Texting “I’m Sorry” at Work: How Emotion Expression Modality Shapes Apology Effectiveness

This research examines how the modality of expression in text-based workplace apologies impacts forgiveness. Drawing on the Emotions as Social Information model, we compare apologies with emotion words, emojis, both, or neither across three studies. Study 1 demonstrates that apology type affected willingness to forgive, perceived remorse, sincerity, and appropriateness. Study 2 replicated the advantage of emotion words over emojis for forgiveness, remorse, and appropriateness, and showed that relational closeness does not moderate the effect. Across Studies 1 and 2, mediation analyses indicated that sincerity and appropriateness, rather than perceived remorse, accounted for differences in forgiveness. Study 3 examined the apologizer’s perspective and found that participants preferred to use emotion word apologies and perceived them as more effective than emoji or baseline apologies, regardless of transgression severity. These findings challenge assumptions that digital nonverbal cues function equivalently to verbal expressions and highlight the importance of communication modality in virtual environments.