Transcript for Episode 38
Grant:
My guest today is Dr. Karina Schumann. Karina is an assistant professor and the social program chair in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on identifying factors that help people successfully manage their conflicts and respond to challenging social interactions in prosocial ways. She leads the Conflict Resolution Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Schuman completed her PhD in social psychology at the University of Waterloo and a postdoc at Stanford.
So, Karina, welcome to the podcast.
Karina:
Oh, thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
Grant:
Yeah, so I'm really excited to be able to chat with you today. I had a chance to read through some of your papers, and your work is really interesting, and I think that our listeners will find it very interesting, as well. So, I'm hoping that you'd be able to fill out a bit of your biography for me, for folks that don't know you. How did you get here to the University of Pittsburgh studying social psychology?
Karina:
Sure. So, obviously, I was intrigued by psychology during my undergraduate. I'm Canadian, so I did my undergrad at the University of Guelph, which isn't too far. If you go straight up from Pittsburgh, it's about five hours north. And, when I was looking into graduate school for social psychology, I came across some work by Dr. Michael Ross at the University of Waterloo, who was studying, starting to study government apologies, apologies for historical injustices. And I thought, "Wow, how fascinating, you know, these apologies are so important, so timely. We're really starting to see some of these pop up in the news." And I hadn't known of any research on this at that time.
So, I applied to work with Mike and, luckily, was able to do my PhD with him as his advisee. And from studying government apologies for historical injustices, I really became interested in apologies more generally. I began studying interpersonal apologies and then expanded out into conflict resolution more generally. So, when you think about apologies, you know, you start thinking about forgiveness and then you start thinking about revenge and all kinds of more constructive or less destruct... less constructive responses to conflict. And in, in, after I did my PhD, I wanted to expand my knowledge further, so I was lucky enough to earn a fellowship to go do a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Carol Dweck at Stanford University. Carol Dweck—many of you probably know her, know of her work. She does fascinating work on mindsets and how having a growth mindset of various attributes—your intelligence, your personality, things like that. Whether, if you think you can grow it, if you think you can build it, it leads to a lot of really great things. It leads to persistence. It leads to open-mindedness. It leads to, you know, seeking out challenge.
So, I thought, "What a cool opportunity to study whether growth mindsets might have a role in conflict and conflict resolution.” And if, for example, you believe you can grow your personality, are you less defensive when you know you've done something wrong? And are you more willing to make amends and do what's, what's necessary to fix that wrong? That kind of thing.
So, I did a postdoc with her at Stanford for a few years, and then I ended up at Pittsburgh. I was fortunate enough to get a great position here in the psychology department. And ever since, I started the, the CORE Lab—the Conflict Resolution Lab—and have been continuing in my research focus on conflict resolution and, in recent years, I've also been expanding outward to political conflict. So, very timely, of course. We, we're facing a ton of political conflict, a tremendous amount of hostility towards what we see as the other side, and I have been trying to reduce some of that hostility recently, as well.
Grant:
Great. Thanks so much for that background. That's really helpful. So, before we get to the meat of your research, I was hoping that you could lay some groundwork for me. So, one thing I found helpful in a number of your papers is that you explained that there are different types of apologies based on the context in which they occur. So, I think, particularly as it relates to interpersonal versus public apologies. And then, it seems as though there's something about public apologies that, something important about the number of parties involved. So, there's the one-to-many and the many-to-many apologies. Can you briefly explain the different types of apologies, for our listeners, that exist, based on their context and some of the unique features of each?
Karina:
Absolutely. So, when we think about apologizing, we probably think about apologies in our everyday lives. We do something to hurt someone. We say, "I'm sorry." We try to make amends in that way. Or someone does the same to us. But there are also other kinds of apologies, as, as you mentioned. There are public apologies, and these apologies might take different forms. We say public because they happen on the public stage, often delivered in some sort of, either in an official way, like a government apologizing on an official stage for a historical injustice, as an example. Sometimes corporations might put out a statement of apology to their consumers. Sometimes celebrities apologize and politicians apologize for their own misdemeanors. And so, these are all occurring on some sort of public stage. These apologies are, might be, seem similar in structure sometimes to interpersonal apologies. So, they're likely to use the words "I'm sorry" or "I apologize." And they're likely to take responsibility for, for, for at least some of the offensive behavior and maybe acknowledge the harm that has been committed and perhaps even offer repair. “How, how am I going to make this better?”
But in many ways, these types of apologies differ from our typical, average interpersonal apology. And that's because of a number of reasons. Apologies that occur on the public sphere are met with immediate reactions of cynicism. So, people don't seem to believe these apologies as being sincere expressions of remorse to the same degree that they think about interpersonal apologies in general. They think that they might be offered because the person has no choice. You know, they're, they're going to be canceled in our cancel culture. Or they're being told to by their corporation or the network that they work for, otherwise they'll be fired. That kind of thing. They think that they are potentially manipulative in some way. So, they're, they're just trying to manipulate their public perception and redeem themselves. It's not coming from genuine state of remorse. And this is often because these individuals or, or corporations or governments are apologizing in a very reactive way. They've been caught. They have no other choice. They're under a tremendous amount of political pressure to apologize. And so, those types of apologies are generally met with perceptions of insincerity and disbelief around the genuineness of them. They're also more scripted. They're, they take place on a public stage. And, because of that, they're, they don't seem as, as spontaneous and therefore less remorseful.
