An investigation of cross-cultural gender-wise stereotypes in apologizing through film series.

The present study examined gender-wise differences in the use of apology strategies employed by Persian and American English interlocutors in two popular Persian and American TV film-series. To this aim, 347 apology utterances across 600 min of both Persian and American TV film-series were selected for analysis. The apology utterances produced by males and females in the two film series were observed, classified, and coded based on the apology strategies taxonomy propounded by Eslami-Rasekh (2004) [59]. The acquired data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and Binomial tests to depict the frequency and type of apologies concerning female-female, female-male, male-female, and male-male interactions. The frequency of the males' apologies to the females and males suggested no statistically significant differences between the two communities. In addition, the findings manifested both similarities and differences in the realization and distribution of the apology speech act between males and females in the targeted cultures. For example, the apology strategies were more commonly used by the males than the females. Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices were the most frequent apology strategies employed by the Persian and American males in both languages. In the Persian film series, 'Acceptance of responsibility' and 'Offer of repair' were the other frequent apology strategies which differed significantly between the males and females. In the American film series, 'Explanation', 'Acceptance of responsibility', and 'Refusing responsibility' were the strategies found to be significantly different between the males and females. Generally, it was realized that males were more inclined to apologize in the examined film series despite the prevalent stereotype that women apologize more frequently than men.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND LEGACIES OF SELECTED BLACK PIONEERS IN OPHTHALMOLOGY AND INSTITUTIONAL MILESTONES.

PURPOSE: Establishing a record of key contributions of early Black ophthalmologists can help illuminate future generations. We aimed to identify major physician pioneers in Ophthalmology, delineate their contributions, and place their ascendance in an historical context to understand the institutional and cultural barriers they overcame to achieve success. METHODS: Pubmed and other databases were searched, along with death notices and archeological records, using "Black," "African American," "eye surgeon," "Negro," "Journal of the National Medical Association" and other search terms. Librarians from the Library of Congress, National Institutes of Health, and key ophthalmology-training institutions were consulted, as were the American Academy of Ophthalmology and American Board of Ophthalmology. Family members and colleagues of selected deceased pioneers were interviewed. RESULTS: Many early pioneers emerged from historically black institutions, as Black students and practitioners were then typically excluded elsewhere. Mentorship is a key theme that emerged in the careers of many pioneers and the Black ophthalmologists they trained. CONCLUSIONS: Black ophthalmologists have contributed tremendously to eye-care practice, education, and innovation. Efforts to recruit and train Black ophthalmologists should include highlighting the roles of Black pioneers, increasing educational and training access for underrepresented in medicine at the institutional level, and expanding pathway and mentorship programs.

Roles of expressed gratitude and apologies in predicting reciprocal responsiveness.

Research has indicated the critical role of responsiveness in facilitating close relationships, but what communication leads to enhanced responsiveness has not been fully explored. We hypothesized that gratitude and apologies facilitate responsiveness within friendship relationships in Japan. In Experiment 1 (n = 669), receiving gratitude, apologies, or both gratitude and apologies increased recipients' perceptions of the expresser's responsiveness more than receiving a message without either gratitude or apologies. In Experiment 2 (n = 139), the participants who received gratitude as well as receiving both gratitude and apologies (but not just apologies) wrote more responsive messages back to the expresser than those who received a message without either gratitude or apologies. Gratitude and apologies played unique roles in promoting responsiveness within friendship relationships.

Why do we feel close to a person who expresses gratitude? Exploring mediating roles of perceived warmth, conscientiousness, and agreeableness.

The literature suggests that expressed gratitude improves the interpersonal relationship between a beneficiary and a benefactor. However, there is little research that has explored why thanking provides these positive effects, so this study investigated thanking mechanisms to explain reasons why people feel close to a beneficiary who expresses gratitude. This study also examines the effects of apologies, which are sometimes used to show gratitude in Japan. In this experimental study, 671 Japanese participants reported their perceived closeness, warmth, conscientiousness, and agreeableness to a hypothetical beneficiary who expressed gratitude, apologies, or both after a benefit was provided. The results revealed that benefactors who received a message indicating gratitude and both gratitude and apologies reported higher levels of closeness toward a beneficiary than those who received a message with only apologies and a message without either gratitude or apologies. A structural equation model further indicated that warmth and conscientiousness mediated the link between expressed gratitude/apologies and perceived closeness.

Celebrating the Power of Community Kindness: A Reflection on World Mental Health Day 2023.

