My parents, my sisters, other family members would never overtly apologise, but would attempt those actions that supposedly “said” they were sorry.
Mum would cook up an extra special roast dinner, dad would buy me chocolate, one sister would have a clear out of her cupboard and bring me her cast offs, the other would share a bottle of wine with me.
Internally, I would get cross because nothing was ever “dealt with”
I think some of the strategies are actually universal but what is interesting is that your iranian informants said that they use quite rarely direct apology words to apologize.
Interesting story, it makes me think of my own family, where small things (I forgot to do the dishes as promised) are quite easily brushed off with a formal apology, whereas more emotional matters (we were in a fight and as a consequence, we are both really hurt) are dealt with by pretending nothing happened, maybe even pretending to be extra cheerful to make clear we're good now....
I've always been very annoyed by this behaviour, especially because the 'it won't happen again-part' is not taken care of, but maybe some things are just too painful to discuss again, and we try to avoid another fight by not trying to explicitly make up for it?
I really enjoy the calligraphic touches to the posts!
It’s not just Iranian culture, Sofia.
My parents, my sisters, other family members would never overtly apologise, but would attempt those actions that supposedly “said” they were sorry.
Mum would cook up an extra special roast dinner, dad would buy me chocolate, one sister would have a clear out of her cupboard and bring me her cast offs, the other would share a bottle of wine with me.
Internally, I would get cross because nothing was ever “dealt with”
Good article xxx
Thanks Sofia for another interesting article.
I think some of the strategies are actually universal but what is interesting is that your iranian informants said that they use quite rarely direct apology words to apologize.
Interesting story, it makes me think of my own family, where small things (I forgot to do the dishes as promised) are quite easily brushed off with a formal apology, whereas more emotional matters (we were in a fight and as a consequence, we are both really hurt) are dealt with by pretending nothing happened, maybe even pretending to be extra cheerful to make clear we're good now....
I've always been very annoyed by this behaviour, especially because the 'it won't happen again-part' is not taken care of, but maybe some things are just too painful to discuss again, and we try to avoid another fight by not trying to explicitly make up for it?