Vazeou-Nieuwenhuis, Anna
(2018)
THE POWER OF SAYING “I’M SORRY”:
THE INFLUENCE OF APOLOGIES ON OFFENDERS’ HEALTH BEHAVIORS AND CARDIOVASCULAR STRESS REACTIVITY AND RECOVERY.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Hurting others can lead to several undesirable consequences, including an increase in offenders’ negative emotions (e.g., guilt and shame) and damage to their social relationships. Because negative emotions and strained social relationships may confer risk for cardiovascular disease, I reasoned that hurting others—especially if done repeatedly—might affect behavioral and biological correlates of cardiovascular health. Importantly, offenders can apologize to their victim to attenuate the negative consequences of their actions. Consequently, apologies may decrease negative emotions and repair one’s relationship with the victim. On this basis, I tested whether offering an apology might influence offenders’ behavioral and biological correlates of cardiovascular health. I focused on offenders’ health behaviors and cardiovascular stress reactivity and recovery and tested whether apologizing (compared to ruminating and control) influenced these outcomes directly as well as indirectly through negative emotions and perceived forgiveness from their victim. Three studies (N = 1,046) yielded limited support for my predictions. Specifically, while Study 1 found that apologizing (vs. the comparison conditions) indirectly improved offenders’ intended health behaviors by decreasing their feelings of shame, Studies 2 and 3 did not replicate this effect for intended or actual health behaviors. Regarding cardiovascular reactivity and recovery, Study 3 showed that while apologizing sometimes led to presumably beneficial patterns of autonomic activity compared to rumination (e.g., significantly better heart rate recovery), it did not lead to any presumably beneficial patterns of autonomic activity compared to self-distraction and sometimes even led to worse such patterns compared to self-distraction (e.g., marginally poorer systolic blood pressure recovery). Implications for studying apologies’ potential influence on offenders’ behavioral and biological correlates of cardiovascular risk are discussed, as are potential limitations in the current methodology and plausible boundary conditions that might moderate the potential effect of apologizing on these outcomes.
Share
| Citation/Export: |
|
| Social Networking: |
|
Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
|
| Date: |
27 September 2018 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
25 April 2018 |
| Approval Date: |
27 September 2018 |
| Submission Date: |
26 April 2018 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
162 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Psychology |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Apology; health behaviors; cardiovascular reactivity; cardiovascular recovery; guilt; shame |
| Date Deposited: |
27 Sep 2018 23:16 |
| Last Modified: |
27 Sep 2018 23:16 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/34435 |
Metrics
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}