Refusal to apologize can help you feel better than remorse

Psychologists often speak about the benefits of contrition - as soon as you apologize to those who really are guilty, you immediately feel better. However, the latest research in this area indicate the opposite: conscious rejection of apology can make you feel even better.

Researchers believe that the failure to recognize errors in humans increased feeling of self-righteousness and importance of which may outweigh the sense of relief from remorse.

Tyler Gee Okimoto, Michael Wenzel and Cooley Hedrick of the University of Queensland asked 228 test both sexes remember when they've done something wrong. While most people will remember trivial and not very serious offenses, some of the respondents described the heavy delinquent like theft or denunciation. Then they were asked to tell whether they apologized and then decided not to apologize, even though he knew they were wrong.

Then the scientists divided the subjects into two groups. One was instructed to write an e-mail with an apology, the other - with the refusal of an apology. Surprisingly, the people from the second group clearly got the psychological advantage that is reflected in their behavior. The same thing happened when they were simply asked to imagine how they are committing an offense, and then imagine that they ever asked forgiveness or deliberately abandoned that.

The researchers say that the fact that people do not want to apologize, there is an explanation: this behavior makes us believe that we have become more options. The feeling of control automatically increases self-esteem.

via factroom.ru