This short communication reflects on this year's mental health day. The theme for this year is 'Mental health is a universal human right'. However, here the focus is on simple instances (politeness, and the culture of apology) to highlight how these could contribute to improved psychological well-being and mental health. It is hoped that by insisting on such deeds we could spread kindness in our community to make it a safer place for living and make life more enjoyable regardless of its all difficulties and limitations.

For Medical Directors: Case Report of a Missed Wooden Foreign Body in the Forehead.

Traumatic wounds, often contaminated with foreign material, are a common presenting complaint in the emergency setting. Unfortunately, embedded foreign material can go initially undetected or not be fully removed, leading to morbidity and becoming a common cause of medical malpractice claims. Here, we present a case of a missed wooden foreign body, including associated risk factors, potential contributing cognitive errors, recommendations to avoid such errors, and finally, a description of the case's resolution. In addition, we will present steps taken after the error was recognized that would provide a better understanding to the patient and entail a "blameless" education plan to the team of clinicians. Developing a sincere and authentic connection with the patient and their family after the unexpected outcome is crucial. Additionally, these cases are outstanding learning tools for the individual clinician, as well as, the rest of the providers if processed in a non-blaming and educational manner.

How transgressor's moral identity leads to high-quality apologies: The positive effects of guilt.

Comprehensive apologies are effective strategies to solve interpersonal conflict and promote reconciliation. However, transgressors tend to avoid providing comprehensive apologies because it is more threatening to do so. As a result, transgressors usually offer perfunctory apologies and hinder their own chances of being forgiven. Given the importance of promoting high-quality apologies, we investigate the role of moral identity in increasing apology comprehensiveness. Across three studies using a combination of experimental and correlational designs with autobiographical recall paradigm, we demonstrate that transgressors high in moral identity feel guiltier after committing a transgression. As a result, they offer more comprehensive apologies. Moreover, the effects of guilt on transgressors' apologizing are conditional on the perceived apology effectiveness. Guilt is particularly important to boost apology quality when perceived apology effectiveness is low. In such cases, guilt leads transgressors to make more reparative efforts towards reconciliation despite the low possibility of apology's acceptance.

A Sorry Excuse for an Apology: Examining People's Mental Representations of an Apologetic Face.

The goal of the current research was to gain an understanding of people's mental representations of an apologetic face. In Study 1, participants' responses were used to generate visual templates of apologetic faces through reverse correlation (Study 1a, n = 121), and a new set of participants (Study 1b, n = 37 and 1c, n = 153) rated that image (group-level Classification Image, CI), as well as either the inverse image (group-level anti-CI in Study 1b) or base face (in Study 1c), on apology-related characteristics. Results demonstrated that people have a mental representation of an apologetic face, and that sadness is an important feature of this template. To examine similarities between mental representations of apologetic and sad faces, participants in Study 2 generated visual templates of sad faces using reverse correlation (Study 2a, n = 121). New participants (Study 2b, n = 162) were then randomly assigned to rate the averaged face, eyes, and mouths (group-level CIs) as well as the individual visual templates (individual-level CIs) generated from both studies for either how apologetic or sad they appeared. Visual templates of apologetic and sad faces were seen as apologetic, providing evidence of the prominence of sadness in mental representations of apology. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10919-022-00422-5.

Prestige Orientation and Reconciliation in the Workplace.

Human social hierarchies comprise two distinct bases of status: dominance and prestige. One can acquire high social status not only by physically intimidating others (dominance) but also by providing information goods to others (prestige). Given that prestige-oriented individuals need to be liked and accepted by others, we hypothesized that they would be more eager to reconcile with their coworkers when they were involved in interpersonal conflicts in their workplaces. Study 1 asked 487 respondents about their conciliatory behaviors in response to workplace conflicts. Prestige-oriented individuals were more apologetic (when they hurt someone in their workplace) and forgiving (when they were hurt by someone). However, analyses of a subsample of respondents who had conflicts with their followers showed that organizational leaders' prestige orientation was associated only with forgiveness but not with apologetic behavior. Study 2 collected comparable data from 678 organizational leaders. Study 2 confirmed the results of the subsample analysis of Study 1. Compared with leaders low in prestige orientation, leaders high in prestige orientation were more likely to forgive their subordinates; however, they were no more likely to apologize to their subordinates.

From virility to virtue: the psychology of apology in honor cultures.

