An affirmed self and a better apology: The effect of self-affirmation on transgressors' responses to victims☆
Introduction
One of the unfortunate certainties of life is that we sometimes hurt people we care about. Luckily, these conflict events do not have to be detrimental to our relationships. Our relationship partners can forgive us for our harmful actions, and this forgiveness can increase their feelings of closeness (McCullough et al., 1998) and their willingness to cooperate and prioritize the needs of the relationship (Karremans & Van Lange, 2004). Moreover, actively discussing and working to resolve relationship problems are associated with positive feelings between partners, as well as both short- and long-term benefits to the relationship (Overall, Sibley, & Travaglia, 2010). Thus, when managed well, conflicts can be functional and contribute to positive relationship outcomes (Gottman and Krokoff, 1989, Markman et al., 1988).
When managed poorly, however, conflicts can be detrimental to relationship satisfaction, causing lasting resentment and even relationship dissolution (Carrere and Gottman, 1999, Cramer, 2000). These negative effects are not limited to romantic partnerships. Ongoing conflicts can harm other types of relationships (e.g., friendships: Raffaelli, 1997; family: Overall et al., 2010) and have consequences that extend beyond relationship outcomes. For example, unresolved conflict with a colleague in the workplace is associated with reduced organizational commitment, increased intentions to quit, and poor task performance (De Dreu and Weingart, 2003, Morrison, 2008). The ability to successfully manage and resolve interpersonal conflict thus has diverse implications for the discordant relationship, its individual members, and others in the broader social or work network.
Section snippets
Comprehensive apologies as tools for conflict resolution
In attempting to manage a conflict, the offending person (transgressor) can perform actions that influence whether the offended person (victim) will respond with forgiveness or continued anger and resentment. Research on conflict management suggests that an apology is one of the most powerful tools transgressors can use to promote reconciliation with the victim (Fehr, Gelfand, & Nag, 2010). Apologies increase victim forgiveness, reduce anger and aggression toward the transgressor, and validate
Barriers to offering comprehensive apologies
If comprehensive apologies are so effective at promoting reconciliation with the victim, why don't transgressors use them in every conflict situation? I propose that transgressors may avoid offering comprehensive apologies because it can be threatening to do so. People are highly motivated to maintain their sense of self-worth and integrity (Sherman & Cohen, 2006), but the act of harming another person can threaten one's identity as a good and appropriate person (Aronson, 1999, Goffman, 1971,
Self-affirmation as a means of promoting more effective apologies
Self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988) posits that people can protect their self-integrity from threats by reflecting on other important values and sources of self-worth. Reflecting on core values allows people to adopt a more expansive view of the self, weakening the implications of a threat for their self-integrity. With their self-integrity intact, they can bypass defensive behaviors aimed at protecting the self from the threat (Cohen and Sherman, 2014, Sherman and Cohen, 2006). As a result,
Study 1
In Study 1, I conducted an initial test of my hypothesis by randomly assigning adult participants to either a traditional self-affirmation condition or a control condition and then having them write what they would say to a person they had hurt. I predicted that participants who had the opportunity to affirm core values would write responses that included more apology elements and fewer defensive strategies.
Study 2
In Study 2, I aimed to replicate and develop a deeper understanding of the effects observed in Study 1. First, I sought to rule out mood as an alternate cause of the effect of self-affirmation on transgressors' responses. Although most evidence suggests that mood cannot explain the effects of self-affirmation (e.g., Cohen et al., 2000, Sherman et al., 2000, Shrira and Martin, 2005), some studies have shown a positive effect of self-affirmation on mood (e.g., Koole, Smeets, van Knippenberg, &
General discussion
Conflict is an inevitable aspect of social interactions. But if managed well, hurtful events can be transformed into constructive experiences that might even improve the relationship between the transgressor and the victim. An impressive amount of scholarship has demonstrated the benefits of forgiveness and reconciliation (e.g., Karremans and Van Lange, 2004, Witvliet et al., 2001) and has identified processes—such as comprehensive apologies—that promote reconciliation (Fehr et al., 2010). The
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This article was prepared with the support of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship (award # 756-2011-0397) awarded to Karina Schumann.