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Making Amends: Children's Expectations about and Responses to Apologies
Author(s) -
Drell Marissa B.,
Jaswal Vikram K.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/sode.12168
Subject(s) - restitution , psychology , feeling , social psychology , nothing , tower , developmental psychology , law , political science , philosophy , civil engineering , epistemology , engineering
Two studies investigate children's expectations and actual responses to a transgressor's attempt to make amends. In Study 1, six‐ and seven‐year‐olds (N = 16) participated in a building activity and then imagined how they would respond if a transgressor knocked over their tower and then apologized spontaneously, apologized after prompting, offered restitution, or did nothing. Children forecasted that they would feel better and would share more when a transgressor offered restitution or apologized spontaneously than when the transgressor had to be prompted to apologize or did not apologize at all. In Study 2, six‐ and seven‐year‐olds (N = 64) participated in the same building activity, but then actually had their towers knocked over and received one of the four responses. The only response that actually made children feel better was when the transgressor offered restitution. However, children shared more with a transgressor who offered restitution, a spontaneous apology, or a prompted apology than with one who failed to offer any apology. Restitution can both mitigate hurt feelings and repair relationships in children; apologies serve mainly to repair relationships.