A Four-Day Science-Backed Guide to Forging Better Friendships That Will Improve Your Life

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Another way to add warmth to your connections could be to repair past wrongs, by saying sorry. As our tech specialist Thomas Germain found out, robots are actually surprisingly good at coming up with effective apologies – while many humans struggle with that. But we humans may have one advantage: we can show in many ways that while imperfect, our apologies come from the heart. As Judy Eaton, a psychology professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, told Thomas: “Apologies aren’t just about saying the right words, it’s about bringing in the physiological responses of what researchers call ‘psychic pain’. If you’re truly remorseful, it hurts. If that pain doesn’t come through in the apology, people can detect that it’s not a real manifestation of vulnerability.”

Read the whole story (subscription may be required): BBC

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