Literature Review

Twitter Apologies 1

The Impact Of Apology

Darielmys Diaz

Florida International University

Twitter Apologies 2

INTRODUCTION

This paper presents the literature review for the report titled 'Twitter Apologies.' It

elaborates on several peer-reviewed psychology papers that relate to the final 'twitter apologies'

essay.

In his attempt to explain the impact of apology on a media figure's transgression (Hu et

al., 2019) performed an experiment where subjects were analyzed for their reaction on a

transgression. The study involved two conditions of transgression, one with an apology and

another without apology. The results deduced that a media figure's apology holds a strong role in

improving the parasocial relationships (PSR) and minimizes the audiences’ reaction. This paper

presents how people, particularly media figures, utilize apology to rebuild and improve the PSRs

and, ultimately, the image that the media figure holds.

In this article, the effort is made to shed light on the impact of apology on people’s

reaction, forgiveness, and their emotional response over a transgression. This particular article

reflects its research solely on media personnel like actors, hosts, and media characters. The results

deduced the positive impacts of apology on a media person's image. This article relates to the final

document 'twitter apology' as it reflects the impact of apology on the audience's reaction. It states

the outcomes when media personnel appears with an apologetical speech over his transgression. It

mainly focuses on the psychological aspects of the audience and explores the reaction of the

audience.

The media personnel chosen for this study is George Clooney, who is an eminent

name in the US industry. The subjects informed about a transgression by the character by letting

them read a character (a piece of fake news was used solely for the experiment). Then a

questionnaire is filled by each personnel where the subjects responded for apologized transgression

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and the opposite scenario. Conclusively, apology assisted in having positive relationships and

forgiveness.

The same hypothesis regarding the impact of apology is studied by (Jehle et al., 2012).

This article expressed a similar conclusion that apology reflects a positive impact on relationships.

This article studies the impact of apology after being insulted by a confederate. The Study involved

four situations to study the reactions of victims. The four scenarios included reactions for

 Voluntary apology

 Implicit coerced apology

 Explicit coerced apology

 No apology at all

In the first scenario, the voluntary apology is when the offender is self-motivated by his

wrongdoing and voluntarily utters his apology. This form of apology reflects the most effective

results of the relationship. The second scenario is an implicit apology that means an apology

without any consequences, while the third one is an explicit coerced apology that means an apology

with negative consequences. These two types of apologies are not voluntary and have a lower

chance of a positive impact on the victim's emotions. The last scenario is where the offender doesn't

conduct an apology, reflecting the severe results on the victim's emotions.

Through this scenario, the authors aimed to make a point for the impact of voluntary or

coerced apology on the victim’s emotion. This paper is relevant to Twitter Apologies paper as it

explains the impacts that apologies have on victims and how social interactions and relationships

are altered by the apologies.

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Many other scholars and psychologists have also made remarkable efforts in expressing

the impacts of apology on victims, a person's self-image, and the social relationships as well as on

apology. However, in his article (Leunissen et al., 2013), the writers pen down regarding the

mismatch of victim’s and perpetrator’s willingness to apologize. The study reveals that these two

elements reflect a mismatch, and therefore, the goal of apology for the victim and perpetrator are

different.

The author in this article aimed to express the varying needs regarding apology from the

aspect of victim and perpetrator. There is a difference between a victim wanting an apology once

a transgression has been witnessed and the perpetrator's willingness to apologize for the

transgression. The purpose of the research is to highlight the forces that drive apology for both

perpetrators and victims. The paper mentioned that victims need an apology for intentional

transgression; however, the opposite is the case for perpetrators where the willingness is reflected

upon unintentional transgression. Therefore the needs are impacted by the intentionality of the

transgression.

Referencing the intentionality of transgression, the author states guilt and anger as the

mediating forces for the perpetrator's preference for an apology and the victim’s wanting to receive

an apology. Therefore, these forces are proportional to apology and reflect that the more guilt a

perpetrator feels, the more he is willing to apologize. While the same is for the anger of victims,

where more anger reflects a more desire to receive an apology.

In the research of apology on social media and their impacts on social interaction and social

relationships. In his effort, the author (Matley, 2018) explained the hashtag sorry, not sorry in the

non-apologetic posts on Instagram. In this article, the authors have reported several posts on

Instagram and their function in the audience’s attraction. This article is a description regarding the

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use of this hashtag by the users of Instagram to balance the positive self-image and minimize the

impoliteness associated with the dissemination of posts that may be nonapologetic in some way.

The article is related to the study of twitter apologies as the hashtag sorry not sorry is observed in

the social media as a nonapologetic marker. People use this hashtag for expressing their comments

or images in social media that might seem inappropriate and thus maintain their positive self-image

by this hashtag as this may be a threat to their positive self. This article talks mainly about

nonapologetic posts on the social media site than the impact of apology.

The study of the impact of apology has also been witnessed in (Manika et al., 2017), which

attempted to study the influence of apology for a service’s failure for its customers. The purpose

of the study was to note how a social media service's failure is reacted to by the customer or

potential customer of the service. The results of this experiment revealed that the customer’s

loyalty and trust in service are built with an apology while customers not receiving an apology

face annoyance, distrust, and weakened customer relationships.

Conclusively, there are several instances from literature where the impact of apology has

been studied, describing the positive impact on social relations. The conduct of apologizing over

media and community and social interactions has been shown to have a positive impact on the

victim and offender and mutual relationships and interactions.

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References

Hu, M., Cotton, G., Zhang, B., & Jia, N. (2019). The influence of apology on audiences’ reactions

toward a media figure’s transgression. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(4), 410.

Jehle, A., Miller, M. K., Kemmelmeier, M., & Maskaly, J. (2012). How voluntariness of apologies

affects actual and hypothetical victims’ perceptions of the offender. The Journal of Social

Psychology, 152(6), 727–745.

Leunissen, J. M., De Cremer, D., Folmer, C. P. R., & Van Dijke, M. (2013). The apology

mismatch: Asymmetries between victim’s need for apologies and perpetrator’s willingness

to apologize. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(3), 315–324.

Manika, D., Papagiannidis, S., & Bourlakis, M. (2017). Understanding the effects of a social media

service failure apology: A comparative study of customers vs. potential customers.

International Journal of Information Management, 37(3), 214–228.

Matley, D. (2018). "Let's see how many of you mother fuckers unfollow me for this": The

pragmatic function of the hashtag# sorry not sorry in non-apologetic Instagram posts.

Journal of Pragmatics, 133, 66–78.