I think I have some tendency to apologize the way this post warns about, and have heard the “say thank you” advice and considered it in the past. But, I’m curious to hear from anyone who’s been on the receiving end of the “thank you” apology substitutes and how it feels to them.
I have been on the receiving end of such, and I consider “say thank you instead” to be bad advice. The problem is specifically with the “instead” part. There is no reason for “instead”. It should be “in addition to”.
In cases like this one:
I refer to the fat guy statue in a Chinese restaurant as Buddha, and you politely inform me that it’s actually Budai / Hotei. I could apologize for being stupid or I could thank you for making me smarter.
I find that replacing the apology with a “thank you” is offputting. It is good to thank someone for correcting you, but it is improper to do that without acknowledging that you were mistaken before they corrected you. It would be better to thank the other person in addition to… well, not necessarily even apologizing, really, but something like—“ah, my mistake, thank you for the correction”. But merely something like “thank you for the information” seems like a deliberate effort to avoid acknowledging the mistake, and leads one to suspect that you are not being sincere in your response.
Similarly (though less importantly), in a case like this one:
I’m having an absolute garbage day and in the middle of an intellectual discussion with you I start crying. You stop talking, listen to me sympathetically, maybe give me a hug. I could apologize for being a mess or I could thank you for being kind.
It is well to thank your interlocutor for being kind, but I do not see why you shouldn’t also apologize. The two are not mutually exclusive in the least. And avoiding any acknowledgment of the impropriety of your behavior is suspect.
Note, by the way, that combining the apology and the thanks avoids this problem:
When someone asks your pardon or expresses that they feel bad, you’re expected to tell them “it’s okay” or something similar. That means that in my efforts to atone for bothering them, I’ve put another obligation on them — making sure I don’t feel too bad. Thanking them doesn’t do that.[3]
If you say “sorry”, indeed the social script nowadays is to reply with “it’s okay”, which has the problems that the OP describes. But if you say “sorry” and then follow it up with “thanks”, then the other person can reply to the “thanks” (with “you’re welcome”, or some such) and treat the apology as something that requires no response.
(In a case like “I trip and fall, and you help me up. I could apologize for inconveniencing you or I could thank you for helping me.”, the thanks alone is sufficient, because this is such a trivial situation that it really matters very little how you handle it—showing a token degree of acknowledgment, of some sort, is sufficient, and the specifics just don’t make much difference.)
It’s helpful to expand the “thank you” into a “thank you for...” statement. This completes the conversion from mechanical submission to thoughtful and specific gratitude. From the examples above, the expansion would be “thanks for the correction” and “thanks for the support”.
If someone chooses to help you, you don’t need to apologize for needing that help.
Agreed that this always makes any kind of appreciation feel more meaningful to me. For that matter, I also think putting some detail or mechanistic thought into apologies is a good idea. If I’ve actually done something wrong then I think it’s worth the effort to show the other person I understand what it was and have some idea about how to not do it again. And if I haven’t done something wrong, then trying to express my reasoning should help me recognize that I’m apologizing for having needs / existing / “making” the other person help me.
While I agree with your first point that it is important to first admit a mistake before thanking the person for helping you with new information, I would challenge the belief that because crying in front of another person is often seen as improper in certain social situations that it is something to be sorry about. Perhaps the idea that crying in front of others stems from an unhealthy society and the belief that is if improper to do so is actually harmful to people who feel they must repress themselves in this way. By not apologising, even though there is often a strong conditioned impulse to do so , we have to opportunity to stop reproducing these kind of beliefs and help to create a world in which everybody feels safe enough to not only express there own pain but to sit with the pain of others.
Yes, we have been hearing about this sort of “challenge” for several decades now. I think that, at this point, we can say that we’ve given views like what you describe a fair hearing, and can be justified in dismissing them.
Bursting into tears in a professional or academic situation is something to be sorry about. Not that sorry—it’s not like assaulting someone, or stealing, or committing fraud, or whatever else—but certainly a faux pas. A forgiveable one (if it doesn’t happen often, anyway), by all means—but a faux pas nonetheless. That is as it should be. People absolutely should repress the urge to cry in situations of this sort, just as they should repress the urge to kick the table in anger, or start yelling insults at one’s interlocutor, or shriek in glee, or have any other sort of uncontrolled emotional outburst. That is the mark of a healthy ability to control one’s emotional expression, and is not somehow problematic.
we have to opportunity to stop reproducing these kind of beliefs and help to create a world in which everybody feels safe enough to not only express there own pain but to sit with the pain of others.
But we should “reproduce” those beliefs (that such emotional outbursts out to be suppressed). We should not yield to uncontrolled expressions of pain in professional/academic/similar situations.
And it is absolutely not appropriate to expect, or force, people to “sit with the pain of others”. Rely on your family, your friends, your therapist, for such things—but not your coworkers, or your colleagues, or casual acquaintances; that is inconsiderate and selfish.
