Self confident people are easier to say sorry, but low self esteem or too much of it are not apology ready
A new study suggests that specific personality traits offer clues about whether a person is likely to offer a mea culpa.
From the beginning, Howell was confident that people with high marks for compassion and agreeability would be willing apologizers—and the study results confirmed his hypothesis. But the experiment also turned up some surprising traits of the unrepentant.
People with low self-esteem, for example, were less inclined to apologize, even though they probably feel bad after a conflict.
In contrast, “people who are sure of themselves have the capacity to confess to wrongdoing and address it,” Howell suggests. But just the right amount of self-esteem is key. The study also found that narcissists—people who, in Howell’s words, “are very egocentric, with an overly grand view of themselves”—were reluctant to offer an apology.
via Why Some People Say ‘Sorry’ Before Others: Scientific American.
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