Blame is the act of
censuring
A censure is an expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism. In parliamentary procedure, it is a Debate (parliamentary procedure), debatable main motion that could be adopted by a majority vote. Among the forms that it can take are a ster ...
, holding responsible, or making negative statements about an individual or group that their actions or inaction are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of
praise
Praise as a form of social interaction expresses recognition, reassurance or admiration.
Praise is expressed verbally as well as by body language (facial expression and gestures).
Verbal praise consists of a positive evaluations of another's a ...
. When someone is
morally responsible
In philosophy, moral responsibility is the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission in accordance with one's moral obligations.
Deciding what (if anything) counts as "morally obligatory" is a princip ...
for doing something wrong, their action is blameworthy. By contrast, when someone is morally responsible for doing something right, it may be said that his or her action is
praise
Praise as a form of social interaction expresses recognition, reassurance or admiration.
Praise is expressed verbally as well as by body language (facial expression and gestures).
Verbal praise consists of a positive evaluations of another's a ...
worthy. There are other senses of praise and blame that are not ethically relevant. One may praise someone's good dress sense, and blame their own sense of style for their own dress sense.
Neurology
Blaming appears to relate to include brain activity in the
temporoparietal junction
The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is an area of the brain where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, at the posterior end of the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure). The TPJ incorporates information from the thalamus and the limbic system as well ...
(TPJ). The
amygdala
The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex verteb ...
has been found
[amygdala has been found](_blank)
/ref> to contribute when we blame others, but not when we respond to their positive actions.
Sociology and psychology
Humans — consciously and unconsciously — constantly make judgments
Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle s ...
about other people. The psychological criteria for judging others may be partly ingrained, negative, and rigid, indicating some degree of grandiosity
In the field of psychology, the term grandiosity refers to an unrealistic sense of superiority, characterized by a sustained view of one's self as better than others, which is expressed by disdainfully criticising them (contempt), overinflating ...
.
Blaming provides a way of devaluing others, with the end result that the blamer feels superior, seeing others as less worthwhile and/or making the blamer "perfect". Off-loading blame means putting the other person down by emphasizing his or her flaws.
Victims of manipulation and abuse
Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...
frequently feel responsible for causing negative feelings in the manipulator/abuser towards them and the resultant anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
in themselves. This self-blame often becomes a major feature of victim status.
The victim gets trapped into a self-image
Self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to an objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, etc.), but also items that h ...
of victimization
Victimisation ( or victimization) is the process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology.
Peer victimisation
Peer victimisati ...
. The psychological profile of victimization includes a pervasive sense of helplessness, passivity, loss of control, pessimism, negative thinking, strong feelings of guilt
Guilt may refer to:
*Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard
*Culpability, a legal term
*Guilt (law), a legal term
Music
*Guilt (album), ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims
*Guilt ( ...
, shame
Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness.
Definition
Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, d ...
, remorse
Remorse is a distressing emotion experienced by an individual who regrets actions which they have done in the past that they deem to be shameful, hurtful, or wrong. Remorse is closely allied to guilt and self-directed resentment. When a person ...
, self-blame, and depression. This way of thinking can lead to hopelessness and despair.[Braiker, H.B., ''Who's Pulling Your Strings? How to Break The Cycle of Manipulation'' (2006)]
Self-blame
Two main types of self-blame
Blame is the act of censuring, holding responsible, or making negative statements about an individual or group that their actions or inaction are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of praise. When someone is morally responsible for ...
exist:
# behavioral self-blame – undeserved blame based on actions. Victims who experience behavioral self-blame feel that they should have done something differently, and therefore feel at fault.
# characterological self-blame – undeserved blame based on character. Victims who experience characterological self-blame feel there is something inherently wrong with them which has caused them to deserve to be victimized.
Behavioral self-blame is associated with feelings of guilt
Guilt may refer to:
*Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard
*Culpability, a legal term
*Guilt (law), a legal term
Music
*Guilt (album), ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims
*Guilt ( ...
within the victim. While the belief that one had control during the abuse (past control) is associated with greater psychological distress, the belief that one has more control during the recovery process (present control) is associated with less distress, less withdrawal, and more cognitive reprocessing.
Counseling responses found helpful in reducing self-blame include:
* supportive responses
* psychoeducational responses (for example, learning about rape trauma syndrome
Rape trauma syndrome (RTS) is the psychological trauma experienced by a rape survivor that includes disruptions to normal physical, emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal behavior. The theory was first described by nurse Ann Wolbert Burgess and ...