And then, one last reason is that there's this culture of apology that we now live in. It's been named the Age of Apology, the Apology Era, the Apology Phenomenon, that kind of thing. And we can barely look at the news these days without seeing some sort of public figure apologizing for something. And this, this frequency with which we're seeing these apologies seems to reduce their value due to something called normative dilution. It just, you're apologizing because it's the thing to do. It's something that's expected. You have to do it. It's not because it's sincere. And so, for all of those reasons, these apologies are not valued to the same extent as interpersonal apologies are and, therefore, tend to be less effective.
Grant:
Great. Thanks. That's a really good background. And we'll return to that question of public apologies and get even more detail in just a little while. So, I want to start very basically with interpersonal apologies. So, you mentioned in a number of your papers that apologies are the single most important factor in restoring relationships. We know that one of the great truths in life is that we inevitably hurt others, either strangers or the ones that we love. So why is it that this is the single most important factor in restoring relationships? What can we gain… What can we hope to gain from especially effective apologies, both the transgressor, the victim, society in general?
Karina:
Yeah. So, in this interpersonal domain, apologies really seem to be powerful. They're, they're thought of as almost transformative actions. And, and they do so because they're, they send a very strong signal to the victim, to the person who's been hurt, that, let's say I, I'm the transgressor apologizing, I recognize that what I did was wrong. That provides really useful information about my moral character. So, I, if I can recognize that this was wrong, this is going to repair your perception of me as a moral person. It also is going to provide information about my tendency or my likelihood of engaging in this kind of behavior in the future. If I don't think what I did is wrong, why would I not do it again in the future? But if I do think it was wrong and I take responsibility for it, that's, in a way, a suggestion at least, or, or a stronger likelihood that I'm not going to do this again. Apologies also communicate concern. I care about you. I care about our relationship. I want to make this better. And that feeling of concern conveys really, really important information about the, the status of the relationship and the value that's put on the relationship. And in general, apologies do a number of other things. They help validate the victim's perceptions of what occurred. They help the victim emphasi... empathize with the transgressor and say, "You know what? You're not that bad. And I could see how this might've happened."
So, they send a lot of important information. And because of that, they are, in research, they've come out as probably the most important predictor, the mo... having the most powerful influence on forgiveness, which we think of, sort of, as the holy grail of conflict resolution.
There... I will say that an apology would probably lose its power if it's not backed up with action. So, if you apologize, then do the thing over again, and you apologize and there's real no, there's no real change that comes with the apology, no behavioral change that, that comes alongside it, then it's not going to be as powerful. So, one of the reasons why I do think apologies are so powerful is because they signal the possibility for change. And, and if there isn't evidence of that change occurring, then they will start to lose their power.
Grant:
So, that really highlights the role of contrition and a commitment to the amendment of life for the power of the apology to, to stick.
Karina:
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Grant:
So, you mentioned this is one of the most important predictors of restoring a broken relationship. Are there other ways that we can restore relationships, independent of apologies? Or is the apology so central that not much can really be done until that apology happens?
Karina:
That's a great question. So, I think an apology is often necessary but not always sufficient. So, you know, if, if, if an apology doesn't occur, victims will likely feel that something is missing. You haven't, you haven't taken that step. You haven't taken responsibility. And without that, are you really ready to move forward? Are you really ready to heal this wound and do what it takes to, to make this relationship better and to, to repair the damage that you've done? So, I really think of an apology as a very important first step. Like I said, it often does need to be coupled with actual behavioral change or some evidence that you're going to, you know, behave better in the future.
But alongside an apology—or maybe instead of—open dialogue, open conversation about what occurred can be really helpful. So, you know, this is, let's understand what happened here. Let's understand without, you know, excuses and justifications, why you feel the way you feel, why I did what I did. And that would probably be better, more effective if it happens alongside an apology, but it might be effective on its own as well. But really trying to get at understanding the relationship and understanding the issues that are underlying the conflict can, can be really useful in terms of helping to repair damage that's caused by conflicts.
Grant:
You've alluded to a number of factors that make for a good apology. You, you talked a little bit about accepting responsibility and then some commitment to amending life and changing the way that you behave. What are sort of the key aspects of a good apology? And again, you've, I know you've outlined these a little bit, but maybe even, just, directly, what makes for a good apology?
Karina:
Sure. So, there's a number of apology frameworks out there. In the framework I use, there are eight main apology elements. And I would think of three of these as being core. There's the apology statement, so that expression of remorse where you say, "I'm sorry. I apologize. I feel terrible." To, to convey that apology, that essence of an apology there.
I think that an acceptance of responsibility is very, very core to an apology. If... you can think of countless apologies that've been offered out there where it's, "I'm sorry, but..." or "I'm sorry that you feel this way..." And those apologies, it, it's not clear what you're quite sorry for, and it's not clear what you're willing to take responsibility for. And, like I said, without that expression of responsibility, it's not clear that you are really committed to changing your behavior or committed to behaving in a different way. And so, that responsibility, it also, it also removes responsibility from the victim in some way. You know, that when it's, when it's ambiguous, when apology hasn't occurred, it might feel like the victim needs to take on responsibility for aspects of the offense that, that they don't think they should. And so, by you taking on the responsibility, it takes off some of that from them.
