Different social animals have different approaches to reconciling disrupted relationships. The anxiety created from damaging an important relationship leads chimpanzees to groom, bonobos to engage in sex, and dogs to show submissiveness. These reconciliatory actions are species-specific strategies to repair and return valuable relationships to their former state. So, what about humans — how do we repair our important relationships?
The single most important mechanism that we use to earn reconciliation with someone we have harmed is the apology. In his classic book On Apology, Aaron Lazare points to two main reasons why people apologize: “The first reason is their response to shame, guilt, and empathic regard for those they have offended. The second reason is their attempt to restore the relationship and to avoid further damage to the relationship, abandonment, retaliation, or other punishments.” To my mind, these two “reasons” essentially amount to the same thing — the attempt to restore the relationship is the response to the emotions that come from harming the relationship.
The goal of an apology is forgiveness from the person who has been harmed. Lazare goes on to articulate the components of an effective apology — one that has the greatest chance of achieving forgiveness from the offended party. The first component is the acknowledgment of the offense and taking responsibility for it. It is important for the offender to own up to their role in causing offense and to recognize that they caused harm to the other. It is not good enough to offer a vague or conditional “I’m sorry that you’re upset,” “I’m sorry for whatever I may have done,” or “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” A second component is to explain why one acted as one did. The explanation is linked to taking responsibility, but goes further by recognizing that the person who was offended may need to understand why the offense was caused. The third component is to express remorse with a commitment not to repeat the harmful behavior. Finally, the fourth component is to offer some form of reparation in the apology. Lazare argues that apologies that incorporate these four components provide the greatest likelihood of eliciting forgiveness. And indeed, psychological research has confirmed that effective apologies are among the best ways to achieve forgiveness.
Guilt is beautifully designed for this kind of effective apology because of the cocktail of emotions it includes. Imagine a case of gossiping. The guilt you would probably feel after gossiping is a combination of anxiety over possible relationship damage, empathic sadness, or compassion for your friend’s suffering, and remorse (including a dose of self-directed anger) for your role as the perpetrator of your friend’s suffering. Each of these three emotional components is involved in constructing an effective apology.
Anxiety is the component of guilt that is shared across all of the animal examples we have considered, and it is the main spur for you to act on your guilt. Anxiety is a form of fear, but it is more a reaction to an imagined threat than a present threat. We usually say we are anxious when we fear that something might happen. Fear is sometimes termed the “fight or flight” emotion, in the sense that we respond to fear either by challenging the fearful stimulus or by fleeing from it. This contrast applies to the way the anxiety inherent in guilt guides us in the management of our relationships. If you value the relationship that you have harmed, then the anxiety that you feel about the threat to your relationship will motivate you to fight to salvage and heal the relationship. But sometimes our anxiety over the way we have harmed a relationship may lead to more of a flight response, whereby we retreat from the relationship.
The single most important mechanism that we use to earn reconciliation with someone we have harmed is the apology.
In addition to anxiety, guilt involves compassion for your friend’s distress, and self-directed anger or self-blame for what you did, what I call “remorse.” Compassion involves understanding and caring about your friend’s suffering. When your friend is suffering, you want to acknowledge it and try to provide comfort. How you alleviate that distress, of course, must recognize your role in causing that distress. Certainly, it would not be good enough to simply send your friend a bottle of wine to cheer them up and then expect forgiveness.
Your remorse for being the cause of your friend’s distress is what enables you to accept reprobation and punishment for what you did. Your friend and perhaps others whom you care about may judge you harshly, but you also recognize and accept that you were disloyal and that you deserve their blame. You might also accept that you deserve to suffer in some way as a form of atonement. Admitting your responsibility in this way is critical to an honest reconciliation of your relationship.
Together, compassion and remorse lead to regret — you wish you had never tried to impress your new acquaintance by gossiping about your friend. Clearly, you cannot go back in time and undo what you did, but you can express sorrow for what you did and resolve not to do it again. This regret also needs to be conveyed to your friend so they can have confidence in your future loyalty.
This combination of responses is most likely to yield forgiveness from the other.
This article 4 proven steps to an apology that can heal your damaged relationships is featured on Big Think.