sorry is the hardest word, for men.
A woman apologizes (Photo: ShutterStock)
Who apologizes more - men or women?
The conventional wisdom is that women apologize more than men.
While there are masses of opinions that have nothing to do with reality, this popular opinion is actually correct and has a research basis.
Since the end of the 80s of the last century, studies have been done around the world that have clearly shown that women do apologize more than men.
The question that remains open is - why does this happen?
The common stereotype is to assume that men are simply stubborn, egotistical and that they have no interest in asking for forgiveness and apologizing for an offensive thing they have done.
Contrary to the correct opinion that women apologize more than men, the stereotype in question regarding the reason is really not the right answer - the gap between men and women regarding apologies is not due to male ego, but to a different perception of offensive behavior.
Men's "apology threshold" is higher
In a study conducted at the University of Waterloo in Canada and published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers examined the frequency and manner in which men and women apologize using two experiments.
In the first experiment, the participants (33 men and 33 women) were asked to keep an "apology diary" for 12 days and record the times they hurt another person or were hurt by them, and whether they apologized or apologized to them.
The results of this experiment showed something interesting - women reported that they apologized more than men, but also reported more abusive behaviors than men.
In the relationship between the offensive behaviors and the apologies, there was no difference between women and men, when they thought it was necessary to apologize, they all did it.
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From these results we can learn that women do apologize more than men, but that apparently women also commit more "transgressions", which is why they apologize more.
But in fact, what can be learned from this is a completely different thing - women's judgmental threshold for what constitutes abusive behavior and men's judgmental threshold are completely different.
It's not that men don't want to apologize, but that certain behaviors, which to women are apologetic, are seen by men as reasonable and not offensive.
In other words - men's "apology threshold" is simply higher.
In order to test this finding, the researchers continued with another experiment in which there were two stages.
In the first stage, the participants were asked to imagine different situations and actions (for example, not fulfilling their part in joint work with another student and consequently damaging their classmate's grade).
Half of the participants were asked to imagine that they had done the act in question towards a friend, and half of them were asked to imagine that they had done the act in question towards a friend.
For each of the cases, all participants were asked to rate the level of seriousness of each act, to answer the question of whether it required an apology in their eyes and how likely they were to apologize for it.
In the second phase of the experiment, all participants were asked to recall a situation that happened recently in which they hurt another person.
Again, everyone was asked to rate the level of seriousness of the act, whether it required an apology and whether they really apologized.
A real gap in judgment between men and women
The results of the two stages of the experiment showed that even though all the participants evaluated the same situations and actions, women's judgment of the actions was more severe than men's judgment of the exact same things.
Additionally, not only did women judge the acts as more serious than men, they also thought these acts were more apologetic.
These results show that the reason women apologize more is not that they do more things that require an apology than men, but that there is a real gap in judgment between men and women.
In none of the phases of the study and in any of the experiments, the men had no difficulty in apologizing when they thought it was necessary.
Understanding this gap can save quite a few fights.
Illustration of angry spouses after a fight (Photo: ShutterStock)
You can think of quite a few social or historical reasons why this gap exists, but understanding it is significant for our conduct in almost all areas of life and relationships.
Imagine a fight between spouses - he did something that he may not have even noticed, and certainly did not judge the act as one that requires an apology.
She, on the other hand, judges the exact same thing in a completely different way and thinks that what he did really warrants an apology.
The next step in the conflict would be interpreting his lack of apology as ignoring her needs and a feeling that he doesn't see her, and we can all easily imagine how such a fight could develop into something much bigger.
Understanding the judgment gap between men and women can help her understand his point of view, and can help him understand her point of view, thus reducing the conflict and bringing it to an end faster, and in a better way.
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