And then, some sort of offer of repair is also thought of as core. And to say, you know, “How am I going to make this better?” Or to repair the relationship through expressions of love, through expressions of commitment, through expressions of care. Those are all, sort of, reparative types of statements that can help the person feel better about what has occurred and better about the relationship moving forward.
Grant:
What are some of the factors that stand in the way of a transgressor offering an apology? What would make someone not offer an apology despite realizing that some pain has occurred or some conflict has occurred?
Karina:
So, oftentimes the situation isn't clear-cut, right? You can probably think about conflicts with your spouse or best friend or parents or something. And it's like, we both, we both screwed up here to some degree, and you made me feel this way. And yeah, I might've done this, but it's in the context of this and, you know, the history of our relationship, that kind of thing. So, we often feel provoked, and we often feel like we're not fully responsible. And there's this thing called magnitude gap between the transgressor's perspective and the victim's perspective. So, even someone who might be labeled as the transgressor in the situation sees the offense as less severe. They see themselves as less responsible. They see the actions as more justifiable. All of those things are going to get in the way of them feeling fully responsible and get in the way of them feeling like they really need to apologize to this person for their actions.
But even when we take responsibility for actions, even when we see ourselves as, as the transgressor and say, "You know what? I screwed up here," there are things that can stand in the way. One of those things is a feeling of threat to our moral self-image. We want to feel like we're good people. This is a tremendously central aspect of our human experience. We want to feel moral. We want to feel like we're acting in normative, appropriate ways in society and in our relationships. And so, when we engage in some kind of behavior that violates that, either inappropriate, immoral behavior or even, you know, some sort of incompetent behavior, we feel like we're, just, threatened in terms of our self-identity. And an apology is interesting because it actually does repair that moral self-identity. But when we're anticipating apologizing, we don't think of it that way. We think of it as, "Ooh, do I want to take responsibility for this nasty thing?" or "Ooh, do I want to admit that I screwed up in this way?" It just, it's an aversive feeling. And so, that threat to our image, especially a moral self-image, can really stand in the way because an apology is requiring us to associate ourselves with immoral, bad, incompetent action. And that's not something that's comfortable for us.
Another barrier that can stand in the way is, just, kind of, low concern for the other person. We tend to get really swept up in our own experience of things, and that creates a desire to self-protect and have a self-focus. And we might not be able to empathize with the other person's experience. Why is this upsetting you? I don't really relate. And maybe they're, even, the relationship is not wanting to really care about that much. Well, I don't really care about making amends with you because this is not a relationship I prioritize. So, that low concern for the, for the other person or the relationship is definitely going to hinder your willingness to engage in this somewhat costly behavior of apologizing to them.
And then, finally, we might also withhold apology simply because we don't think it's going to be effective. There's research showing that we anticipate that apologies will be less effective than they are. So, we just don't really anticipate the benefits that they have. And oftentimes, if the victim is expressing a lot of hostility or anger, we think, "Well, they're not going to forgive us anyway. This is this, you know, it's going to be pointless. Why should I take that step when it's really not going to be useful?" So, our expectations of what an apology can do or not do often stand in the way of, of us apologizing, as well.
Grant:
So, in the papers that I read, you talk a little bit about improving interventions to improve apologies. So, what's the context in which these interventions might occur? I'm trying to think about how that would happen. Are we talking something like couples counseling? Or what is an intervention to improve apologies?
Karina:
So, there's a number, there's a number of ways you can, you can tackle it, right. You can try to get at the psychology that interferes with apologies. In some of my own work, a few ways that we've tried to do this is to try to reduce that threat. So, I talked about how it can be threatening to apologize. Right? So, how can we get rid of that threat so that people feel freed up and feel open and comfortable with apologizing. And so, one of the ways we do have is to affirm other sources of self-worth. You feel like, you know, thinking about this offensive behavior you did might threaten your identity as a good person, but oh, remember these other aspects of your life in which you hold value. Remember your relationships, your, your role as a parent, your social groups, your religion, other aspects that bring you a sense of worth and value. And if you do that, then they feel buffered. They feel protected against the threat of potentially taking responsibility for this wrongful behavior.
Other ways we've done it is to try to change mindsets. So, I mentioned before that I did my postdoc with Carol Dweck. And what we did was we taught people a growth mindset of personality. Personality is something you can change. It's something you can work on. It's not set in stone. And this is a work in progress. And if you teach people that, then they don't see a given offense as this looming threat of who they are as a person, as this stagnant, you know, if I did something wrong, it means I'm a bad person. You know, it teaches them this is a mistake I made, but I can grow from it. I can learn from this. And, therefore, I'm willing to take responsibility for this thing.
And then, there's other things that we could do that would be more direct training. So, you know, when, when apologizing, when, when you face a situation where you've done something wrong, some people might not know the right way to apologize. And so, you could provide training in terms of how to apologize effectively and also, you know, teaching them about the value of apologizing. So, try to take a step back, put aside some of these fears and understand that apologizing will probably lead to both reparation of your self-image and your moral identity and also relationship repair. And so, that would be a more direct approach that would probably have benefits as well.
