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Why Women Apologize More Than Men: Gender Differences in Thresholds for
Perceiving Offensive Behavior
Author(s): Karina Schumann and Michael Ross
Source:
Psychological Science
, NOVEMBER 2010, Vol. 21, No. 11 (NOVEMBER 2010), pp.
1649-1655
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Association for Psychological
Science
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41062429
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aps ^^^■H I ASSOCIATION FOR ^^^■H I ASSOCIATION FOR
Research Article psychological science
Why Women Apologize More Than Men:
Gender Differences in Thresholds for
Perceiving Offensive Behavior
Psychological Science
21(11) 1649-1655
© The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: I O.I 177/0956797610384150
http://pss.sagepub.com
®SAGE
Karina Schumann and Michael Ross
University of Waterloo
Abstract
Despite wide acceptance of the stereotype that women apologize more readily than men, there is little systematic evidence to
support this stereotype or its supposed bases (e.g., men's fragile egos). We designed two studies to examine whether gender
differences in apology behavior exist and, if so, why. In Study I , participants reported in daily diaries all offenses they committed
or experienced and whether an apology had been offered. Women reported offering more apologies than men, but they also
reported committing more offenses. There was no gender difference in the proportion of offenses that prompted apologies.
This finding suggests that men apologize less frequently than women because they have a higher threshold for what constitutes
offensive behavior. In Study 2, we tested this threshold hypothesis by asking participants to evaluate both imaginary and recalled
offenses. As predicted, men rated the offenses as less severe than women did. These different ratings of severity predicted both
judgments of whether an apology was deserved and actual apology behavior.
Keywords
apology, gender differences, interpersonal relationships, interpersonal communication
Received 2/8/10; Revision accepted 4/2/10
In the American context, there is ample evidence that
women are more inclined to offer expressions of contri-
tion than men. (Tannen, 1999, p. 67)
According to various academic and popular writers, women
apologize readily for their transgressions, whereas men do not.
Some commentators suggest that women are too apologetic,
but most presume that men are insufficiently contrite (Engel,
2001; Lazare, 2004; Tannen, 1996, 2001). These commenta-
tors offer a set of related explanations for the gender differ-
ence, the basic tenet being that men associate apologies with
weakness. For example, Engel (2001) argued that men refuse
to apologize because they have difficulty admitting they are
wrong. She suggested that for men, admitting wrongdoing is
like "losing a power struggle," and apologizing therefore hurts
men's "delicate egos" (p. 49). Adopting a different argument,
Tannen (1996) reasoned that women readily apologize because
they are more concerned than men are with showing courtesy
to other people. Whatever the interpretation, the bottom line is
exemplified by the title of comedian Jim Belushi's (2006)
book on manhood: Real Men Don 't Apologize.
Despite widespread acceptance of the idea that there exists a
gender difference in apology behavior, there is no compelling
evidence of such a difference. Authors often support their
claims with amusing anecdotes rather than with systematic
research. For example, Lazare (2004) reported that when he
asked his audiences who apologizes more, the women waved
their hands eagerly and shouted out "Women!" while the men
remained silent (p. 28). Tannen (2001) recounted a story of a
little boy who disliked Yom Kippur - the Jewish Day of
Atonement - because "you have to say you're sorry" (p. 95).
The boy's mother reported being shocked that her son was so
much like his father. Although intriguing, these anecdotes fail
to provide evidence of systematic gender differences in apol-
ogy behavior or the mechanisms (e.g., fragile egos) that sup-
posedly underlie these gender differences.
Several commentators (e.g., Lazare, 2004; Tannen, 2001)
have referenced a study by Holmes (1989) as the primary
empirical evidence for gender differences in apology behavior.
Holmes asked research assistants to record apologies they wit-
nessed. Women offered 75% of the 183 reported apologies. It
Corresponding Author:
Karina Schumann, University of Waterloo, Department of Psychology, 200
University Ave. West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2I 3GI
E-mail: kschuman@artsmail.uwaterloo.ca
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1650
is difficult to draw strong conclusions from Holmes 's findings,
however. Interactions among women may have been oversam-
pled, as most of the research assistants were women. In addi-
tion, the research assistants ignored any offenses that did not
prompt an apology. Consequently, there are at least two alterna-
tive explanations for why women offered more apologies. First,
perhaps women offered more apologies because they commit-
ted more offenses. Second, men might have a higher threshold
for what constitutes an offense. If men regard fewer behaviors
as objectionable, they would less frequently feel the need to
apologize. Information concerning the base rate of offenses is
therefore crucial for understanding whether men are less willing
to apologize for objectionable behavior or whether they are
committing or perceiving fewer offenses than women do.
