possess a status of an important person in my eyes". That is not the same as taking responsibility for the fact that it rains, which apology presumes. English is not my native language, but as far as I understand from many years using it as a communication medium, "I am sorry" is used in the former sense (expressing sympathy) at least as frequent, if not more frequent, than in the latter (apology: a written or spoken expression of one's regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another). Of course, if you express the sympathy and show that the other person is important to you, people tend to reciprocate. I would be surprised if it didn't happen. However, if somebody really meant it in the sense that he feels genuine remorse or regret for the rain, I'd not trust such person - obviously I'm dealing with a dangerously delusional person that thinks he's either controlling the weather or should be. I'd suggest him to find a good mental health provider.

stevewillows 13y ago
It's a non-apology - - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology

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joshfraser 13y ago

OkTrends (the awesome blog from OkCupid) showed data that suggests that using the word "sorry" in your initial message dramatically increases your odds of getting a response. http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exactly-what-to-say-in-a-first-message/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exact...

namank 13y ago

Superfluous? Ok, so the face value of "sorry" implies apology but putting the situation in context it seems less a question of culpability and more of a shared sense of frustration against/for a common goal. How does it make you feel when you are peeved off at the rain and someone comes up to you to share in the misery? It's about a shared sense of understanding more than anything else. If some people choose to take advantage of this for ulterior purposes - well, that's the very definition of emotional manipulation.

slacka 13y ago

When I was studying psychology we often ran into negotiating tactics like this. Another is if you need a small favor, ask for something huge when they turn you down, they will almost always agree to the small favor. For example, after asking your parents for a car for your birthday, they'll be more likely to agree to get you that game for your xbox.

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kriro 13y ago

The experiment seems a little flawed. At the very least I would have expected a third run with a chitchat sentence first (my working hypothesis would be that chitchat sentence and apology for rain would be equally trustworthy, both more than straight up asking). There's quite a difference between directly asking to use someone's phone and introducing yourself first. The copier queue gets mentioned at the end but the article reads more like "apologize for something that you cannot control=trust" while I'd suspect it's really "talk about something else=trust"

AndrewDucker 13y ago

This completely ignores the fact that the word "Sorry" is not always an apology. "Sorry your dog died." is an expression of _sympathy_ for your dog's death, not an admission of guilt. In fact, the first definition on Google for "define sorry" is "feeling sad or distressed through sympathy with someone else's misfortune" And yes, I'd be more likely to lend my phone to someone who had shown signs of sympathy to me first.

moomin 13y ago

Seriously, does that sound like an even vaguely scientific study? How do they know the effect is due to what was said as opposed to _saying anything polite_ first?

keithpeter 13y ago

"Forty-seven per cent of strangers offered their phone when the actor apologised for the rain first, compared with just nine per cent when there was no apology." UK: I have never seen anyone ask to borrow someone else's mobile phone over here. Is that a common behaviour in the US? I have to say that if someone asked to borrow mine, I'd refuse, especially if they said something inane first. That could just be my crabbed and ungenerous nature but I think not somehow...

hmsimha 13y ago

If they really wanted to test a superfluous apology, they could have the actor lead with something more like "I'm sorry for your loss." I suspect very few people would then loan out their phone, unless they were under the impression they were being mugged.

mercer 13y ago

Interesting. This is quite similar to the phenomenon where asking for a favor and giving a pointless reason increases the chance that people will do as you ask. I can't find the research for this, but from what I remember one experiment involved someone going to the front of the line of people waiting at a copy machine at university, and asking if they could go first. Simply appending 'because I need to copy some things' would increase the chance that people would let you go first, despite the fact that it's a pointless justification.

pmarca 13y ago

That's not getting people to trust you. That's being a beta. That's getting people to know they can dominate you.