When and why parents prompt their children to apologize: the roles of transgression type and parenting style

Abstract

Young children are sensitive to the importance of apologies, yet little is known about when and why parents prompt apologies from children. We examined these issues with parents of 3-10-year-old children (N = 483). Parents judged it to be important for children to apologize following both intentional and accidental morally-relevant transgressions, and they anticipated prompting apologies in both contexts, showing an ‘outcome bias’ (i.e., a concern for the outcomes of children’s transgressions rather than for their underlying intentions). Parents viewed apologies as less important after children’s breaches of social convention; parents recognized differences between social domains in their responses to children’s transgressions. Irrespective of parenting style, parents were influenced in similar fashion by particular combinations of transgressions and victims, though permissive parents were least likely to anticipate prompting apologies. Parents endorsed different reasons for prompting apologies as a function of transgression type, suggesting that they attend to key features of their children’s transgressions when deciding when to prompt apologies.

The Emergence of Forgiveness in Young Children

“…Unlike previous research that has typically placed children in the role of bystanders, where children can reason in a relatively “cool” cognitive state (e.g., Darby & Schlenker, , ; Smith et al., ; Vaish et al., ), our findings demonstrate that even as victims, when children may experience stronger emotions such as sadness and anger, 4‐ to 5‐year‐olds show sensitivity to remorse and are more forgiving of remorseful transgressors. Moreover, in the few prior studies in which children were the victims, they responded to explicit apologies, which are conventional cues of remorse that children are trained from early on to use and expect (Drell & Jaswal, ; Smith & Harris, ; Smith et al., ); our findings demonstrate that by at least 5 years of age, children forgive transgressors who display remorse even in the absence of explicit apologies (see also Vaish et al., ). Transgressors’ remorse is thus a powerful elicitor of forgiveness, even in young children.…”

“…However, from an early age, children are frequently told by their caregivers and teachers to apologize (see Smith, Noh, Rizzo, & Harris, 2017), even when they might not feel sorry. As a result, children's evaluations of transgressors who say they are sorry or who are described as having apologized might be based on hearing key words or phrases (e.g., "I'm sorry"), which they have learned are the normative responses after one has committed a transgression (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2011).…”

Developmental aspects of forgiveness

“…Když se neomluvila, tak s ní sympatizovaly, protože se zaměřily pouze na to, co podvodem získala. Autoři jev zdůvodňují tak, že jsou děti rodiči vedeny k tomu, aby se omluvily, když udělají nějaký přestupek a učí se tak morálnímu rozlišování (Smith, Noh, Rizzo & Harris, 2017).…”

The Development of Prosocial Emotions

“…However, caregivers regularly prompt their children to apologize, even when children might not feel guilty (C. E. Smith, Noh, Rizzo, & Harris, 2017). Thus, children's positive responses to apologetic transgressors may in fact be responses to hearing routinized and reinforced phrases such as "sorry" rather than to the transgressor's remorse.…”