Grant:
Share some contexts in which you would do this. Would this be an interpersonal psychiatry or psychology appointment with a provider? Or is this in a broader institutional setting, like a workplace? Where would you do something like this?
Karina:
I mean, all of those are possibilities. We haven't, we haven't done that. We haven't taken it into an applied space yet. But you could imagine counseling sessions with a therapist where a therapist says, you know, "Let's take a step back and offer an apology here. And here are things that you might say." You can imagine in the workplace there being workshops on, you know, if, if you do wrong by somebody, here are some things that you can do. Or, you know, let's talk about how to, how to reduce the threat that might come with taking responsibility for, for a wrongdoing. You know, creating a culture of it being okay to make mistakes, as long as you then, you know, do what's right by fixing them. You can imagine, kind of, workshops that are offered online even, right. So, it doesn't need to be as part of a, part of a broader corporation or a space where people would specifically, already be going for some sort of therapy. But you can imagine workshops being offered online as, as, you know, apology education or something. So, we, we haven't done this in an applied space, but I don't think that, that there are really any limits to, to where this could be applied.
Grant:
So, a number of your papers focus on showing relationships between apologies and characteristics of the people involved in the conflict. I saw some bad news that men are less likely to apologize than women. Why is that? What's that about?
Karina:
When I started this research, I kept coming across this stereotype that women apologize readily and frequently, and men never apologize. And they intentionally withhold apologies because their egos don't allow them to take responsibility for their wrongdoing. And I thought, “Okay. Well, where's the research to back this up? This is all just, you know, stereotypes and anecdotes.” So, I decided to, to do the work, and I did find across a number of studies, now, that women do apologize more frequently than men. The stereotype is true to some degree. But there are some really important things to keep in mind here that we found in the research.
So, the first thing I would like people to know is that this difference is far smaller than what the stereotype would suggest. So, when people think about this, they think, "Oh, women apologize for everything; men never apologize." That is extremely far from the truth. In reality, it ends up being something like a 0.5 difference on a seven-point scale. Okay. So, this not a huge difference.
A second thing to keep in mind is the reason why women are apologizing more frequently. So, what we found is in a first study we did a diary study where we had men and women write down on a daily basis any offenses they had committed and any apologies they had offered. And what we found was, yes, women apologized more frequently, so they offered more apologies on a daily basis than men did, but we also found that women reported more offenses. So, they also reported committing more offenses. We also found this from the victim's perspective. So, women reported being the victims of more offenses than men reported being. What this made us think was perhaps women are apologizing more frequently because they're seeing more offenses. Perhaps men and women have what we might call a different threshold for what constitutes an offense. And so, we ran a bunch of follow-up research using, you know, the same types of offenses to make sure there weren't different types of, you know, scenarios that were contributing to men and women's difference in apology frequency and severity perceptions. But across all of these different studies using various methods, what we found was that women tend to see the same behaviors as more offensive than men see them. Again, this difference is not huge. It's not like women see something as wildly severe and men don't see it as offensive at all. But there is a meaningful difference between the way men and women perceive offensive behavior. And that difference is in the direction of women seeing things as more severe. And because they see it as more severe, they see it as more deserving of an apology and therefore are more likely to apologize.
And when you account for that severity piece, that perceived, that perception that an offense has actually occurred, the gender difference goes away. So, as an example, when we took into account the proportion of total offenses that men apologized for and the proportion of total offenses that women apologized for, they're actually identical. Men and women apologize for the exact same proportion of offenses that they think they've committed. So, I would say the news is less bleak than it sounds for men.
Grant:
Good.
Karina:
That it's not that, you know, you're unwilling or that you're not really taking the effort, making the effort to do what's right in these situations. But there is a difference of perception, and I think it really points to the need to communicate through conflict, to be able to say, "How can we get on the same page about this? I feel hurt, you know, and I, I feel like something has occurred here that's offensive." And so, we can communicate through those and, and potentially, you know, get on the same page about whether an offense has occurred or not and whether an apology is deserved and warranted.
Grant:
And I also saw conservatives are less likely to apologize than liberals. I'm curious what that is.
Karina:
Yes. So, with Matthew Hornsey and a number of other colleagues, we found across many nations that conservatives are less likely to apologize than liberals. This was due to a primary... the primary mechanism was social dominance orientation, which is essentially that conservatives feel a little bit more comfortable than liberals saying that there's, kind of, this hierarchy in society and that I'm okay with that. That it's okay for some groups to dominate other groups. And that led to a lower inclination or willingness to apologize. There was also some evidence that conservatives had more of a fixed versus growth mindset of personality, so they're a little bit more likely to say, "No, your personality is what your personality is. It's not going to change." But yes, so this, this idea, like, it's okay if I... potentially, it's okay if I have offended you a little bit more, because it's a, perhaps, I'm more comfortable with the fact that I can dominate you and I can have power over you and not equalize that power through an apology. That's, that's the evidence that we found. It's, I think we found it fairly robustly across a number of nations, but I do think that there is more work that's needed to be done in understanding the psychology of the conservative-liberal difference there.
