FILE: ARCH-NUM-009 / STATUS: PUBLISHED
Apologizing statistics, each one read in its source
Pick a number, open its source, and check it yourself. Every number below links to the text it came from.
LAST CHECKED: OCTOBER 10, 2026
Every number here was read in its source on October 8, 2026, and links to it.
Each number below was read at source. We opened each poll or page on October 8, 2026. A number stayed only if it was in that text.
Counts are the source's own. We did not round, convert or combine them. Where a figure is widely repeated and we found no study behind it, this page says so.
Britain and America
22%
Share of Americans who would apologise for a sneeze. A third of British people would.
Oh, sorry: Do British people really apologise too much?. YouGov, 2015. Open the page
36%
Share in Britain who would say sorry if someone bumped into them, against 24% in America.
Oh, sorry: Do British people really apologise too much?. YouGov, 2015. Open the page
31%
Share of British people who feel they say sorry too much, against 23% of Americans.
Oh, sorry: Do British people really apologise too much?. YouGov, 2015. Open the page
America, eight years on
9,594
US adults polled online on April 11 and 12, 2023.
Sorry, but 24% of Americans apologize for something outside of their control at least once a day. YouGov, 2023. Open the page
24%
Share who said they apologize for things outside their control at least once a day.
Sorry, but 24% of Americans apologize for something outside of their control at least once a day. YouGov, 2023. Open the page
11%
Share who said they do it several times a day.
Sorry, but 24% of Americans apologize for something outside of their control at least once a day. YouGov, 2023. Open the page
18%
Share of men who said they never apologize for something outside their control, against 13% of women.
Sorry, but 24% of Americans apologize for something outside of their control at least once a day. YouGov, 2023. Open the page
32%
Share of Millennials who apologize that way at least daily, against 10% of Baby Boomers.
Sorry, but 24% of Americans apologize for something outside of their control at least once a day. YouGov, 2023. Open the page
Counted in diaries
33
Women, and as many men, who kept a diary of offenses and apologies for 12 nights.
Offenses and apologies. Language Log, Mark Liberman, 2010. Open the page Reports: Schumann and Ross, Why Women Apologize More Than Men, in Psychological Science, 2010. The post reads out the paper's diary counts; the abstract we also read gives the finding without them.
217
Apologies the women reported over those nights, against 158 from the men.
Offenses and apologies. Language Log, Mark Liberman, 2010. Open the page Reports: Schumann and Ross, Why Women Apologize More Than Men, in Psychological Science, 2010. The post reads out the paper's diary counts; the abstract we also read gives the finding without them.
81.3%
Share of their own reported offenses the women apologized for. The men's share was 80.6%.
Offenses and apologies. Language Log, Mark Liberman, 2010. Open the page Reports: Schumann and Ross, Why Women Apologize More Than Men, in Psychological Science, 2010. The post reads out the paper's diary counts; the abstract we also read gives the finding without them.
Sorry for the rain
65
Strangers at a train station on a rainy day who were asked to lend a phone.
Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain. The British Psychological Society, Research Digest, 2013. Open the page Reports: Brooks, Dai and Schweitzer's field study of superfluous apologies, in Social Psychological and Personality Science. The digest prints the counts; the abstract we also read does not.
Forty-seven per cent
Share who lent it when the request opened with sorry about the rain.
Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain. The British Psychological Society, Research Digest, 2013. Open the page Reports: Brooks, Dai and Schweitzer's field study of superfluous apologies, in Social Psychological and Personality Science. The digest prints the counts; the abstract we also read does not.
nine per cent
Share who lent it when the request came with no apology.
Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain. The British Psychological Society, Research Digest, 2013. Open the page Reports: Brooks, Dai and Schweitzer's field study of superfluous apologies, in Social Psychological and Personality Science. The digest prints the counts; the abstract we also read does not.
Numbers that get repeated
“Brits say sorry eight times a day”
We could not find a study behind this figure in the records we read.
“The average person apologises four times a week”
We could not find a study behind this figure in the records we read.
How we checked
A runner opened each source on October 8, 2026, and saved what it read. A number appears here only if it sits in that saved text, word for word.
The link beside each number opens the source, so you can check it yourself. Two sources are pages that read out a study's counts; each names the study.
The pattern behind it
Saying sorry when nothing is your fault has a file here. The Apology Loop is the pattern of saying sorry before anything has gone wrong.
The numbers above say how many people do it and how often. They do not say why any one person does.
Catch is the first move. Catch means you feel the body signal and name the pattern before it becomes the behavior.
The body signal is what you feel in your body as the pattern starts. It might be a tight throat as the word forms.
The free Crash Course, short lessons on your pattern, starts by naming it.
HOW TO CITE THIS PAGE
The Archivist Method (2026). Apologizing statistics, each one read in its source. The Numbers. https://thearchivistmethod.com/statistics/apologizing