When saying sorry may not help: Transgressor power moderates the effect of an apology on forgiveness in the workplace
研究发现，低权力受害者倾向于以愤世嫉俗的方式解读高权力冒犯者的道歉，因此高权力者的道歉在促进宽恕方面效果有限，这对管理者处理职场冲突有启示。
An apology, as an expression of remorse, can be an effective response from a transgressor to obtain forgiveness from a victim. Yet, to be effective, the victim should not construe the transgressor’s actions in a cynical way. Because low-power people tend to interpret the actions of high-power people in a cynical way, we argue that an apology (versus no apology) from high-power transgressors should be relatively ineffective in increasing forgiveness from low-power victims. We find support for this moderated mediation model in a critical incidents study (Study 1), a forced recall study (Study 2) among employees from various organizations and a controlled laboratory experiment among business students (Study 3). These studies reveal the limited value of expressions of remorse by high-power people in promoting forgiveness.