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Apology or Compensation? The Impact of Repair Strategies on Trust Repair in High- and Low-Power Victims
Received date: 2022-08-24
Online published: 2023-07-14
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This study conducted two experiments to examine whether the effectiveness of repair strategies (financial compensations vs. apologies) was moderated by the victim’s social hierarchy. Power was manipulated by varying the availability of alternatives during a trust game, and all participants were assigned as trustors. The participants were required to complete a certain round of trust game with the trustee, followed by an action by the trustee who broke that trust (did not return money). Subsequently, the offender offered different trust repair strategies after a trust violation (control, apologies, exact financial compensations, and apologies plus exact financial compensations). Finally, the investment amounts of high- and low-power victims were measured after the trust repair behavior. These results showed that when the financial compensation provided by the offender just made up for the victim’s economic loss, financial compensations were more effective than apologies in repairing trust for high-power victims, and apologies were more effective than financial compensations for low-power victims. However, when the financial compensation provided by the offender exceeded the economic loss of the victim, for both high-power and low-power victims, financial compensations were more effective than apologies on trust repair.
Key words： apology; financial compensation; power; trust repair
Liyuan SUN , Binheng ZHANG , Minghui WANG , Entao ZHANG . Apology or Compensation? The Impact of Repair Strategies on Trust Repair in High- and Low-Power Victims[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2023 , 21(3) : 418 -424 . DOI: 10.12139/j.1672-0628.2023.03.018
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