Grant:
Yeah. So, one thing that makes me think of is, you know, we talk a lot about cancel culture. Some people think it exists. Some people don't. It seems as though, at least the stereotype is that people that are liberal—whatever that means anymore; it's not quite clear, always, what that means at this point in our lives—but are more likely to take offense that things on the internet and cancel people. At least, that's the stereotype. Could that have something to do with it? Where, maybe, people that are a little more liberally minded are more sensitive to offense than conservatives would be?
Karina:
Hmm. I see. So, kind of, almost bringing the severity aspect into, into the, the domain of conservative versus liberal. We didn't, we didn't test for that. I think it's, it's certainly a possibility that there might be a hyper—not a hyper, but a higher, excuse me—vigilance for whether something is offensive and something needs to be addressed and repaired among liberals. Like you said, there's potentially greater vigilance for whether people haven't been acting appropriately and perhaps a greater inclination to, to hold people responsible and accountable. And that's why you see this cancel culture phenomenon occurring. So that, that definitely seems like another mechanism through which it could occur. Like I said, I think there's more work to be done there to really understand the psychology. And that seems like a possibility, for sure.
Grant:
Yeah, that's interesting. So, I want to turn a little bit towards the question of public apologies, which is, again, relevant in, to this question of cancel culture and Twitter. But talk something a little bit different, right now. A number of your recent papers have focused on public apologies, especially in the context of Me Too movement. And for those of you that do not remember, in recent years, a number of high-profile men were accused of sexual harassment and assault. A number of these men responded with public apologies. And the Me Too is the hashtag used on social media to indicate that you've also been a victim of this sort of harassment or assault. We think particularly of Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and others—high profile folks that have been accused of these, and some convicted as well.
So, one thing, as I watched these public apologies, is they don't seem particularly directed to the victims themselves but to the general public. And they, they often feel, as you mentioned before, very self-serving, trying to offset some of the damage for the transgressors. And I always wonder what is the point of what they're doing right now? So, what is the point of these sorts of public apologies?
Karina:
It's a great question. And it's, it is a very odd type of thing in a way because, like you said, they're not really apologizing to the victims themselves. And you would expect that, you know, if they're, this apology was meaningful and heartfelt that they would go behind closed doors—or maybe not closed doors in this particular case—but they would reach out to the victim themselves—victims, usually—and, you know, apologize in a heartfelt way in a more private, interpersonal way.
These public apologies, I think what you alluded to is another reason why they are met with skepticism and cynicism is that they seem like they're like a ploy. Like, why are you apologizing to the public? Now, on the one hand, these people have a public image to report to, to, to repair. And they also have almost, like, a role-model type of role that they play. So, especially, you know, politicians and people like even like Tiger Woods when he apologized for his, his affair, right. See, they have this public image, people look up to them, they look to them for moral guidance, perhaps. And they've now, you know, they've reflected poorly on the company that they work for and, or the, the name brand that they support, all kinds of things like that. So, in a way, the public apology serves to say, "I am no longer that person. I've made mistakes. Please, you know, know that I am, I'm committed to getting better."
And so, it's because they have this public-figure role, it seems like they have a responsibility to the public to try to repair that image. And so, even though it's odd, like, who are we to, to forgive one of these apologies? I'm not the victim. Do I, is forgiveness even something that is meaningful, meaningful here? It, it doesn't quite make sense the way an interpersonal apology does, or even a government apology to victims of, or, or family members of groups that had been victimized in the past. But there is this, there is this kind of responsibility that they've been bestowed with, by having this public figure role in our society. And because of that, they need to be accountable to the public in a way and put out there that they are making amends and doing what's necessary to change.
Grant:
Do you think these sort of public policies do help the victims recover in any meaningful way? Or does it make it worse by then parading it in public?
Karina:
That's something I don't know the answer to. It is something I'm very curious about. A lot of the victim reactions to these apologies are, are not very positive. They'll say, "This is not meaningful." You know, when they do speak out and say, "This apology is worthless," especially when they're a terrible, terrible apology. Like some of the ones we've seen where they blame it on diabetes or they blame it on the victim or they, you know, say "I, maybe I was drunk," in the, in the, in the case of Kevin Spacey, right? So, sometimes the apology is really meaningless, and I think that those are not helpful at all.
But to some extent, you can imagine that a public figure going out there and taking responsibility. So, when it's, when it's a good, strong apology where they're going out there and they're sincerely taking responsibility that that could be meaningful for the victim because it says, basically, "You can believe, you can believe me." Especially in this context of Me Too, where some people have doubts about whether they're telling the truth and there's all of this victim blaming that goes on, that when the alleged transgressor goes out there and offers an apology, it says, "This person is telling the truth and they deserve amends." And that, I think, could be validating for victims.
Grant:
Do you think there's any broader public good that these apologies might serve, in some ways demonstrating that it's good for people to apologize generally? So, you have a—I wouldn't want my child to watch these apologies, but say they did, and they saw a high-profile person apologizing for something that they had done. Or is the public apology and the interpersonal apology so different that there's not much to be learned in terms of interpersonal conflict from watching a public official make apologies?
