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Thank you. For scientific American science quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.

We've all heard apologies that ring hollow and others that sound genuine, but what makes

the difference? New research suggests that the words we choose when we apologize can signal

how much effort we're putting into making amends, and that perceived effort has a big impact.

Here to explain what makes an apology sound authentic is

Shiri Levary, an associate professor in psychology at Royal Holloway University of London.

Thank you so much for coming on to chat today. Thank you for inviting me.

So you recently authored a paper about something that I think many of our listeners think a lot about, especially in the age of the internet, the idea of apologies and what makes one sound genuine.

Could you tell me a little bit about your research background and kind of how you came to this question?

Yeah, so I'm a researcher of language, but I'm particularly interested in language when

it has a social aspect.

So to see how it helps in social functions and influenced by social information.

And I came to apologies because I find apologies quite interesting and bizarre.

There's something that is called cheap talk because anyone can

...