Whether it's bumping into someone when getting on the train to stopping an argument with a significant other, it seems that women are always the first ones to say "I'm sorry."

While some of us are just being knee-jerk polite, two new studies actually suggest that we're more likely to apologize in most situations than men -- only not for the reasons you might think.

Scientific American, take it away.

A study that monitored the conversations of 66 male and female subjects over the course of a 12-day period found that women said "sorry" significantly more often than men. However, researchers who also asked subjects to report mistakes and offenses they'd made during that time period discovered that women reported more than their male counterparts. Translation: It's not that women over-apologize, it's just that we commit more gaffes.

But, wait.

A second study asked male and female participants to rate three social offenses on a seven-point scale, and those researchers found that women consistently rated all three social offenses as more offensive than the men did.

In other words, next time he tells you, "But I didn't do anything wrong," you might want to consider that he really does believe that.