Karina:
That's a great question. I don't know the answer to that empirically. I think that there could be—well, I'll say that most of the time these public apologies are not ones we want to learn from—but I think that there could be a message that apologies are normative and the right way to manage your mistakes. Like I said, though, there's so much, like, the, the perception by default is that they tend to be insincere and be driven by ulterior motives. And so, I'm not sure how successful they are in conveying that perspective. But I think, I think public apologies can be really meaningful in sending a message, especially if it's a government, for example, apologizing for an egregious offense that was committed, even by a government decades ago, to say, "This is not okay. This is not something that we stand for in the current time. And we are going to do everything we can to learn from this, this harm that was committed by our government to make sure that this doesn't happen again." I think those types of apologies can really send powerful messages to people about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
And, yeah, in terms of its sending the message that apologies are good in the interpersonal domain, perhaps a little bit, but I think this is something that we learn from a very young age to begin with, you know. Like, we, as young kids, we’re told, "Apologize. Apologize." And I have so many memories already of my six-year-old and three-year-old. My six-year-old being like, "She needs to apologize." And my three-year-old being, like, stubborn not to apologize. And me coming in and saying, "Sweetie Pie, you have to apologize to your brother." That kind of thing. So, it's something, it's a message that we get from an early age. And it's something that I think is very normative in our culture as the right thing to do. And, certainly, we don't always do it, but I think we also, we, we tend to know that it's what should be done.
Grant:
Right. And children are given a tremendous sense of justice, as well, in demanding apologies. So...
Karina:
Absolutely.
Grant:
I suspect that your work is going to continue in this realm as we continue to hash out these public debates on Twitter. I keep thinking about how grateful I am that I didn't have Twitter when I was seventeen and all the ridiculous things I'd said that I probably would have had to apologize for time and again. So, I suspect you will have plenty of material to continue publishing in this space for the foreseeable future.
So, you mentioned government apologies, and I think this is an interesting time to have this conversation. So, I do wanna talk a little bit about that. Maybe we can opine a bit about how that might help in this particular polarized time.
So, as many people know the US government has a history of making public apologies for wrongs that they've committed. We think particularly to Japanese internees during World War II, Native Americans, victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. However, the US government's never apologized for what we consider to be our original sin, which is slavery. And as you know, we're experiencing an upsurge in racial conflict in the United States. We think, particularly, last summer—and, and, interesting to see what happens as the trial of the police officer who killed George Floyd is happening—we'll, we're continuing these conversations. And, and more generally, we're just deeply polarized. A number of bills have been presented over the years for the government to officially apologize for slavery, but no joint bill has ever been presented to the president, at least as far as I know. What do you think such an apology could accomplish? You alluded to this a little bit before, but I'm interested in your direct response. An apology from the US government for history of slavery, what, what could that accomplish?
Karina:
I think it would accomplish a lot. I think one of the major reasons why the federal government has not apologized for slavery is because they anticipate a lack of support from a large majority of their constituents, and polling data would support that perspective. So, I think they anticipate backlash. And I think they also anticipate something called a slippery slope, right. That if we apologize, do we have to offer compensation? Where does that compensation stop? Who does it extend to? It's just too big for them to, to, to handle in terms of the potential monetary consequences. But in terms of a symbolic apology, I think in this current time it would accomplish a lot.
I mean, like you said, victim groups have been—and various advocates have been—pushing for this apology for decades, and it still hasn't come. Various states have apologized, and they've apologized for the Jim Crow laws, but there's never been an official government apology. And I think it could symbolize a move towards putting first the, the African-American community and, as opposed to the white majority community. And I think that symboli... that symbol... symbolic behavior could be tremendously powerful in terms of race relationships. It would be, it would be a pivoting, pivoting move in terms of how we might, how, how members of the African-American community would perceive the government in terms of trust and willingness to work on race relations and willingness to put them first as a community.
And, you know, if you look at trending polling data, we see that, whereas there's always a difference between whites and blacks in terms of how they think of race relations in the United States, where whites are thinking it's going better than blacks do. But for both groups, it's just been on the decline for the last, for the last decade or so. And it does not seem to be changing its pattern at all. It seems to be getting worse. And I think something like a government apology could be a really important signal for this community who's feeling really, really victimized in the current time.
Grant:
Yeah, I think one thing you said was really interesting is where we talked before that an apology really does require some degree of contrition and amendment of life. And that really does have political implications and financial implications that when we make this apology, there is some expectation that some wrongs will be made right. And that's when the real political arm wrestling would, would really come in. I hadn't really thought about it in that context.
Although, one thing I do find interesting is this wondering what it means for a specific representative within government to apologize for acts that they've never committed, expressly. And I think, also, about apologies for, you know, "white privilege." Is it relevant that the apology is being offered on behalf of others or on behalf of impersonal institutions by a particular person that may or may not have directly participated in the offense?
Karina:
That's a great question. And it's a very interesting question. And I think there is some research that speaks to this. So, as I alluded to earlier, on the whole public apologies are generally, just, less effective than interpersonal apologies. And I talked about sincerity being a major issue there. But there are things that can be done to make those apologies more effective.
One of the things that can be done is to move away from, like, a leader of the government apologizing to this mass group, to either a leader apologizing to a leader or several leaders of the other group in this more interpersonal, sincere, intimate way. You know, that just, where you can, where you can feel like real emotion is being conveyed. And yes, there would be an apology on an unofficial stage as well, but where it can take place in this more personal context can be effective. And then, it would be, then, between a leader and another leader, and then the leader sort of representing the group and saying, you know, then conveying the remorse on behalf of, of, of the group, that kind of thing.
