BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM

Finding the right words to say “I’m sorry” can be hard—especially if you want the other person to know you really mean it. Fortunately, new research offers some gentle guidance: if you want to sound more sincere, it might help to use longer words.

Apologies are sometimes dismissed as “cheap talk”—easy to say, even if the remorse is only skin-deep. Yet psychology tells a different story. Studies consistently show that people feel better—and are more likely to forgive and reconnect—when someone makes the effort to apologize.

So, how can you make that effort more convincing? As it turns out, not all apologies are created equal.

Why effort matters in an apology

Research has long shown that when someone goes out of their way to apologize—by spending time, money, or effort—their regret comes across as more genuine. A 2009 study found that apologies delivered in costly or inconvenient ways (like traveling just to say sorry in person) were more effective than those offered at minimal effort.

But emotional labor can also show up in smaller, subtler ways. That’s where new findings from Dr. Shiri Lev-Ari, Reader in Psychology at Royal Holloway University of London, come in.

According to Lev-Ari, “a word’s length and commonness affect how hard it is to say or write.” Longer words take more effort to articulate. And uncommon words, though potentially harder to say or recall, may burden the listener too. The sweet spot? Using longer—but still familiar—words.

What the research found

To explore this, Lev-Ari conducted two studies. First, she analyzed apology posts from 25 celebrities and 25 non-celebrities on X (formerly Twitter), comparing them with those users’ non-apology tweets. The result? Apology tweets contained longer words on average—but the words weren’t less common.

Next, she asked participants to evaluate variations of apologies that differed in either word length or commonness, but not both. Here’s an example:

• “My action does not show who I am” (short, common)
• “My action does not reflect my true self” (short, less common)
• “My action does not represent my true character” (long, less common)

Participants consistently rated the longer-worded apologies as more sincere. Interestingly, whether the words were more or less common didn’t change how sincere the apology felt. In short, length mattered—rarity didn’t.

As Lev-Ari explains, these findings suggest that people intuitively recognize and respond to the effort it takes to use longer words. That effort signals greater remorse—but only when it doesn’t make the apology harder for the other person to understand.

How to put this into practice

If you’re looking to offer a heartfelt apology, it might be worth choosing your words with a little extra care. Rather than defaulting to simple, short phrases, try opting for words that are slightly more formal or complex—but still easy to understand.

Think “regret” over “sorry,” or “unacceptable” over “bad.” And instead of saying “That wasn’t okay,” try “That was inconsiderate of me.” The goal isn’t to sound fancy—it’s to show that you’re putting real thought into what you’re saying. That small shift in effort might make all the difference.

Lev-Ari’s work highlights something many of us sense intuitively: communication isn’t just about what we say—it’s about how we say it. And when it comes to apologies, a few longer syllables might be just what we need to bridge the gap between regret and reconciliation.