"Intent is far less important than impact when it comes to apologies"

February 28, 2023 9:49 AM

An interview with the authors (podcast with transcript) of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies, by Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy. Ingall and McCarthy also created the site SorryWatch which analyzes apologies from celebrities, politicians, and more. Step 4 to a good apology (pop up window): "Be VEEERY CAAAREFUL if you want to provide explanation; don’t let it shade into excuse." Ingall on teaching kids how to apologize.

"I received a letter years after a breakup from a boyfriend," Ingall said. "And he just said, 'I wanted you to know I'm getting married. And I'm aware that I was often not a good boyfriend. And I want you to know that I was listening, even when it didn't seem like I wasn't listening. And I'm going to be a better husband because of our relationship.'" (NPR)

SorryWatch previously on mefi.

posted by spamandkimchi (18 comments total)

One shouldn't talk about apologies without touching on _On Repair and Repentance_ by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg.
posted by hanov3r at 9:56 AM on February 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

In the transcript on how few exonerated people get apologies:

Susan: I did find another case where the DA was actually the DA who prosecuted this person... who was in jail for thirty years and said, I am so sorry; I was young and I was full of myself, and I was trying to make a name for myself and, and I just, you know, rode roughshod over you, and he really owned how selfishly he had behaved in pursuing this prosecution. And it’s just, it’s just shocking to me how few good apologies there are to people who have been exonerated.

posted by spamandkimchi at 10:04 AM on February 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

Don't miss this gem from the SorryWatch site about how badly Karl Marx biffed it with his initial response to Friedrich Engels upon learning that his [Engels] longtime partner had just passed away. (Basically, "Dude, it's a real shame about Mary—she was a good woman. Anyhoo...have I kvetched to you lately about how much my stupid landlord sucks?")

Oh, Karl. Poor form, my man!
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:33 AM on February 28, 2023

I am a part of a program where we call this 'amends'. Just saying you are sorry is never enough when doing this. I like how this is phrased here: Impact is more important than Intent. I take this to mean, leave the other person the F alone if they don't want to hear from you. Also, excuses are not a stand in for explanation.

The way it was explained to me is if you break someone's fence; you don't just say sorry. You mend it. Also, another thing that was emphasized was to focus on your part; leaving the other person's acts completely untouched.

Lastly, be okay if the other person does not want to forgive you. You clean up your side of the street.
posted by indianbadger1 at 10:36 AM on February 28, 2023 [10 favorites]

One difficulty about apologies is that the best reasons for making them are either:

1. Repair a relationship.

2. Mend damage you've done to the truth. Tell the person yes you were wronged, and what I said otherwise was not true. Tell the public, this person was wronged because the thing I did harmed them in this way.

(That's NOT the same thing as making amends for other damage you did: fixing or paying for what you broke, returning what you stole, etc.)

But most public apologies we see have the purpose of:

1. Get me off the hook for some or all of the consequences of my actions.

This difference can be especially unclear because repairing a relationship often involves forgiveness, which can look like "letting someone off the hook for some of the consequences of their actions" but is actually more like "using the repair done to the truth to repair damage to the relationship."

Sometimes you can forgive someone on the strength of your own repair of damage to the truth even without an apology from them. I can name what they did, recognize how it was wrong and what damage it did, and decide not to let it break my relationship with them.
posted by straight at 10:53 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

Susan's a friend of mine and she is great, and I recommend "We Apologize To The Birds".
posted by brainwane at 1:07 PM on February 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

I apologize constantly in my line of work, frequently for things that aren't my fault and I have no control over or nothing to do with. Ask A Manager notes that this kind of apology makes your life easier as a service worker and I totally agree with that because it does, but I wonder what Sorry Watch would make of that kind of behavior, because "I won't do it again and here is why I won't do it again" is literally not a thing I can say or even answer.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:38 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don’t have it open anymore, but one of their posts was about apologizing for things you have no control over (eg. the weather), and how that has been shown to strengthen relationships by demonstrating empathy, and that the apologizer is able to understand the perspective and feelings of the other party.
posted by eviemath at 3:09 PM on February 28, 2023