)
* responses addressing the issue of blame.
A helpful type of therapy for self-blame is cognitive restructuring
Cognitive restructuring (CR) is a psychotherapeutic process of learning to identify and dispute irrational or maladaptive thoughts known as cognitive distortions,Gladding, Samuel. Counseling: A Comprehensive Review. 6th. Columbus: Pearson Educatio ...
or cognitive–behavioral therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (suc ...
. Cognitive reprocessing is the process of taking the facts and forming a logical
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
conclusion from them that is less influenced by shame or guilt.
Victim blaming
Victim blaming is holding the victims of a crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...
, an accident
An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...
, or any type of abusive
Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...
maltreatment to be entirely or partially responsible for the incident that has occurred. The fundamental attribution error
In social psychology, fundamental attribution error (FAE), also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is the tendency for people to under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behavior whil ...
concept explains how people tend to blame negative behavior more on the victims traits than the situation at the time of the event.
Individual blame versus system blame
In sociology, individual blame
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own need ...
is the tendency of a group or society to hold the individual responsible for his or her situation, whereas system blame
A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and expressed ...
is the tendency to focus on social factors that contribute to one's fate.
Blame shifting
Blaming others can lead to a "kick the dog
A kick is a physical strike using the leg, in unison usually with an area of the knee or lower using the foot, heel, tibia (shin), ball of the foot, blade of the foot, toes or knee (the latter is also known as a knee strike). This type of at ...
" effect where individuals in a hierarchy
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...
blame their immediate subordinate, and this propagates down a hierarchy until the lowest rung (the "dog"). A 2009 experimental study has shown that blaming can be contagious even for uninvolved onlookers.
In complex international organizations, such as enforcers of national and supranational policies and regulations, the blame is usually attributed to the last echelon, the implementing actors.
As a propaganda technique
Labeling theory
Labeling theory posits that self-identity and the behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them. It is associated with the concepts of self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping. Labeling th ...
accounts for blame by postulating that when intentional actors act out to continuously blame an individual for nonexistent psychological traits and for nonexistent variables, those actors aim to induce irrational guilt
Guilt may refer to:
*Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard
*Culpability, a legal term
*Guilt (law), a legal term
Music
*Guilt (album), ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims
*Guilt ( ...
at an unconscious level. Blame in this case becomes a propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
tactic, using repetitive blaming behaviors, innuendos
An innuendo is a hint, insinuation or intimation about a person or thing, especially of a denigrating or derogatory nature. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging (also called insinuation), that works obliquely by allusion ...
, and hyperbole
Hyperbole (; adj. hyperbolic ) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. In rhetoric, it is also sometimes known as auxesis (literally 'growth'). In poetry and oratory, it emphasizes, evokes strong feelings, and ...
in order to assign negative status to normative humans. When innocent people are blamed fraudulently for nonexistent psychological states and nonexistent behaviors, and there is no qualifying deviance for the blaming behaviors, the intention is to create a negative valuation of innocent humans to induce fear, by using fear mongering
Fearmongering, or scaremongering, is a form of manipulation that causes fear by using exaggerated rumors of impending danger.
Theory
According to evolutionary psychology, humans have a strong impulse to pay attention to danger because awareness ...
. For centuries, governments have used blaming in the form of demonization
Demonization or demonisation is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally by the monotheistic and henotheistic ones. The term has since been expanded to refer to any characterization of individ ...
to influence public perceptions of various other governments, as well as to induce feelings of nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
in the public. Blame can objectify
In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person, as an object or a thing. It is part of dehumanization, the act of disavowing the humanity of others. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sex ...
people, groups, and nations, typically negatively influencing the intended subjects of propaganda, compromising their objectivity. Blame is utilized as a social-control technique.
In organizations
The flow of blame in an organization
An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose.
The word is derived from ...
may be a primary indicator of that organization's robustness and integrity
Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values.
In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Inte ...
. Blame flowing downwards, from management to staff, or laterally between professionals or partner organizations, indicates organizational failure. In a blame culture, problem-solving is replaced by blame-avoidance. Blame coming from the top generates "fear, malaise, errors, accidents, and passive-aggressive
Passive-aggressive behavior is characterized by a pattern of passive hostility and an avoidance of direct communication. Inaction where some action is socially customary is a typical passive-aggressive strategy (showing up late for functions, st ...
responses from the bottom", with those at the bottom feeling powerless and lacking emotional safety
In psychology, emotional safety refers to an emotional state achieved in attachment relationships where in each individual is open and vulnerable. The concept is primarily used by couples' therapists to describe intimate relationships. When a ...