Why should psychologists care whether men apologize
less frequently than women do? One answer is that apologies
matter - they reduce anger and aggression and promote for-
giveness and relationship well-being (Darby & Schlenker, 1982;
McCullough, Worthington, & Rachal, 1997; Ohbuchi, Kameda,
& Agarie, 1989). Although apologies are not all-powerful,
their general effectiveness suggests that gender differences in
apology behavior could have significant implications for inter-
personal interactions. In light of these implications, as well as
the almost blind faith in the presumed gender difference and
its theoretical interpretations, we conducted the current studies
to examine whether gender differences in everyday apology
behavior occur and, if so, why.
In Study 1 , we assessed gender differences in both the fre-
quency and the content of everyday apologies. A comprehen-
sive apology contains as many as eight distinguishable
elements: remorse, acceptance of responsibility, admission of
wrongdoing, acknowledgment of harm, promise to behave
better, request for forgiveness, offer of repair, and explanation
(Bavelas, 2004; Lazare, 2004). More comprehensive apolo-
gies tend to be more effective at improving evaluations of the
transgressor and promoting forgiveness (Scher & Darley, 1997;
Schmitt, Gollwitzer, Forster, & Montada, 2004). Although
apologies for very severe harms typically contain most of
these eight elements (Schumann & Ross, 2010), we expected
apologies for everyday offenses to be much less comprehen-
sive. Nevertheless, one might anticipate that if men are less
willing to apologize, they might offer more perfunctory apolo-
gies than women. Indeed, various social commentators have
suggested that male apologies tend to be insultingly "half-
hearted" (e.g., Cribb, 2010, para. 6).
In Study 1, participants completed daily diaries. Male and
female diarists reported offenses that they committed (trans-
gressor perspective) and experienced (victim perspective). We
included both perspectives to provide a preliminary test of
several explanations for gender differences in apology behav-
ior. If men apologize less often because they are unwilling to
admit wrongdoing (Engel, 2001), then male transgressors
should report committing fewer offenses than female trans-
gressors do. A reluctance to admit wrongdoing would not
Schumann, Ross
readily explain a gender difference in the frequency of offenses
reported by victims, however. An alternative explanation -
that men have a higher threshold for what constitutes an
offense - would suggest that males would report fewer
offenses than females from both the transgressor and the vic-
tim perspectives. In their daily diaries, participants reported
both offenses that were and offenses that were not accompa-
nied by apologies. Using this method, we could examine
whether, relative to men, women reported (a) apologizing
more often, (b) apologizing for a greater proportion of offenses,
and (c) offering more comprehensive apologies.
Study I
Method
Participants. Thirty-three female and 33 male students
recruited from the University of Waterloo psychology depart-
ment's participant pool received $3.00 for their first diary
entry and $2.00 for each subsequent entry. Participants' ages
ranged from 18 to 44 (M= 20.67 years, SD = 3.76).
Procedure. Participants were asked to complete two sections
of an online questionnaire every evening for 12 consecutive
nights. For the transgressor section, participants described up
to three instances that day in which "you apologized to some-
one or did something to someone else that might have deserved
an apology (regardless of whether or not you apologized)."
For the victim section, participants described up to three
instances that day in which "someone else apologized to you
or did something to you that might have deserved an apology
(regardless of whether or not he or she apologized)." The order
of the transgressor and victim sections was counterbalanced
across participants. If participants could not recall an event for
the first section, they proceeded to the second section. If they
were unable to remember an event for the second section, they
terminated the session.
For each event, participants reported what occurred, who
was involved (including gender information), and whether
they had apologized or received an apology. Participants
reported the exact wording of the apologies to the best of their
abilities. Two independent coders (one male and one female)
who were blind to participants' gender coded the apologies for
the presence of each of the eight apology elements (k = .92).
Discrepancies between coders were resolved through discus-
sion. We summed the number of elements in each apology to
represent its comprehensiveness.
