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Interpersonal transgressions, subsequent apologies, and offered (or withheld) forgiveness hold important consequences for both perpetrators and victims. Research has focused largely on the perceptions of victims and processes that promote forgiveness in relation to transgressions of low severity. In order to extend this domain of inquiry we examined the emotional substrates that facilitate and constrain apologies for severe transgressions (i.e., murder). We collected data on the final statements from incarcerated persons on death row and applied a sentiment analysis to obtain estimates of the emotions expressed in them (i.e., anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, and trust). We manually coded each statement to indicate whether it exhibited some form of apology and compared the emotions expressed in apologetic statements versus non-apologetic statements. Results indicated that overall, final …