Now that I have your attention I'm sorry to disappoint you, or am I? Remember a while back when Tiger Woods held that press conference and apologized to us all for his bad behaviour. As touching as his rather sincere apology may have appeared (even though he read from notes) were we sold on it? Was his apology real or fake? Well some Canadian researchers have discovered a way to tell whether one is being remorseful or just plain faking it. There is one stipulation however; you have to be able to watch the person saying they’re sorry.
The research was spearheaded by Leanne ten Brinke from the University of British Columbia. Thirty-one college students were videotaped giving both sincere and insincere apologies. The students in the study were asked to describe an event, non-criminal in nature and one that they felt total remorse. Then they were asked to describe an episode of cheating or dishonesty for which they felt no remorse but act like they did. Not a huge stretch for apathetic students these days.
When the videotapes were viewed the researchers noticed there were some significant differences between the fake and real apologies. People who are genuinely sorry will go through a neutral mood before showing signs of happiness while those who are not sorry can go from sad to happy almost instantaneously. They’re moving on. Those truly unremorseful folks spoke with much hesitation and used “um” a lot while speaking; huge giveaway.
The point of the study is to enable judge and jury and the parole board to better determine who is sincere and who is just giving lip service.
In light of this new research I have an apology to make. So yesterday um, I spoke some pretty harsh words um to that fellow in um the movie theatre. And I just um want to apologize to the um guy, for wanting nothing more than um um to kick his sorry ass, um after the movie. I’m um sorry. Anyone want to party?
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