Contemptuous Apology

There are seven (7) emotions discovered to be universal until now. The lesser known of these emotions is contempt. Contempt is a feeling or attitude of moral superiority or disdain. Every emotion can be experienced toward others or oneself, including contempt.

A contemptuous apology can be as obvious as it appears to be or notably difficult to identify. The latter is likely to be more frequent because an obvious contemptuous apology will generally immediately provoke anger from the person who receives it and deprive the deceptive person from the benefits of an apology.

Detecting Deception in an Apology

I have written an essay that was too long to publish here. This is a follow-up article on apologies. The excerpt can be read as follows:

This is an essay on Detecting Deception in an Apology (DDinA) using statement analysis. The approach presented in this essay aims to be accessible to the general public by focusing on the basic elements of statement analysis and provides the ability to be manually performed in a reasonably short time with an acceptable appreciation of the truthfulness and sincerity in an apology.

Detecting Deception in an Apology (view online, PDF)

Anatomy of an Apology

An apology is used to express one's regret or remorse for the harm and pain he or she has caused. A apologetic person can seek forgiveness but may also try to heal his or her own pain. It can also be an effective action toward reconciliation, whether it is in a personal or business relationship. A complete, meaningful and proper apology requires certain elements to convince the person one apologizes to that it is sincere.

An Apology Should Contain...

• Accountability
• Acknowledgement
• Taking Responsibility
• Expressing Regrets
• Asking for Forgiveness
• Pledge, Promise
• Form of Restitution
  

Accountability

An apologetic person should present a detailed account of the situation for which it requires an apology. The specificity will convince the person that you are sincere and will increase the likelihood to be believed when you will tell the person that you are genuinely willing to take full responsibility for your actions. Failing to provide an accurate account of the events may also entirely invalidate your apology, for the simple reason that you should apologize for the same situation the person expects an apology for.

Acknowledgement
An apologetic person should acknowledge the damage or pain done by his or her actions. The specificity will convince the person that you fully understand the consequences of your actions and will also increase the likelihood to be believed when you will tell the person that you are genuinely willing to take full responsibility for your actions. Failing to provide an accurate acknowledgement may also convince the person that you are careless about the consequences of your actions and becomes a failure to validate the person's feelings.

Taking Responsibility

An apologetic person should provide a statement in which he or she takes full responsibility for his or her actions in the situation. Recognizing your role in the situation and taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions is an important step before apologizing. Offering excuses, explanations or any form of rationalization for your actions will appear as an attempt to diminish your role in the situation and avoid taking responsibility for your actions.

Expressing Regrets, Asking for Forgiveness, and a Promise
An apologetic person should express his or her regrets or remorses at this point. The preamble has been laid out in a detailed manner and in such way that your regrets accompanied with an apology will be heard and, most likely, believed. Ask for forgiveness but don't force it and don't expect it. This is where you hand back the power to the person, in a great act of humility. A sincere promise that it won't happen again may also help to obtain forgiveness and eventually rebuild a relationship.

Form of Restitution

An apologetic person should offer a form of restitution, whenever possible, to repair the damages done. This is an opportunity to make it right and possibly remedy the situation. A detailed statement including the actions taken to correct the problem and expressing your commitment to avoid the same mistakes in the future will be highly regarded by the person you are apologizing to.

A Final Word...
The lack of sincerity at any point may defeat and completely invalidate your efforts to apologize. Be clear, accurate and do not bring unrelated matter in your apology. There is no point to apologize when an apologetic person only seeks to gain from the apology. An apology is being at the mercy of another and recognizing that you are a fallible person, which is one of the reasons why people take too long to apologize (or never do).

Take time to reflect upon what you did wrong but don't let a situation unresolved for months because it may well have degraded to a point that it is impossible to fix, especially in the situations where the harm is extreme. Never assume a problematic situation is minor. Give time for the person to think about your apology but don't expect a response and don't push for one.

all this for a better world...

Personality on Paper (follow up)

You may remember the personality survey that I have prepared some time ago. I have written a small application to compile raw data in a meaningful manner and in such way to make it possible for me to interpret the data. The results are simply amazing.

The results are used to create a statistical model and the data itself is anonymous. Few of the participants have already been contacted among those who left their email address. It may take few more weeks to process all the data and type a summary. Those who have not participated yet, see the link below and leave your email address if you are interested to be contacted about the results.

