While the Brits’ habit of apologizing for everything may seem a little odd to get used to when you first arrive on these shores – you bump into them on the street, spill their pint, yet they are the ones who say sorry! – it actually makes them look like more responsible people new research by the Harvard Business School has revealed.
“Across our studies, we identify significant benefits to apologising,” lead author Alison Wood Brooks, an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, said to the Daily Mail. Xxx
Experiments were carried out in which people apologised for an insignificant act, such as bumping into someone harmlessly, before then asking a favour, such as to borrow a mobile phone.
Of the test subjects carried out, people were more willing to lend their phone to someone who had recently apologised than someone who had not.
So before you secretly snigger at someone saying sorry in the queue again after you have stepping in front of them, think about how it makes them, and you, look.
Photo: Via Thinkstock.
