Whether it's a company like BP apologising for causing environmental catastrophe or a political leader expressing regret for her country's prior misdemeanors, it seems there's barely a day goes by without the media watching to find out just how the contrite words will be delivered and what effect they'll have on the aggrieved.
不论是想BP这样造成环境污染灾难的公司的道歉，还是政治领袖对国家过去罪过表达悔意，如果没有媒体去留意他们表达的忏悔和他们对受冤屈的人产生的影响，似乎这一切都是明日黄花。
Surprisingly, psychology has, until now, paid little attention to what makes for an effective apology. Past studies have tended to focus instead simply on whether an apology was given or it wasn't. Now Ryan Fehr and Michele Gelfand at the University of Maryland have drawn on research in other disciplines, including sociology and law, to explore the idea that apologies come in three forms and that their impact varies according to the character of the .
让人吃惊的是，直到现在，心理学对怎样做出一个有效的道歉关注得极少。过去的研究倾向于关注是否道歉。如今，马里兰大学的 Ryan Fehr和Michele Gelfand 已经将研究延伸到其它学科，涵盖了社会学和法律学，通过对受害者个性研究，来探究道歉采纳的三种形式以及各自不同影响。
The three apology types or components are: compensation (e.g. I'm sorry I broke your window, I'll pay to have it repaired); empathy (e.g. I'm sorry I slept with your best friend, you must feel like you can't trust either of us ever again); and acknowledgement of violated rules/norms (e.g. I'm sorry I advised the CIA how to torture people, I've broken our profession's pledge to do no harm).
道歉的三种类型或是三种组成成分，补偿：例如，对不起，我打烂了你的玻璃，我会赔钱去修好它；移情作用：例如，对不起，我睡了你最好的朋友，你一定觉得无法再信任我们中任何一个；承认违反规章/准则，例如，对不起，我为CIA（美国中情局）如何刑讯别人提供了建议，我已经违背了不作恶的职业道德。
Fehr and Gelfand's hypothesis was that the effectiveness of these different styles of apology depends on how the aggrieved person sees themselves (known as 'self-construal' in the psychological jargon). To test this, the researchers measured the way that 175 undergrad students see themselves and then had them rate different forms of apology. In a follow-up study, 171 more undergrads reported how they see themselves and then they rated their forgiveness of a fictional student who offered different forms of apology after accidentally wiping her friend's laptop hard-drive.
不同类型的道歉产生的效果取决于受委屈之人如何看待自己（在心理学术语称为叫自我构建，译者注：这是基于网上的翻译，具体心理学叫什么，我也不太清楚）。这便是Fehr 和 Gelfand'的假说。为了对其进行测试，调查人员测量的方法是175个在校大学生做出自我评价，然后让他们评估不同形式的道歉。在后续研究报道中，他们假想了一名学生意外地擦除她朋友的笔记本电脑的光盘内容，之后这名学生做出了不同形式的道歉。 在171余名学生做出了如何评价自己之后，然后对这一假想情节中学生对其朋友的原谅进行了评估。
The researchers found that a focus on compensation was most appreciated by people who are more individualistic (e.g. those who agree with statements like 'I have a strong need to know how I stand in comparison to my classmates or coworkers'); that empathy-based apologies are judged more effective by people who see themselves in terms of their relations with others (e.g. they agree with statements like 'Caring deeply about another person such as a close friend is very important to me'); and finally, that the rule violation kind of apology was deemed most effective by people who see themselves as part of a larger group or collective (e.g. they agree with 'I feel great pride when my team or work group does well' and similar statements). These patterns held regardless of the severity of the misdemeanour, as tested by using different versions of the disk-wipe scenario in which either an hour's or several weeks' worth of data were lost.
研究者发现人们对道歉形式的关注焦点是补偿，此举最受那些利己主义者赞赏。例如，这些人赞同类似于“我迫切需要知道我如何忍受与同学和同事的比较”的描述；基于移情作用的道歉得到更有效的判断，是通过人们在提及到与他人关系时，做出的对自己的评估。例如，他们赞同像这样的表述：“于我而言，对亲密朋友的关心是非常重要的”；最后，有一类人把自己看做是较大的团体或集体的一份子，这类道歉在这类人眼中是最有效的。例如，他们喜欢“当我的小组或工作团体表现出色时，我感到十分自豪”以及类似表述。掌控这类模式并不在乎过错的严厉性，由于测试时使用了不同版本的情节，这个情节是关乎于在擦除磁盘内容后，导致1小时或若干周的有用的数据的丢失。
The message, the researchers said, is that when apologising you should consider your audience. 'This need to meta-cognize about what a victim is looking for in an apology is particularly important when victims' and offenders' worldviews diverge,' they added. Of course, if in doubt about the character of your victim or victims, the researchers said that 'detailed apologies with multiple components are in general more likely to touch upon what is important to a victim than brief, perfunctory apologies. Offenders should therefore offer apologies with multiple components whenever possible.'
研究者称，在道歉的时候，你应该考虑到你的听众。他们补充道，当受害人和出言不逊的人的观点产生分歧时，受害者在道歉的认知上一直寻觅的东西显得尤为重要的。当然，如果你质疑被你伤害的人的人格，在通常情况下，对于受害人来说，多元化的诚恳道歉比起简洁草率的道歉，更能触及到重点。在任何可能的时候，出言不逊的人会因此做出多元化的道歉。
Fehr and Gelfand acknowledge their study has limitations, including their reliance on participants imagining fictional scenarios - future research should test out these ideas in the real world. 'By integrating theories of self-construal and apology,' they concluded, 'the current study has shown how the tailoring of apologies to individuals' self-construals can result in increased victim forgiveness.'
Fehr and Gelfand 承认他们的研究有局限，包括他们信赖的参与者设想的虚构情节。未来的研究在现实世界应该完整测试这些设想。“通过整合和抱歉的理论”，他们推断，“当下的研究已经展示了如何为个人道歉量体裁衣，自我构建可能会促使受害者增加宽容度”。
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