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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 wel

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.

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.