In honor cultures, relatively minor disputes can escalate, making numerous forms of aggression widespread. We find evidence that honor cultures' focus on virility impedes a key conflict de-escalation strategy-apology-that can be successfully promoted through a shift in mindset. Across five studies using mixed methods (text analysis of congressional speeches, a cross-cultural comparison, surveys, and experiments), people from honor societies (e.g., Turkey and US honor states), people who endorse honor values, and people who imagine living in a society with strong honor norms are less willing to apologize for their transgressions (studies 1-4). This apology reluctance is driven by concerns about reputation in honor cultures. Notably, honor is achieved not only by upholding strength and reputation (virility) but also through moral integrity (virtue). The dual focus of honor suggests a potential mechanism for promoting apologies: shifting the focus of honor from reputation to moral integrity. Indeed, we find that such a shift led people in honor cultures to perceive apologizing more positively and apologize more (study 5). By identifying a barrier to apologizing in honor cultures and illustrating ways to overcome it, our research provides insights for deploying culturally intelligent conflict-management strategies in such contexts.

Possibility of Sincere Apology in Restorative Justice: When and How?

While apology has only a secondary role in restorative justice (RJ), an apology is prevalent in the RJ process. This is promising, but problematic is that there seems to be a gap in the perceived sincerity of apology between victims and offenders. Since less is known about why this gap exists, this paper extends our knowledge about under what conditions a sincere apology is possible in RJ. More specifically, this paper seeks to identify the key components of a sincere apology that are pertinent to RJ as well as the promoting and inhibiting factors for a sincere apology in RJ. This paper provides future research implications about the relationship between RJ and sincere apology.

Overcoming listener skepticism: Costly signaling in communication increases perceived honesty.

When conversing with skeptical listeners, honest speakers face the challenge of proving the credibility of their message. What can speakers do? We argue that incurring an observable cost-in terms of time, effort, emotion, reputation, etc.-to send a message can be a convincing signal of honesty to the listener. We highlight three qualities of signals that can make them seem costly for different reasons: difficult-to-fake, verifiable, and self-sacrificing. We propose that, while each quality impacts the listener's perceptions of veracity, assessing each quality requires a different set of evaluations by the listener. As a result, assessments of each quality are subject to distinct errors in listener perception. Moreover, perceiving a signaling cost to be deliberate (vs. accidental) further impacts perceived veracity, but does so differently depending on the type of cost. Our costly signal framework can help guide speakers in overcoming listener skepticism.

Breaking bad news: a clinical skill for postgraduate exams.

Breaking bad news is a challenging station in postgraduate exams. Candidates can struggle if they have not practised delivering sensitive information in a professional and empathetic way. Limited experience of using this clinical skill as a junior doctor often compounds candidates' uncertainty in exams. A clear structure is essential for examination success. The most commonly used is the SPIKES framework, the elements of which are Setting, Perception, Invitation, Knowledge, Emotions and Strategy. This is a stepwise approach that allows candidates to break bad news in a structured way. This is beneficial in clinical practice, but is also invaluable in postgraduate exams, which often have prescriptive marking schemes. This article highlights the key topics and pitfalls that candidates may encounter and suggests tips for success in exams.

Direct and indirect associations among mothers' invalidating childhood environment, emotion regulation difficulties, and parental apology.

BACKGROUND: Effective emotion regulation abilities are essential for engaging in positive, validating parenting practices. Yet, many parents report difficulties with both emotion regulation and positive parenting, and these difficulties may in part be the result of parents' own childhood experiences of invalidation. Building upon prior literature documenting the intergenerational transmission of invalidation and emotion dysregulation, the present study examined the associations between these constructs and a specific parenting practice - parental apology - that can be conceptualized as a type of validating parenting practice. METHODS: Using a sample of 186 community mothers, we tested direct and indirect relationships via correlational and path analysis between participants' retrospective reports of parental invalidation during childhood, difficulties with emotion regulation, and two aspects of parental apology - proclivity (i.e., participants' self-reported propensity to apologize to their child) and effectiveness (i.e., participants' inclusion of specific apology content when prompted to write a child-directed apology). Parental invalidation, difficulties with emotion regulation, and parental apology proclivity were measured via self-report questionnaires. Apology effectiveness was measured by coding written responses to a hypothetical vignette. RESULTS: There was a significant negative bivariate relationship between difficulties with emotion regulation and parental apology proclivity and effectiveness. Parents' own childhood experiences of invalidation were linked to parental apology indirectly via emotion regulation difficulties. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that mothers with greater difficulties regulating emotions may be less able to or have a lower proclivity to apologize to their child when appropriate. Thus, parent apology may be an important addition to current calls for parent validation training.