I agree that there are many cases where the two go very well together! It would have been good for me to go into that. Also agreed that there are a lot of ways you can add detail and specificity.
I’m finding it funny to think about “my mistake” in this context—in some subcultures (including rationalists, but also others) I think of saying “my mistake” as actually coming across as a self-confident, high status thing to do! At least, when you’ve obviously made a mistake and it’s only a matter of acknowledging it.
I think I have some tendency to apologize the way this post warns about, and have heard the “say thank you” advice and considered it in the past. But, I’m curious to hear from anyone who’s been on the receiving end of the “thank you” apology substitutes and how it feels to them.
I have been on the receiving end of such, and I consider “say thank you instead” to be bad advice. The problem is specifically with the “instead” part. There is no reason for “instead”. It should be “in addition to”.
In cases like this one:
I find that replacing the apology with a “thank you” is offputting. It is good to thank someone for correcting you, but it is improper to do that without acknowledging that you were mistaken before they corrected you. It would be better to thank the other person in addition to… well, not necessarily even apologizing, really, but something like—“ah, my mistake, thank you for the correction”. But merely something like “thank you for the information” seems like a deliberate effort to avoid acknowledging the mistake, and leads one to suspect that you are not being sincere in your response.
Similarly (though less importantly), in a case like this one:
It is well to thank your interlocutor for being kind, but I do not see why you shouldn’t also apologize. The two are not mutually exclusive in the least. And avoiding any acknowledgment of the impropriety of your behavior is suspect.
Note, by the way, that combining the apology and the thanks avoids this problem:
If you say “sorry”, indeed the social script nowadays is to reply with “it’s okay”, which has the problems that the OP describes. But if you say “sorry” and then follow it up with “thanks”, then the other person can reply to the “thanks” (with “you’re welcome”, or some such) and treat the apology as something that requires no response.
(In a case like “I trip and fall, and you help me up. I could apologize for inconveniencing you or I could thank you for helping me.”, the thanks alone is sufficient, because this is such a trivial situation that it really matters very little how you handle it—showing a token degree of acknowledgment, of some sort, is sufficient, and the specifics just don’t make much difference.)
It’s helpful to expand the “thank you” into a “thank you for...” statement. This completes the conversion from mechanical submission to thoughtful and specific gratitude. From the examples above, the expansion would be “thanks for the correction” and “thanks for the support”.
If someone chooses to help you, you don’t need to apologize for needing that help.
Agreed that this always makes any kind of appreciation feel more meaningful to me. For that matter, I also think putting some detail or mechanistic thought into apologies is a good idea. If I’ve actually done something wrong then I think it’s worth the effort to show the other person I understand what it was and have some idea about how to not do it again. And if I haven’t done something wrong, then trying to express my reasoning should help me recognize that I’m apologizing for having needs / existing / “making” the other person help me.
While I agree with your first point that it is important to first admit a mistake before thanking the person for helping you with new information, I would challenge the belief that because crying in front of another person is often seen as improper in certain social situations that it is something to be sorry about. Perhaps the idea that crying in front of others stems from an unhealthy society and the belief that is if improper to do so is actually harmful to people who feel they must repress themselves in this way. By not apologising, even though there is often a strong conditioned impulse to do so , we have to opportunity to stop reproducing these kind of beliefs and help to create a world in which everybody feels safe enough to not only express there own pain but to sit with the pain of others.
Yes, we have been hearing about this sort of “challenge” for several decades now. I think that, at this point, we can say that we’ve given views like what you describe a fair hearing, and can be justified in dismissing them.
Bursting into tears in a professional or academic situation is something to be sorry about. Not that sorry—it’s not like assaulting someone, or stealing, or committing fraud, or whatever else—but certainly a faux pas. A forgiveable one (if it doesn’t happen often, anyway), by all means—but a faux pas nonetheless. That is as it should be. People absolutely should repress the urge to cry in situations of this sort, just as they should repress the urge to kick the table in anger, or start yelling insults at one’s interlocutor, or shriek in glee, or have any other sort of uncontrolled emotional outburst. That is the mark of a healthy ability to control one’s emotional expression, and is not somehow problematic.
But we should “reproduce” those beliefs (that such emotional outbursts out to be suppressed). We should not yield to uncontrolled expressions of pain in professional/academic/similar situations.
And it is absolutely not appropriate to expect, or force, people to “sit with the pain of others”. Rely on your family, your friends, your therapist, for such things—but not your coworkers, or your colleagues, or casual acquaintances; that is inconsiderate and selfish.
I agree that there are many cases where the two go very well together! It would have been good for me to go into that. Also agreed that there are a lot of ways you can add detail and specificity.
I’m finding it funny to think about “my mistake” in this context—in some subcultures (including rationalists, but also others) I think of saying “my mistake” as actually coming across as a self-confident, high status thing to do! At least, when you’ve obviously made a mistake and it’s only a matter of acknowledging it.