I'm trying to find that post and Google failing, but this sorry camp at Burning Man amused the heck out of me.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:44 PM on February 28, 2023

If you're a Xennial and you're wondering why Marjorie's name is familiar, it may be because she was one of the main staffers at Sassy in its heyday. I always get so excited when I see one of them pop up!
posted by lunasol at 4:26 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I got one of those "I'm sorry if you feel that you have to..." apologies the other day, instead of an proper apology for the cold-hearted, unjustified action this person took that put me in an unfair and untenable situation. I was mad enough as it was, but hearing that mealy-mouthed excuse for an apology made me want to resort to violence. It was certainly not helpful. No "apology" would have been better than that. But I'm sure it made him feel better.
posted by sardonyx at 5:18 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this, spamandkimchi. I have a copy of their book and will give it a try.

A few months ago, I received an apology for things that happened decades ago. And I cried. It wasn’t just that I thought I would never hear those words, it was also that I was also ready to let go of the pain. To apologize in return. The mutual urge to take responsibility, and to forgive, is a powerful thing.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:08 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just read the Sorry Watch post on comedian Paul Scheer's apology to a romance author. What a delight.
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:47 PM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

jenfullmoon, here it is: Raindrops Keep Falling on My Superfluous Apologies (found by clicking on the “Scientific apologies” category from the home page)
posted by eviemath at 3:34 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm sorry.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:54 AM on March 1, 2023

I promise I'm not trying to be contrary but in recent months I have been rethinking the maxim that intent doesn't matter. Don't you think it's far easier to forgive someone when we know they were trying to do the right thing, as opposed to when we know they were thoughtless, unconcerned, bigoted, malicious, etc.? Impact matters far less than intent.

I suppose this is only relevant in the context of established relationships (not strangers or famous people with whom there's a fair concern that they're just pleading good intentions to get off the hook) and because I have a personal bias towards wanting to keep, mend, repair established relationships rather than cut people out of my life. But for whatever it's worth, I wanted to put this thought out here in this thread.

Intent does matter most of all in the context of healthy personal relationships. Moving away from a paranoid mindset of "I will never let people harm me!" and towards a secure, collaborative mindset of "What went wrong? How can this be fixed?" is an unqualified good in such a context. And maybe it's something to remember even in other contexts that people are human, mistakes can be honest ones, and (thinking of twitter pile-ons here) this unprecedented level of public scrutiny on everyone's public statements/actions is just about begging for an ethos of mutual grace.
posted by MiraK at 9:13 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

There was a post kinda related to that, too! (I swear I only read a couple posts, not the whole site. But it was interesting.) On Too-Early Apologies, Social Rejections, and Pantslessness. The overlap is with their post about the features of an effective apology, and how these relate to demonstrating empathy and understanding of the other person’s perspective. Lacking that makes an apology feel insincere and self-serving. As one of the fpp links also discussed, lacking any plan or action to make things right or ensure that the person apologizing avoids making the same error again in the future also makes an apology feel insincere. So there are some specific markers based on impact that the research they review indicates correspond to whether or not someone on the receiving end feels like an apology has been sincere. I think an important point that often gets lost is that it’s not just about saying some magic words, though, but about actions of the apologizer; and that context clues from tone of voice, power dynamics, and other factors about the relationship between the two people inform whether the apology in fact demonstrates empathy and understanding or not, or whether promises of future actions are believable or not. But overall, I would say the impact versus intent discussion is about who we focus on: impact can include whether the person receiving an apology feels the person apologizing is contrite or not, but how the person on the receiving end feels about their perception of the intent of the person apologizing is a really different focus than the actual intent of the person apologizing or what they say about their intent. Or: it doesn’t matter if you’re sorry if you aren’t able to communicate that clearly to the person you are apologizing to.
posted by eviemath at 12:32 PM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Or, shorter summary: the receiver’s perception of the apologizer’s intent is impact, not intent.
posted by eviemath at 12:33 PM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]