Finally, two independent coders categorized the offenses
into four types, adapted from the offense types described by
Holmes (1989): (a) relational (e.g., insulting someone), (b) failed
obligation (e.g., failing to complete chores), (c) inconvenience
(e.g., calling a wrong number), and (d) physical or material
(e.g., bumping into someone, damaging someone's belongings).
Interobserver reliability was high (k = .94).
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Why Women Apologize More
Results
Participants completed the diary questionnaire an average of
9.46 of the 12 possible days (SD = 2.80). All participants were
included in the analyses reported here; the results did not
change when we excluded those who completed the fewest
entries. Men (M = 9.78, SD = 2.29) and women (M = 9.14,
SD = 2.65) completed a similar number of entries, ¿(64) =
1 .08, p = .28. Participants reported an average of 1 .39 offenses
(SD = 0.87) each day, for a total of 869 offenses. Participants
reported more daily offenses from the transgressor perspective
(M = 0.74, SD = 0.49) than from the victim perspective (M =
0.65, SD = 0.49), ¿(66) = 2.04, p = .05. Women and men did
not differ in the proportion of offenses they reported as trans-
gressors versus victims, t < 1 .
Most offenses occurred between friends (46.94%), with the
following contexts occurring in decreasing frequency: strang-
ers (20.71%), romantic partners (9.43%), colleagues (7.92%),
acquaintances (7.87%), and family members (7.13%). Men
and women did not differ in the proportion of offenses they
reported in the various relationship categories (%2s < 1), except
for offenses occurring between romantic partners. Women
reported more offenses occurring between them and a romantic
partner (13.21%) than men reported (4.24%), %'',N= 66) =
18.14, p < .001. Participants did not differ in the number of
offenses they reported from the transgressor and victim per-
spectives within each relationship type (%2s < 1).
The types of offenses reported, in order of frequency, were
failed obligations (28.77%), inconveniences (28.12%), rela-
tional offenses (23.31%), and physical or material offenses
(19.80%). The proportion of each offense type reported did
not differ as a function of gender or perspective, y?s<'.
Transgressor perspective. Women reported offering more apol-
ogies (217) than men did (158), %'',N= 66) = 9.28, p = .002.
Women also reported committing more offenses (267) than men
did (196), x'',N= 66) = 10.89,/? = .001. Linear mixed model-
ing (LMM) analyses (which we used because events were nested
within and unbalanced across participants) revealed that men
(A/= .8 1 , SD = .39) and women (M= .8 1 , SD = .37) did not differ
in the proportion of offenses for which they apologized, param-
eter estimate = .01 (SE = .04), ¿(461) = 0.18,/? = .86. Transgres-
sor's gender did not significantly interact with the gender of the
victim to affect the number of apologies reported or the propor-
tion of offenses for which participants apologized.
LMM analyses indicated that men and women also did not
differ in how they apologized. Men and women were equally
likely to include each of the elements in their apologies, all
ps > .20. In addition, men (M= 2.01, SD = 1.15) and women
(M= 1.97, SD = 0.97) offered similarly comprehensive apolo-
gies, parameter estimate = .06 (SE =.11), ¿(373) = 0.49, p =
.62. No interactions with victim's gender emerged.
Victim perspective. Women reported receiving more apologies
(142) than men reported receiving (111), j?(', N = 66) = 3.80,
p = .05. Women also reported being the victims of more
offenses (242) than men did (164), tf(l,N=66) = 10.89, p =
.001. LMM analyses revealed that men (M = .68, SD = .47)
received apologies for a marginally significant greater propor-
tion of offenses than women did (M= .59, SD = .49), param-
eter estimate = -.09 (SE =.05), ¿(404) = -1.84, p = .07. No
interactions with transgressor's gender emerged.
Discussion
This diary study provided support for the claim that women apol-
ogize more frequently than men do in everyday life. Compared
with males, female transgressors reported offering more apolo-
gies across the 12 days of data collection. After taking into
account that women reported committing more offenses than men
did, however, we found that the gender difference in frequency of
apologies disappeared. Female and male transgressors apolo-
gized for an equal proportion of their offenses (approximately
81%). Moreover, there was no gender difference in how men and
women apologized. It appears that once men and women catego-
rized a behavior as offensive, they were equally likely to apolo-
gize for it, and their apologies were similarly effusive.
