The Perfect Apology: Myth or Reality

Does the perfect apology really exist? Is it conceivable that every major and/or minor mistake, embarrassment, error or screw up has what amounts to be the perfect fix, crafted specifically for that situation and aggrieved recipient?

Apparently of the thousands of different ways to say I'm sorry some techniques are much better and more likely to succeed than others. Yet, despite the importance of apologies in our daily lives there is almost no research on the subject. The work that has been done usually points to the following list of ingredients - a description of the error; acknowledgment of the offense; acceptance of responsibility; a willingness to own the mistake; an explanation; regret, humility and remorse; a request to be forgiven; a credible effort to prevent the error from happening again; and some form of compensation.

But the probability of success or failure is not simply a function of following these 'perfect apology' guidelines. Consider some of the more recent celebrity apologies:

Michael Richards apologized for using the 'n' word; Mel Gibson pleaded insanity (and alcoholism) for using the 'j' word; Ted Haggard (President of the National Association of Evangelicals) and Mark Foley (prominent Republican congressman) both apologized for being addicted to the 's' word; Isaiah Washington (star of Gray's Anatomy) apologized for outing his co-actor T.R. Knight by using the "f" word; Tom Cruise apologized to Brooke Shields for uttering too many insensitive words about women abusing anti-depressants to deal with postpartum depression (how Tom became an expert on this subject is still a mystery to many); John Kerry was forced to apologize to members of the armed forces for failing to include the word "us" in comments about the importance of education; and we all remember Bill Clinton's apology for asking us to seriously consider what our definitions of the word 'is' is.