The impact of voluntariness of apologies on victims' responses in restorative justice: findings of a quantitative study.

Apologies are ordered in law without certainty about whether or not recipients perceive ordered and voluntary apologies differently. This exploratory study investigates whether or not the voluntariness of apologies influences recipients' perceptions of their sincerity, acceptance of apologies, willingness to forgive and intended retributive behaviour. We manipulated the voluntariness of apologies whilst considering offender (age, gender, ethnicity and prior wrongful behaviour) and offence (seriousness) characteristics in 3 studies (ns = 164, 121, 236). Participants adopting the role of a hypothetical victim received either a voluntary or an ordered apology. The voluntary apologies were found to have a significantly more positive impact than the ordered apologies on acceptance and perception of sincerity in all 3 studies and on forgiveness in 2 studies, but did not significantly change participants' retributive behaviour in any study. Age was the only other variable found to make a significant difference, with younger offenders' apologies being rated as sincerer.

Apology and Its Acceptance: Perceived Reconciliatory Attitudes Reduce Outgroup Dehumanization.

Based on real-life intergroup animosities originating from a historical conflict, the current study examined how the perceived stance of the outgroup about the conflict affects the dehumanization of the outgroup. In Study 1 (N = 120), Korean undergraduates attributed more human nature to the Japanese after reading an article that the Japanese government did (vs. refused to) issue an official apology for a historical wrong. In turn, the more human nature assigned to the Japanese predicted higher expectations about positive mutual relations in the future. Similarly, in Study 2 (N = 209), Japanese undergraduates attributed more human uniqueness to Koreans after reading an article that an official apology for a historical wrong from Japan was accepted (vs. rejected) by Koreans. The higher the perceived human uniqueness of Koreans was, the higher were the willingness to help and the expectations of a positive relationship in the future. The findings demonstrate how mutual dehumanization can be reduced as a result of the other side's reconciliatory stances and can further contribute to improving intergroup relations.

Verbal or Written? The Impact of Apology on the Repair of Trust: Based on Competence- vs. Integrity-Based Trust Violation.

This study examined the effect of verbal and written apologies on trust repair based on competence and integrity after a trust violation. Through three experiments, the empirical results showed that the written apology was more effective than verbal ones a restoring trust for integrity-based trust violations. However, the verbal apology was more effective against competency-based trust violations than a written one. Moreover, the results also showed that perceived trustworthiness played a mediating role between trust violation and trust repair, while positive emotions played a moderating role. Finally, this study provided a general discussion, implications, and suggestions for future research.

Measuring the Uptake of Disclosure and Apology Content in the American Medical School Curriculum.

Surveys were sent to deans and curriculum leaders of American medical schools regarding the teaching of disclosure and apology in the curriculum. One-hundred six medical schools responded (n = 106; 60% response rate) and results showed that disclosure and apology (also known as communication and resolution programs or CANDOR) is being taught in American medical schools but more work remains to develop consistent curriculum across all medical schools. The same survey (with slightly different wording) was sent to a commercial list of fourth year medical students; two hundred thirty students (n = 230, 17% response rate) representing 67 medical schools completed the survey. The students' data - though not statistically significant - provides a glimpse into students' feeling about this topic, including the desire to learn what happens after "sorry" and how cases can be resolved with disclosure, including the insurance, legal, and compensation aspects. Further avenues of research on this topic are suggested.

Should the USA Offer Reparations to Africa for the Transatlantic Slave Trade?

This article begins with background information on the international social movement for reparations for the transatlantic slave trade. I then propose that the USA ought to offer reparations, including participation in and financing of a truth commission on the slave trade; apology for the harms caused by the trade; and symbolic financial assistance to establish monuments to the slave trade, museums exhibits, and educational programs. The article concludes with a discussion of whether the USA would have the political will to offer reparations to Africa.

"We have nothing left to bury."

After miscarrying in the hospital at eleven weeks, a patient gratefully accepts the hospital's offer to take advantage of a program for low-income patients that provides burial for fetal remains and a memorial plaque for the gravesite. However, a hospital employee accidentally incinerates the remains, and the error is not discovered until after the ashes are discarded. Two commentaries offer opposing arguments in response to the question whether, to avoid adding to the patient's grief, it is ethically permissible for the clinicians not to disclose the error to her and to proceed with having the name put on a plaque at the burial ground.