An Apology Expert Analyzes The Explanation For Melania Trump's Plagiarism

Speechwriter Meredith McIver’s mea culpa for the plagiarism in Melania Trump ’s Republican National Convention speech is a genuine statement of contrition that is likely to be accepted, says an expert on apologies.

It has almost all the essential elements an apology needs to increase its likelihood of being embraced, and appears to be written from the heart and not under instruction by the Trump campaign, according to Roy Lewicki, a professor emeritus of management and human resources at the Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business who specializes in trust development and trust repair.

However, when viewed in the light of the Trump campaign’s initial reaction to the news that Melania Trump had delivered lines that were previously spoken by Michelle Obama during the 2008 Democratic convention, Lewicki isn’t quite sure what to make of the wider significance of McIver’s statement. Its release is puzzling, to say the least, and presents a fuzzy message on just how trustworthy the Trump campaign is.

“It’s surprising that this is one of the few times in the campaign that someone has owned up to a mistake or an error, and I would be hard pressed to know exactly why, in her case, this was allowed to sort of come out,” Lewicki said. “Particularly since the campaign and the candidate, in the previous 36 hours, were doing anything they could do to dismiss it or deny it or claim it was a trivial issue.”

But first, let’s dig into the apology itself

According to Lewicki’s research on the six essential elements of a sincere and effective apology, McIver hits it out of the park. Those six elements, in order of importance, are:

1. Acknowledgement of responsibility

2. Offer of repair

3. Expression of regret

4. Explanation of what went wrong

5. Declaration of repentance

6. Request for forgiveness

The more of these elements an apology contains, the more likely a recipient is to accept it, according to Lewicki’s recent study published in April . 

Here is McIver’s statement in full, re-typed from the PDF released on the Trump campaign website Wednesday morning . We’ve annotated it to point out the statements that fulfill the apology elements on Lewicki’s list.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:  

My name is Meredith McIver and I’m an in-house staff writer at the Trump Organization. I am also a longtime friend and admirer of the Trump family. 

In working with Melania Trump on her recent First Lady Speech, we discussed many people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people. A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama. Over the phone, she read me some passages from Mrs. Obama’s speech as examples. I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech. I did not check Mrs. Obama’s speeches [4: Explanation of what went wrong]. This was my mistake [1: Acknowledgment of responsibility], and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps, as well as to Mrs. Obama. No harm was meant [3: Expression of regret].

Yesterday, I offered my resignation to Mr. Trump and the Trump family [6: Request for forgiveness, or what Lewicki describes as a “backhanded request”], but they rejected it. Mr. Trump told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow from these experiences [5: Declaration of repentance].

I asked to put out this statement because I did not like seeing the way this was distracting from Mr. Trump’s historic campaign for president and Melania’s beautiful message and presentation. 

I apologize for the confusion and hysteria my mistake has caused. Today, more than ever, I am honored to work for such a great family. I personally admire the way Mr. Trump has handled this situation and I am grateful for his understanding. 

Sincerely,

[Signature]

Meredith McIver

It’s important to note that Element 4, the explanation of what went wrong, can further affect the way an apology lands because it could either be an honest mistake or a violation of integrity that reflects on a person’s character. In McIver’s case, she explains it was an honest mistake. 

You’ll also see that Element 2 is missing that’s because there really is no way to repair the fact that Melania Trump delivered a partially plagiarized speech to an audience of 23 million TV viewers, Lewicki explained. But barring that, the statement is well-crafted and appears to convey genuine remorse for the mistake.

“This is a case of a good apology that’s sort of surprising because it stands out in such contrast to the tactics of the broader campaign,” said Lewicki. 

Indeed, when one considers McIver’s statement within the wider context of the Trump campaign’s response to accusations that Melania’s speech had been at least partially cribbed from Michelle Obama’s, the intended effect of her apology becomes less certain.

The campaign had spent the day after the speech bizarrely denying the plagiarism had taken place (despite the one-in-87 billion chance those words had assembled themselves randomly in about the same order Obama had delivered them), blaming Hillary Clinton for the media attention  and even angrily protesting that the plagiarism accusations amounted to an assertion that Obama invented the English language . 

On top of it all, the candidate himself appeared to revel in the continued media coverage of his wife’s speech, which makes the point of McIver’s apology (to regain trust and start the forgiveness process ) suspect, according to Lewicki.

“That’s been a consistent process in the whole Trump campaign to keep the media focus on them by whatever means they need to,” Lewicki concluded. “Which, from my point of view, makes the credibility of the candidate and the campaign sort of questionable.”