Apologizing for Rejecting Your Friend Actually Causes Them More Hurt

Socializing is hard. And those who succeed in the art don’t get enough credit. Sure, it can result in stimulating discussions and bonds, and you may leave feeling thankful to have ignited the extrovert in you. But, I mean, it also requires you to leave your bed and Netflix. It demands you put yourself out there: risk having awkward encounters and conversations. So conclusively, the decision to accept that invite is a tricky one—I get it. But what about the person opposite of you, the one standing in front of you and all your coworkers inviting you out or asking to join you at lunch? Have you ever taken their feelings into consideration when you ultimately say no? If not, you should. Because saying sorry just doesn’t cut it anymore—it actually makes matters worse, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Psychology.

There may be good intentions behind our apologies, but saying sorry whilst or after socially rejecting someone can add to the hurt of the receiver. “Most people have had the experience of wanting to minimize the hurt of the person they are rejecting. But how exactly do you do that?” asks Dr. Gili Freedman, lead author of this study. “Our research finds that despite their good intentions, people are going about it the wrong way. They often apologize, but that makes people feel worse and that they have to forgive the rejecter before they are ready.”

Freedman and her team sought to find out more about how someone who forgoes a social invitation can soften the blow and protect the feelings of those being rejected. Because while someone may say it’s okay and that they accept an apology, these actions may be driven by social norms that tell us to forgive someone when prompted to. Keeping this in mind, the research team administered several tests that focused on the inclusion of apologies in social rejection and the feelings of their recipients.

The research team essentially interviewed over a thousand people waiting in line at different carnivals, asking them to come up with ‘a good way of saying no’ to social invitations. They found that 39% of the subjects included an apology in their answers. And when these same subjects were asked how they would feel on the receiving end of rejection, they reported greater feelings of hurt when an apology was included.

Following this test, Freedman’s team performed a face-to-face rejection experiment, which accounted for the fact that people don’t wish or are too embarrassed to reveal negative feelings—including those of rejection. “We know that people often don’t want to admit that they have hurt feelings, so in some of the studies, we looked at how much people wanted to seek revenge,” explained Dr. Freedman. In order to analyze this, they brought out the loved and also loathed invention of hot sauce and found that individuals who were rejected and apologized to afterwards proved to impose revenge on the rejecter by giving them more sauce during a hot sauce taste test.

Finally, the researchers administered one more test which involved showing subjects a video of rejection and served to reveal whether feelings of forgiveness might be affected. The answer was yes—subjects who watched the recipient receive an apology believe they would feel obligated to accept and forgive, even if this didn’t align with their true feelings.

So, while we don’t yet know why an apology would make the friend you just turned down or coworker you just rejected feel worse, this study suggests that it does. Therefore, the best way to let them down easy probably isn’t by telling them you’re sorry. Maybe it’s time to test out some different tactics…like saying yes instead!

I mean, it requires you to leave your bed and Netflix. It demands you put yourself out there: risk having awkward encounters and conversations. But it can also result in stimulating discussions and bonds, and you may just as well leave feeling thankful to have ignited the extrovert in you. So, conclusively, the decision to be social is a tricky one—I get it. But what about the person opposite of you, the one inviting you out or wanting to join you at lunch? Have you ever taken their feelings into consideration when you ultimately decide

social interaction can just as well result in stimulating discussions and bonds, and you’re just as likely to leave feeling thankful you gave in. So while you’re weighing the decision of whether to get out of the house or not, consider this as well as the feelings of the person who invited you: as it turns out,

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