It is possible that male transgressors reported committing
fewer offenses because they were more reluctant than women
to admit wrongdoing. Men could perhaps rationalize their
unwillingness to apologize by perceiving fewer offenses. This
explanation would not explain the gender difference in the fre-
quency of offenses reported from the victim perspective, how-
ever. The results for victims exactly paralleled those for
transgressors, with males reporting substantially fewer
offenses than females.
The diary findings both raise doubts about the validity of
the claim that men actively resist apologizing and help explain
the source of this claim. In their everyday lives, people witness
women apologizing more than men and presumably attribute
this discrepancy to gender differences in willingness to apolo-
gize. In doing so, they perhaps fail to consider the proportion
of apologies to perceived offenses, information that is essen-
tial in understanding the bases of frequency differences. A ten-
dency to ignore the base rates of perceived offenses when
estimating the frequency of apologies is consistent with peo-
ple's general tendency to neglect base rates when forming
probability judgments (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). Also, the
popular tendency to ascribe men's lower rates of apologizing
to their unwillingness to apologize might stem, in part, from a
propensity to prefer dispositional explanations (e.g., fragile
egos) over situational ones (e.g., evaluations of the severity of
the offense; Ross, 1977).
The diary data suggest that women offer more apologies
than men do because women have a lower threshold for what
constitutes offensive behavior. If so, gender differences in the
perceived severity of offenses may lead men and women to
have different views about whether or not an apology is war-
ranted. As both transgressors and victims, women are more
likely than men to judge offenses as meriting an apology.
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1652
We conducted a second study to test more directly the
hypothesis that gender differences in thresholds for what con-
stitutes offensive behavior account for gender differences in
frequency of apologizing. First, we asked men and women to
imagine committing various offenses. To optimize our control
over possible confounding variables, we manipulated the gen-
der of the victim in the imagined events to be either the same
as or opposite the gender of the participant, and we asked all
participants to imagine that they had committed these offenses
against a friend. We selected friends as the relational partners
because participants in Study 1 reported more offenses involv-
ing friends than involving people from other relationship
types. We conducted mediation analyses to assess whether the
relation of gender to judgments of apology deservedness was
mediated by differences in perceived severity of the offense.
Second, we tested the threshold hypothesis using transgres-
sions that participants reported committing. Participants
recalled a recent episode in which they had harmed a friend.
We examined whether the effect of gender on participants'
likelihood of offering an apology was mediated by differences
in the perceived severity of the offenses.
Study 2
Method
Participants. Sixty-three female and 57 male undergraduates
(ages 17-27 years, M = 19.62, SD = 1.98) participated in
exchange for course credit.
Materials and procedure. Participants imagined that they
were in three conflict scenarios with a friend. Half imagined a
friend of the same gender as themselves, and half imagined a
friend of the opposite gender. In one scenario, participants
imagined that they were 2 days late sending their section of a
joint class assignment to their friend. Because of the delay,
their friend had to postpone studying for a midterm. In a sec-
ond scenario, participants imagined snapping at their friend
after returning home grumpy from school. In a third scenario,
participants imagined accidentally waking their friend at 3:00
a.m. Because of the disturbance, the friend attended a job
interview the next morning after only a few hours of sleep.
The order of the three scenarios was counterbalanced across
participants.
For each scenario, participants indicated on 7-point scales
how severe their offense was (from 1 , not at all severe, to 7,
extremely severe), the extent to which they believed their
friend deserved an apology (from 1 , not at all, to 7, very much),
and how likely they would be to apologize to their friend (from
1 , not at all likely, to 7, extremely likely). Ratings of how much
an apology was deserved and the likelihood of apologizing
were highly correlated and were therefore combined to create
an index of judgments of apology deservedness (a = .87).
After responding to the scenarios, participants were asked
to recall an occasion in the past 3 months when they had
Schumann, Ross
offended a friend of either the same or opposite gender. The
gender of the friend was the same as the gender of the victim
to which they had been randomly assigned in the hypothetical
scenarios. Participants indicated on 7-point scales how severe
their offense was and how much their friend had deserved an
apology from them. Participants also indicated whether they
had apologized to their friend for that particular offense.
Results and discussion
Imagined offenses. No effects of the order of the scenarios
emerged; all analyses reported were collapsed across this vari-
able. To examine whether effects were consistent across sce-
narios, we conducted preliminary analyses predicting
judgments of offense severity and apology deservedness, with
participant's gender, victim's gender, and scenario as factors.