I have deliberately left any explanations and instructions aside on the first round to study how people would approach the survey. The most recurring question is about the meaning of the numbers. The closest number to a trait means the highest value for this specific trait. There are two opposing traits per question to chose from, which means that it is either one or another, or simply none of them (e.g. 3).

Scoring three (3) is a bit problematic because it should not happen very often, but yet may happen; it means that you should reconsider your scoring each time that you score 3 on a question and make sure it is truthful. Those who scored the most 3s were either clueless about themselves or dishonest in their answers. There are also people who have scored only or mostly positive traits, which is too flattering to be true: it is a sign of dishonesty or self-deceit.

Thanks to everybody who have participated so far...

Take the survey here.

Crab Soup

I have prepared a wonderful crab and corn soup yesterday. Forget about fake crab, we're talking about the real thing. 'Reminds me, sometimes I watch weird cooking shows on television. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares would be one instance. Gordon Ramsay has also another popular television show named Hell's Kitchen and its sixth season has recently concluded.

Hell's Kitchen is not exactly what I would call quality programming and it's more entertainment than instructional; but it does not mean there's nothing of interest.

Ramsay's management is definitively noticeable. He yells, verbally abuses, throws food at people, kick garbage cans and whatnot! He is a straight-talker, makes no compromises and rarely compliments his staff. “He is a bad boss,” most people would utter without hesitation nor any further investigation. Ramsay nevertheless claims to have a 85% staff retention rate since 1993 (see here).

Your ideal boss is charming, calm, polite, and tells you that you are the best. He pays you lunch at times and it all makes you feel good. You feel respected. Popularity has a direct correlation with the ability to hide one's true feelings. Basically, it means the better the liar, the more popular.

Such an idealized boss as described above might as well be a psychopath. “Psychopaths are typically very likable”, according to an article entitled “Is Your Boss a Psychopath?” (quiz here). Psychologist Robert Hare thoroughly studied criminal psychopaths and developed a checklist, Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), that has also been applied to corporate world. Be aware of what you wish, because it might become true (and not exactly what you expect).

I expect from people working for me discipline, honesty and take responsibility for their actions. It's a tough ride on anyone because it is demanding and exhausting. One could say that my personality is mostly being serious. Ramsay would say that I am too soft when it comes to management, even though others would instead say that I am overly demanding. Isn't it a strange world?

Advanced Software Testing using Simulation

The famous quote from Donald E. Knuth could be an interesting opening for this blog post. Unfortunately, the practice is overly cliché and would most likely dilute further the initial meaning of its author. Software testing remains a practical approach to proof softwares, whether it is manual or automated testing, whereas mathematical proofs are the theoretical approach.

Simulation can be useful to bring software testing a step further by simulating a user, or multiple users, performing a series of tasks through the software to be tested, with or without meaningful actions, but always within a certain set of parameters.

We are currently working on such simulation system. Each scenario is a compound based on a sequence of user inputs, which are collected and stored into a database. Most scenarios developed in software testing are usually based on a normal usage in order to prove the software works as intended. The existing scenarios will be subsequently mutated multiple times using probabilities, that is, the likelihood such or such user input can occur, similarly as in a Monte Carlo Simulation. Scenarios are also constructed from scratch using statistical sampling, where the value of a certain user input in a given context might or might not have a greater weight in its probability to be triggered.

The simulation system runs multiple scenarios simultaneously against multiple instances of the software during its entire development cycle on a dedicated server, on a 24/7 basis, and reports failed scenarios accordingly. The failed scenarios are then ran step-by-step by the software engineers so as to catch and correct defects.

Technologies are sometimes surprising and exciting...

Life has been much more peaceful lately, which is a good thing. My attention is fully focused on my other on-going projects but also learning Norwegian. I spend an average of one hour a day when I learn a new language. It can be more depending on the necessity of learning the language.

I have been spending an increasing number of hours learning Norwegian. Learning sessions are organized among learning the written and spoken language.

I have acquired "Norvégien Sans Peine" (Norwegian With Ease) from Assimil. Assimil publishes many language learning books and I have bought about 10 of them throughout the years. Their method is certainly not the best if only for being overly passive but when you are used to the formulae, it comes as easy as it gets and one can learn quickly.

Internet is also a great source of learning in that respect. I have managed to watch TV series on the web, offered at no cost, such as "330 Skvadronen" and "Hellstrøm rydder opp".

There are people who believe that learning a language should be undertaken with courses, books, audio, and so many other so-called tools. Some of them pour a fortune in this! My approach? A small book + a plane ticket.

The secret is really in the effort you are willing to put in to learn...