Ehn. “excessive” is doing a LOT of work here, and needs to be expanded for this to make sense. I’m with you if you mean “apologies more intricate than the crime”, and disagree if you mean “apologizing often”. Learning to make (and to receive) a good apology is a useful skill in interpersonal relationships.
Apologies communicate knowledge of harmful behavior, ideally in a way that lets the victim understand and get closure on the incident. They help in reducing attribution bias (where people assume you’re a jerk, rather than a fallible human). They make it clear that it’s a behavior you’d rather not have people copy.
Especially if it’s uncomfortable to admit your imperfections, you will be biased against making apologies unless you see clear benefit, rather than making apologies unless you see harm. It’s FAR too easy to be over-cautious instead of under-cautious in this. And even worse when status games start playing into it (apologize upward, ignore downward to reinforce a position rather than to communicate knowledge of harm and future intent-not-to-harm).
There are certainly apology-like behaviors which I’ll recommend against—passive aggressive “I’m sorry my legitimate behavior is unpleasant for you” and defensive affirmation-seeking “I’m sorry! Please tell me it’s OK and you like me!”. These objections are more about integrity of apology, not excess quantity.
It reminds them of an experience they might want to forget. Further, it requires them to deal with a topic they may be completely sick and tired of.
From the comment above me (emphasis mine):
Apologies communicate knowledge of harmful behavior, ideally in a way that lets the victim understand and get closure on the incident. They help in reducing attribution bias (where people assume you’re a jerk, rather than a fallible human).
I’ll note that this means that an apology can turn an experience one wants to forget into a completely tolerable one. If someone shows up late to a bunch of meetings and acts disrespectful while they’re there, I’ll be annoyed at them and find our interactions unpleasant in the future, even if don’t act out anymore. But if they then say “Sorry about last week, I was having a rough time and I let my emotions get the best of me. I’m not going to act like that in the future” then the experience of “this person was a jerk, which I find unpleasant” is retroactively transformed into “this person was going through something, which happens to all of us”
Ehn. “excessive” is doing a LOT of work here, and needs to be expanded for this to make sense. I’m with you if you mean “apologies more intricate than the crime”, and disagree if you mean “apologizing often”. Learning to make (and to receive) a good apology is a useful skill in interpersonal relationships.
Apologies communicate knowledge of harmful behavior, ideally in a way that lets the victim understand and get closure on the incident. They help in reducing attribution bias (where people assume you’re a jerk, rather than a fallible human). They make it clear that it’s a behavior you’d rather not have people copy.
Especially if it’s uncomfortable to admit your imperfections, you will be biased against making apologies unless you see clear benefit, rather than making apologies unless you see harm. It’s FAR too easy to be over-cautious instead of under-cautious in this. And even worse when status games start playing into it (apologize upward, ignore downward to reinforce a position rather than to communicate knowledge of harm and future intent-not-to-harm).
There are certainly apology-like behaviors which I’ll recommend against—passive aggressive “I’m sorry my legitimate behavior is unpleasant for you” and defensive affirmation-seeking “I’m sorry! Please tell me it’s OK and you like me!”. These objections are more about integrity of apology, not excess quantity.
Put me down as “yay genuine apologies!”
From the post:
From the comment above me (emphasis mine):
I’ll note that this means that an apology can turn an experience one wants to forget into a completely tolerable one. If someone shows up late to a bunch of meetings and acts disrespectful while they’re there, I’ll be annoyed at them and find our interactions unpleasant in the future, even if don’t act out anymore. But if they then say “Sorry about last week, I was having a rough time and I let my emotions get the best of me. I’m not going to act like that in the future” then the experience of “this person was a jerk, which I find unpleasant” is retroactively transformed into “this person was going through something, which happens to all of us”