No interactions with scenario type emerged, all /?s > .22.
Therefore, judgments of severity and apology deservedness
were each averaged across the three scenarios in the analyses
reported. In addition, there were no effects of victim's gender,
all/?s > .65. We therefore collapsed across this variable in all
analyses.
Women judged the offenses to be more severe (M= 5.10,
SD = 0.63) than men did (M= 4.75, SD = 1.02), ¿(118) = 2.29,
p = .02. Relative to men (M= 6.23, SD = 0.81), women also
indicated that the friend was more deserving of an apology
(M = 6.58, SD = 0.44), ¿(1 18) = 2.90, p = .005.
Our main goal in Study 2 was to determine whether gender
differences in perceptions of apology deservedness were
mediated by judgments of offense severity. We used a bias-
corrected bootstrap mediation model to assess indirect effects
(Preacher & Hayes, 2004). In our analyses, we used a conven-
tional number (5,000) of bootstrap resamples with a 95% con-
fidence interval (CI). As predicted, perceived offense severity
mediated the effect of transgressor's gender on judgments of
apology deservedness, 95% CI = .02-. 19,/? = .02 (see Fig. 1).
Recalled offense. Women (M = 3.69, SD = 1.59) evaluated
their offenses as more severe than men did (M = 2.92, SD =
1.85), ¿(118) = 2.44,/? = .02. Relative to men (M= 4.74, SD =
1 .90), women also indicated that the victim deserved an apol-
ogy marginally more (M= 5.41, SD= 1.82), ¿(112)= 1.93,/? =
.06. There were no effects of victim's gender (all/?s > .14).
Women reported apologizing for more of their offenses than
men did (79% vs. 74%, respectively), but this gender differ-
ence was not significant, t < 1 . Because both men and women
recalled a time when they had harmed a friend (and thus should
have reported only behavior they considered offensive), the
influence of transgressor gender on whether an apology was
given is likely to be subtle and require high power to detect.
Recent discussions of mediation (Hayes, 2009; MacKinnon,
Lockwood, Hoffman, West, & Sheets, 2002; Shrout & Bolger,
2002) have supported testing for indirect effects through inter-
vening variables in the absence of a relation between the pre-
dictor and predicted variable when the power to detect this
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Why Women Apologize More 1 65 3
Perceived Offense
^s* Severity '.
ß = 0 21*/^ ^^^^ = °'46"*
Transgressor's I Victim Deserves
Gender
I ß = 0.17* (ß = 0.26**) I
Fig. I . Results for imagined offenses in Study 2: mediation of the effect of transgressor's gender on judgments of
apology deservedness. Males were coded as 0, and females as I. The parenthetical number indicates the beta value
before including the mediator in the model. Asterisks indicate the significance of the coefficients (*p < .05,**p < .01,
***p<.00l).
relation may be inadequate. Thus, we conducted bootstrap
analyses to examine whether participants' gender indirectly
influenced whether they offered an apology by affecting their
judgments of offense severity and apology deservedness. As in
the case of the imagined scenarios, the effect of transgressor's
gender on judgments of apology deservedness was mediated
by offense severity, 95% CI = .00-. 12,/? = .05 (see Fig. 2). We
then included in the model whether or not participants apolo-
gized to their friend. The indirect effect of transgressor's
gender on whether an apology was given was significant, 95%
CI = .O1-.18,/? = .O2.
Discussion
In Study 2, women perceived three imagined offenses and
their own recalled offenses as more severe than men did, and
perceived severity predicted judgments of apology deserved-
ness. In the recall data, judgments of apology deservedness
further predicted whether or not participants reported apolo-
gizing for their offense.
General Discussion
Using daily diaries and imagined offenses, we found support
for the common stereotype that women apologize more fre-
quently than men do. However, contrary to common interpre-
tations of this gender difference, we found that men were no
less willing than women were to apologize for their behavior
once they categorized it as offensive. Rather, our data suggest
that men apologize less frequently than women do because
they have higher thresholds for what constitutes offensive
behavior. In addition to perceiving fewer offenses than women
did as both transgressors and victims in Study 1, men rated
identical hypothetical offenses and their own past transgres-
sions as less severe than women did in Study 2.
