Thread by @lluaces

1/ Ok. In light of @ABCTNOW #apologygate, I’m going to try to help with #scicomm on a paper that informs my rubric of how to apologize. (#science). This paper breaks apology components into 6 bits. Two seem most effective, but overall *more is better* onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

2/ First, acknowledge what you *did* wrong (i.e., take responsibility). If what you want to discuss is people’s feelings or reactions, you’re not sorry about what you did, you’re sorry about its aftermath. Literally, own up to what YOU did in concrete terms.

3/ Second, offer some potential for repair. This is not, NOT, not an invitation to mention some other good thing you did in the past that invalidates your bad behavior or sort of makes up for it. Offer a *new* thing you can do to repair the damage and rebuild trust.

4/Those are the most effective components but I said more is better. Number three, admit that you are sorry ("regret"). So many apologies do not say “sorry.” Say sorry!! Apologize. Clearly. Look at popular (or recent...) apologies and time when "sorry" comes in. You'd be shocked.

5/ Number four, given an explanation of the context of why you did things. This is is helpful BUT it shouldn’t the mainstay of your “apology.” If a good chunk of your apology is really an explanation, what comes across is that you aren't sorry, you want to be absolved.

6/ Five, talk about the future. What are you doing, going forward, that will make it less likely that the same offense will be repeated? Again, this should be a *change*, NOT a vague promise. .. Ideally commit not to do it again with specific actions to make it less likely

7/ Finally, ask to be forgiven. Numerically, this seems to have the lowest effect which makes sense. But, it seems like it doesn't hurt and it opens the conversation for people to respond to your apology.

8/ What stands out to me about this paper is what is NOT there. An apology is NOT the time to talk of all the good you’ve done. If you’re finding yourself doing a cost-benefit that you did more good than harm maybe you’re not ready to apologize or you're not actually sorry

9/Using this paper as a scientific rationale, it makes sense to me that some of us didn't like the ABCT apology. It lacks two of effective apologies: full acknowledgment (i.e., naming Barlow, Hayes, et al) of responsibility and offer of repair (i.e., retraction)

10/ It's kind of heavy on explanation and goes into the good deeds of past members which is not in the tone of an apology.

11/ Last I'll post on this but as a scientist, I decided to put numbers behind this to understand whether my assertion that the apology is low on apology components was accurate. I went into it sentence by sentence. The document has 51 sentences.

12/ Of these, 6 lines were generic sentences. For example "[The movie] Conversion can be streamed via Amazon."

Of the 45 sentences that were addressing apology-relevant components, I coded:

13% (n=6) as involving an acknowledgment of responsibility

13/ (e.g., "it is important to acknowledge the fact that behavior therapists benefitted from the development and practice of SOGIECEs financially, and that engagement in SOGIECEs was commonplace.")

14/ A fifth (20%) generically refer to an offer of repair (e.g., "This document also outlines a series of initiatives approved by the current ABCT Board of Directors as next steps to be taken on SGM issues.").

15/ Roughly half of the document (46%) is devoted to history (n=21). Three-fourths of that history (71%) was the history (n=15) of the positive contributions of Drs. Silverstein and Davidson. Again, not mostly an apology, mostly a lesson on the positive history of ABCT

@threadreaderapp unroll

I just realized I’ve been using “Davidson” and “Davison” interchangeably so I’ll be hiding under a rock for the time being