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"Stage one," Orsborn says, "is the good little girl stage. No matter what their age, women in this stage may apologize for everything, even things they don't need to. They need to please people."
Stage two is the rebellion period. Women, Orsborn says, can rebel against the pleasing phase and are not likely to apologize for anything! "They are mad about everything," she says.
The third stage is wisdom, she says. "When women get beyond following the rules and beyond reactivity, they take the best of both. This means they have an urge to reconcile legitimate shortcomings."
In terms of health, Orsborn says, "Women at stages one and two tend to have more stress-related disorders and anxiety."
On the flip side, a study done in 2002 by researchers from Hope College and Virginia Commonwealth University showed that heart rate, blood pressure, sweat levels and facial tension decreased in victims of wrongs when they imagined receiving an apology.
In both cases, the people were carrying "the pain of the past," as Orsborn puts it, and then could lay it down and walk away from it.