Another thing that can be done is grassroots apologies. So, apologies from the people. You know, we see this in Australia with the Stolen Generations, where every year they get together and they put messages in the sky and they, they get down on knees and they say, "I'm so sorry." And this is coming from the people themselves, as opposed to a leader of the government. And that communicates remorse from a broader representation of people that you're living with in your, in your society. That communicates a very different message than, you know, a single leader apologizing on the government's behalf, on behalf of the people, which, you know, is not always clear that the people support it.
In terms of whether a leader should be apologizing for things of the past. You know, I think they are representing a government that is although, you know, very varied in terms of the ideologies they represent and the, the bills they put forth, and all of that kind of thing, it's seen as this, sort of, like, continuous system. And so, I do think it is still meaningful for leaders of the present day to apologize for injustices of the past in the way that I said before. To say, "This has happened; this cannot happen again. The current system does not support this, and we will do everything in our power to learn from this. And here are the ways that we're going to learn from this." And you see this a lot in Bill Clinton's Tuskegee apology, right. So, he talks about how they're going, the memorials they will put up to, you know, to make sure this day's never forgotten so that we can learn from it and various other ways in which they will try to not only not forget about the past but, you know, really learn from it. So, I think that these apologies can be meaningful in that regard, even though it is a completely different leadership, even though it's a completely different, you know, system in, in, in terms of the people who are embodying it and maybe even the laws that are in place. But that there is this sense of continuity and still, you know, a need to make amends for the actions of the past. So that it's clear that those, those actions won't reoccur in the future.
Grant
Yeah. Thank you so much. That's really, really fascinating. You know, it's interesting that a public apology might diffuse this polarized moment. At the same time, it's, it seems less likely that we'll have something like this, given our polarized moment. So, it almost, we need someone with, with great courage to move first and move in the right direction.
So, one type of apology that I didn't see in your, in your framework that I thought was kind of interesting is what I was sort of thinking about was one-to-God apologies. Right? So, I read with great interest some of the work that you coauthored related to individuals' personal relationship with God, and that in many ways it's similar to and complements and substitutes for interpersonal relationships with other humans.
And so again, it made me think that there's this type of apology that's not discussed in your work or, sort of, the broader work. And it's neither interpersonal, exactly, or public. But I'm thinking about that transgression that people commit against God for which there's no specifically victimized person or group. It would seem to me that many people carry this, sort of, great existential guilt and need this, sort of, forgiveness regardless of the depths of their religious faith.
So, I'm wondering how you would characterize an apology like that because a lot of people do that. They, they tell God or the universe or whatever is, sort of, consistent with their religious ethical beliefs that they're sorry for what they've done. How would you characterize that kind of apology? Would it be interpersonal given the fact that there's this personal relationship with God that they're trying to fix?
Karina:
I think it would be pretty close to an interpersonal apology. We do have these close, personal relationships with God—many people do, of course. And those relationships seem to mirror and follow a lot of the processes that we have in our close relationships with other human beings. And so, I think that the apology process there would also be similar.
And when you think about major religions, maybe all religions—or most, I should say—forgiveness is such a central component to the religious doctrine and to what we think God offers. And I think that the apology, you know, apologies are so tightly connected to forgiveness. And so, when we, when we offer an apology to God, it's a little bit different than an interpersonal apology because there's, you know, there isn't an opportunity to receive a verbal, for example, expression of forgiveness from God. But the, I think that the process is similar in that we would apologize with the hope of being forgiven and that that apology, in terms of how we feel about our own acts, would be similarly relieving in terms of relieving guilt, in terms of feeling like we've done something towards making amends, and, and contributing to our relationship with God. That we're going to apologize because we want to, to repair the damage that we've done to our relationship with God and to try to make that better and fix it.
And, and so, I think that the process would be very similar. I think it's a fascinating research question and something that you've piqued my interest about and possibly might pursue in the future. In terms of how do people treat these apologies and think about them? And, and what, what do they feel after they offer them? But I think it's probably something that occurs with extremely high frequency and that is very meaningful to, to the lives of people who ascribe to a religion and practice that religion.
Grant:
Yeah. So, one thing, as I was reading your work, that I find really interesting is the, the pattern of apologies and the characteristics of apology very closely, sort of, aligned, for example, with the, the liturgy of confession within the Roman Catholic Church. There's this acceptance of guilt, there's contrition, there's a, an outlining of the things that you've done, and then there's amendment of life and penance. You even said that there's, within apologies, you have to, sort of, make amends for what you've done, which is, sort of, the act penance. So, I thought it was very interesting that it almost lines up exactly with the way that you talk about interpersonal apologies.
So, what do you think it means that fewer and fewer people have religious context to confess these sort of transgressions, as fewer people are religiously affiliated and even, sort of, the practice of the rights of confession are no longer really a regular practice, even for those that are religiously affiliated? Do you think that might have broader social and psychological impacts?
Karina:
I'm not sure. I think that, that people have, can have close, personal relationships with God outside of those rituals that are set in place and that they can, that something like an apology and the forgiveness response, or feeling like you will be forgiven, can occur outside of that. And just, you know, in, in prayer or in, even in a less formal conversation with God that you might have. And different people can, can, can maintain a relationship with God in, in very different ways. Right? So, I'm not sure. I mean, I think having the confession process, specifically, you know, makes that an opportunity for that type of behavior to emerge. But I also think it's something that probably emerges very organically in, in people's personal relationships with God outside of that.
