TY - JOUR
T1 - Resistance to the Six Elements of Political Apologies
T2 - Who Opposes Which Elements?
AU - Ohtsubo, Yohsuke
AU - Inamasu, Kazunori
AU - Kohama, Shoko
AU - Mifune, Nobuhiro
AU - Tago, Atsushi
N1 - Funding Information:
WE ARE GRATEFUL TO Joshua Guilfoyle for his valuable comments. This research was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI 15KT0131 to Yohsuke Ohtsubo and 17H06189 to Atsushi Tago).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Psychological Association
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Political apologies, which typically consist of (a) admission of injustice/wrongdoing, (b) acknowledgment of harm and/or victim suffering, (c) expression of remorse, (d) acceptance of responsibility, (e) offer of repair, and (f) forbearance, often meet opposition from the constituency of the apologizing government. This study investigated which of these 6 elements people would most strongly oppose. Eight hundred Japanese participants (400 men and 400 women, aged 20 to 79 years) indicated how much resistance they would feel to the Japanese government’s expression of each of the 6 elements in a hypothetical political apology to an (unspecified) Asian country. The strongest resistance was associated with elements (a), (b), and (c), followed by elements (d) and (e), and the weakest resistance was reported for element (f). An exploratory cluster analysis identified the existence of a minority of the most resistant individuals (n = 64), whose mean resistance scores for elements (a) to (e) were greater than 5.5 on a 7-point scale. This group most strongly opposed elements (c) and (d), which were not the elements that the entire sample most strongly opposed. The most resistant individuals appear to have different sentiments regarding their government’s political apologies than the rest of the population.
AB - Political apologies, which typically consist of (a) admission of injustice/wrongdoing, (b) acknowledgment of harm and/or victim suffering, (c) expression of remorse, (d) acceptance of responsibility, (e) offer of repair, and (f) forbearance, often meet opposition from the constituency of the apologizing government. This study investigated which of these 6 elements people would most strongly oppose. Eight hundred Japanese participants (400 men and 400 women, aged 20 to 79 years) indicated how much resistance they would feel to the Japanese government’s expression of each of the 6 elements in a hypothetical political apology to an (unspecified) Asian country. The strongest resistance was associated with elements (a), (b), and (c), followed by elements (d) and (e), and the weakest resistance was reported for element (f). An exploratory cluster analysis identified the existence of a minority of the most resistant individuals (n = 64), whose mean resistance scores for elements (a) to (e) were greater than 5.5 on a 7-point scale. This group most strongly opposed elements (c) and (d), which were not the elements that the entire sample most strongly opposed. The most resistant individuals appear to have different sentiments regarding their government’s political apologies than the rest of the population.
KW - Acceptance of responsibility
KW - Political apology
KW - Remorse
KW - Resistance
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U2 - 10.1037/pac0000456
DO - 10.1037/pac0000456
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85081301006
VL - 27
SP - 449
EP - 458
JO - Peace and Conflict
JF - Peace and Conflict
SN - 1078-1919
IS - 3
ER -