One alternative explanation for our findings is that men
rationalize an unwillingness to apologize by minimizing their
perception of the severity and frequency of their transgres-
sions. The victim data from Study 1 cast doubt on this rational-
ization account. From the victim perspective, males, who
presumably had little motivation to rationalize offenses com-
mitted against them, reported significantly fewer transgres-
sions than females did. Also, when judging the severity of
offenses in the first scenario they imagined in Study 2, partici-
pants were unaware that questions regarding apologies were
forthcoming. Nonetheless, men rated these offenses as less
severe than women did, /(1 18) = 1.87,/? = .06. Finally, partici-
pants' accounts of their apologies in their daily diaries failed to
indicate that men were more reluctant to apologize. Contrary
to popular speculations (e.g., Cribb, 2010), men's apologies
were as detailed as those offered by women. We presume that
transgressors sometimes rationalize withholding an apology
by downplaying the severity of their offenses. The present
studies provide no evidence, however, that male transgressors
Perceived Offense
sT^^^^
' 'ß = 0.18* ^^^^^^
Transgressor's
Gender |
Fig. 2. Results for recalled offenses in Study 2: mediation of the effect of transgressor's gender on judgments of apology deservedness
and whether an apology was given. Males were coded as 0, and females as I. The parenthetical numbers indicate the beta values
before including the mediator in the model. Asterisks indicate the significance of the coefficients (fp < .IO,*p < .05,**/) < .01).
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1654
are more likely than female transgressors to engage in such
rationalizations.
There is little previous research on gender differences in
perceptions of the severity of transgressions. In a study that
examined teasing within couples, women reported more nega-
tive emotions in response to being teased than men reported.
This finding suggests that women might be more sensitive
to being offended, even if the offense is delivered in a humor-
ous or loving manner (Keltner, Young, Heerey, Oemig, &
Monarch, 1998). In the present research, women also judged
offenses as more severe when they were the transgressors than
men did. Thus, women are not simply more sensitive to being
harmed.
What is the psychological basis of gender differences in
perceptions of the severity and frequency of offenses? One
possibility is that women might perceive more offenses
because they are more focused on the experiences of other
people and on maintaining harmony in their relationships
(Gilligan, 1994; J.B. Miller, 1984). Consistent with this idea,
previous research has demonstrated that, relative to men, women
report more guilt after committing transgressions (Bybee,
1998; Lutwak & Ferrari, 1996), greater empathy for victims
(Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983), and more willingness to forgive
their transgressors (A.J. Miller, Worthington, & McDaniel,
2008).
A second possibility is that men have a higher threshold for
both physical and social pain. MacDonald and Leary (2005)
argued that physical and social pain share common physiologi-
cal mechanisms. Conceivably, if men are more resilient to
physical pain, they might also have a higher threshold for social
forms of pain. A substantial body of research has demonstrated
that men report experiencing less intense and less frequent
physical pain than women report experiencing (e.g., Unruh,
1996), as well as being less emotional than women (Barrett,
Robin, Pietromonaco, & Eyssell, 1998). Further, a meta-analytic
review of sex differences in coping behavior revealed that
women rated Stressors as more severe than men in the majority
of studies that assessed Stressor appraisals (Tamres, Janicki, &
Helgeson, 2002). None of the reviewed studies reported that
women rated Stressors as less severe than men did.
Whatever the basis of the gender differences in judgments
of the severity or even the existence of offenses, these discrep-
ant perceptions might have unfortunate consequences for
mixed-gender interactions. For example, if women perceive
offenses that their male romantic partners do not notice,
women might interpret an absence of an apology as evidence
that their partners are indifferent to their well-being. Similarly,
men may regard their female partners as overly sensitive and
emotional. Unlike previous interpretations that emphasized a
gender difference in willingness to apologize, however, our
interpretation does not imply that one gender is at fault for
potential disagreements about whether an apology should be
offered. Rather, we suggest that men and women unwittingly
disagree at an earlier stage in the process: identifying whether
or not a transgression has even occurred.
Schumann, Ross
Acknowledgments
We thank Erik Woody for his statistical advice, as well as Amanda
Forest and Mark Zanna for their comments on earlier versions of the
manuscript.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with
respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.
Funding
This research was prepared with the support of a Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) doctoral scholarship
to Karina Schumann and an SSHRC research grant to Michael Ross.
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