So I, I don't have a good sense of how that might affect behavior more generally, but because, but because of this other opportunity to have these private conversations, I'm not sure that it would really reduce that behavior too much. It might reduce the penance aspects a little bit more because that penance isn't being, sort of, given to us by a religious leader. But I think that we might... that the apology, the apology action would probably still be occurring with fairly high frequency.
One thing I should, I wanted to mention, and I didn't quite get in in the last question that you asked was something that might be different are these barriers to apologizing that they might not exist in a similar way with our, when we feel like we've transgressed against God. And we might be more willing to apologize because of that. Especially, if we think of God as omniscient and omnipotent and everything, that we, we probably feel like God's got a good handle on what we've done and doesn't need us to tell to, to, to convey that. But that, you know, these fear… some of the fears that we have that go alongside an interpersonal apology might be less relevant in these apologies to God, and, therefore, might open us up more to, to offering those apologies.
Grant:
That's great. So, I want to conclude our conversation with a very short discussion on intellectual humility. It seems like a topic that has piqued your interest recently with some colleagues, either at Pitt or, maybe, at other institutions. So, intellectual humility seems to help students learn and may even be an important part of addressing conflict, particularly political polarization, another topic that you have been writing about. So, what is intellectual humility and how is it operative in our lives? How can it be operative?
Karina:
Absolutely. So, intellectual humility is the ability or the tendency to think of your knowledge as limited and fallible. That I don't know everything and it's okay that I don't know everything and that my knowledge might have holes in it and gaps in it. And other people might know things that I don't know, all of that kind of thing. And intellectual humility is a fairly new construct. Humility has been around for a while, but this, this idea of intellectual humility is, is fairly new and been getting a lot of attention the last decade or so. And as you said, it predicts a lot of really important things. What we think it's doing is if I, if I, if I'm able to see that my knowledge is limited and not a hundred percent accurate, then I'm going to be more open to learning about diverse perspectives, people who see things different than me. I'm going to want to seek out information to fill in some of those gaps. And I'm going to really have a hunger and desire to have my, the information that I learn be based on solid evidence, to have it really be validated, and to, to explore information to make sure that what I'm learning is accurate so that I can fill in those gaps well.
And this is, this is basically what we find. We find that it predicts a number of really important things, like, that are related to learning in students and things like persistence in the face of failure and seeking out challenges and seeking out information. And, and then in this, like, political and other intergroup domains, like seeking out diverse perspectives. "You don't agree with me? That's okay. I want to learn about what you think so that I can fill in the gaps in my own knowledge."
And it's, I want to be clear that it's not humility in that you think, "Oh, I'm not worthy," or "I'm, I don't know as much as everybody else," or that, you know, "I should just put my opinions aside and take what you say as, as true." That's not what it's about at all. It's, it's, it's about wanting to learn more too, because you are aware that your current knowledge is limited.
Grant:
So, is this a fixed characteristic of a person's personality or is this a virtue in which you might be able to grow?
Karina:
There isn't a ton of evidence on this yet, but I think of it as the latter. I think that there's no reason why this wouldn't be a virtue that you can grow. We do have some manipulations in our research where we, you know, kind of, play around with it, trying to boost it up and that kind of thing. And we do show that they are, it is responsive to that. So, and then we also see a lot of situational variability, which means that, you know, in one situation you might exert more of it than in another situation, which suggests that it's, sort of, responsive to the needs of the current context. And that all would say to me that this is something that can be controlled to some extent and certainly can be grown.
And, just, in the way we can teach people a growth mindset, and growth mindset is, of course, related to intellectual humility, I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be able to help teach people intellectual humility and help them bolster it in their own lives.
Grant:
Well, Karina, I wish we had more time to discuss this and, and all the other really interesting work that you're doing. So, I just want to thank you for joining me today. I really had a lot of fun in this conversation. I'm hoping that this will make me a better husband. That's, sort of, that was actually my primary goal in bringing you on the podcast.
Karina:
[laughter]
Grant:
I'd go home and apologize to my wife for the many things that I've done wrong, even just today. So, thank you, again. And hopefully... go ahead.
Karina:
I was gonna say, just make sure you do it sincerely ’cause the sincerity, you know, you could throw in as many of those statements that I, that I told you to do, but what really matters is that it comes across as sincere.
Grant:
Yeah. Actually, when I did see your work, I wondered if there's some expectation in your family and in your friend network that you'd be this great apologizer and this great resolver of conflict. I'd imagine that’d be a lot of pressure on you.
Karina:
It... there is a tremendous amount of pressure, and my husband has thrown it in my face a couple of times when I have not managed a conflict to his liking. [laughter]
Grant:
[laughter] Yeah, well...
Karina:
But I'm human, too.
Grant:
That makes sense. Yeah. No, of course. So, thank you, again, for, for spending some time with me, and hopefully we'll be able to continue this conversation some, some day in the future.
Karina:
Perfect. Sounds great. And thanks for having me on.
Grant:
All right. Take care.
Karina:
Bye-bye.