The impact of voluntariness of apologies on victims' responses in restorative justice: findings of a quantitative study.

Apologies are ordered in law without certainty about whether or not recipients perceive ordered and voluntary apologies differently. This exploratory study investigates whether or not the voluntariness of apologies influences recipients' perceptions of their sincerity, acceptance of apologies, willingness to forgive and intended retributive behaviour. We manipulated the voluntariness of apologies whilst considering offender (age, gender, ethnicity and prior wrongful behaviour) and offence (seriousness) characteristics in 3 studies (s = 164, 121, 236).

Assessing alexithymia in forensic settings: Psychometric properties of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale among incarcerated adult offenders.

Background: Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulty identifying feelings (DIF), difficulty describing feelings (DDF) and externally orientated thinking (EOT). It is a risk factor for criminal behaviour. It is commonly assessed with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), but the psychometrics of the TAS-20 have not been tested across the range of offender populations, and it has been suggested it might be unsuitable in incarcerated offenders.

Alexithymia in nonviolent offenders.

Background: Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulties processing emotions. Existing data suggest it is associated with violent offending. In violent offender programmes, therefore, violent offenders are screened for alexithymia and it is attended to if necessary.

Apologies following an adverse medical event: The importance of focusing on the consumer's needs.

Objective: The lack of a theoretical framework limits educators' ability to train health practitioners how to disclose, and apologise for adverse medical events. The multidimensional theory of apology proposes apologies consist of one or more components which can either be self-focused (focused on the apologiser's needs) or other-focused (focused on the needs of the consumer). We investigated whether the inclusion of other-focused elements in an apology enhanced its impact in a health setting.

Psychometric properties of Scheier and Carver's Life Orientation Test in a sample of Australian prisoners.

The psychometric properties of Scheier and Carver's 1985 Life Orientation Test (LOT), which is a measure of optimism, were examined as part of a study of education, training, work experience, and expectations of sentenced adult prisoners in Western Australia. All prisoners at five metropolitan public prisons were invited to participate and 453 accepted. This represented a response rate overall of about 41%, with response rates at each of the individual prisons ranging from 13% to 90%.

Exploration of the association between apology and forgiveness amongst victims of human rights violations.

Forgiving may lead to an improvement of mental health, and from a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective it is important to establish what aspects of judicial procedures can be changed to promote forgiving. The literature suggests that receiving an apology may encourage forgiving. However, there is a dearth of empirical research regarding the association between forgiving and apology in judicial settings.