. Employees have expressed that organizational blame culture made them fear prosecution for errors and/or accidents and thus unemployment, which may make them more reluctant to report accidents, since trust
Trust often refers to:
* Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality
It may also refer to:
Business and law
* Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another
* Trust (bus ...
is crucial to encourage accident reporting. This makes it less likely that weak and/or long-term indicators of safety threats get picked up, thus preventing the organization from taking adequate measures to prevent minor problems from escalating into uncontrollable situations. Several issues identified in organizations with a blame culture contradict the best practices
A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to other known alternatives because it often produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing ...
adopted by high reliability organization
A high reliability organization (HRO) is an organization that has succeeded in avoiding catastrophes in an environment where normal accidents can be expected due to risk factors and complexity.
Important case studies in HRO research include both ...
s. Organisational chaos, such as confused roles and responsibilities, is strongly associated with blame culture and workplace bullying
Workplace bullying is a persistent pattern of mistreatment from others in the workplace that causes either physical or emotional harm.
It can include such tactics as verbal, nonverbal, psychological, and physical abuse, as well as humiliation. T ...
. Blame culture promotes a risk aversive approach, which prevent organizations and their agents from adequately assessing risks.
According to Mary Douglas
Dame Mary Douglas, (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. Douglas was considered a follower of Émile Durkhei ...
, blame is systematically used in the micro-politics of institutions, with three latent functions: explaining disasters, justifying allegiances, and stabilizing existing institutional regimes. Within a politically stable regime, blame tends to be asserted on the weak or unlucky one, but in a less stable regime, blame shifting may involve a battle between rival factions. Douglas was interested in how blame stabilizes existing power structures within institutions or social groups. She devised a two-dimensional typology of institutions, the first attribute being named "group", which is the strength of boundaries and social cohesion, the second "grid", the degree and strength of the hierarchy. According to Douglas, blame will fall on different entities depending on the institutional type. For markets, blame is used in power struggles between potential leaders. In bureaucracies
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
, blame tends to flow downwards and is attributed to a failure to follow rules. In a clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship
and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...
, blame is asserted on outsiders or involves allegations of treachery
Treachery is the betrayal or violation of trust.
Treachery may also refer to:
*Treachery (law), an offence in several countries, related to treason
* Treachery (''Revenge''), the eighth episode of the American television series ''Revenge''
* ''Tr ...
, to suppress dissidence and strengthen the group's ties. In the 4th type, isolation, the individuals are facing the competitive pressures of the marketplace alone; in other words, there is a condition of fragmentation with a loss of social cohesion
Group cohesiveness (also called group cohesion and social cohesion) arises when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main co ...
, potentially leading to feelings of powerlessness and fatalism
Fatalism is a family of related philosophical doctrines that stress the subjugation of all events or actions to fate or destiny, and is commonly associated with the consequent attitude of resignation in the face of future events which are thou ...
, and this type was renamed by various other authors into "donkey jobs". It is suggested that the progressive changes in managerial practices in healthcare is leading to an increase in donkey jobs.
The requirement of accountability and transparency, assumed to be key for good governance, worsen the behaviors of blame avoidance, both at the individual and institutional levels, as is observed in various domains such as politics and healthcare.[
] Indeed, institutions tend to be risk-averse and blame-averse, and where the management of societal risks (the threats to society) and institutional risks (threats to the organizations managing the societal risks) are not aligned, there may be organizational pressures to prioritize the management of institutional risks at the expense of societal risks. Furthermore, "blame-avoidance behaviour at the expense of delivering core business is a well-documented organizational rationality". The willingness of maintaining one's reputation may be a key factor explaining the relationship between accountability and blame avoidance. This may produce a "risk colonization", where institutional risks are transferred to societal risks, as a strategy of risk management. Some researchers argue that there is "no risk-free lunch" and "no blame-free risk", an analogy to the "no free lunch
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (alternatively, "There is no such thing as a free lunch" or other variants) is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The acronyms TANSTAAFL, TINSTA ...
" adage.
See also
References
Further reading
* Douglas, Tom. ''Scapegoats: Transferring Blame'', London-New York, Routledge, 1995.
* Wilcox, Clifton W. ''Scapegoat: Targeted for Blame'', Denver, Outskirts Press, 2009.
External links
Blaming
Moral Responsibility
(also on praise and blame), in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Eac ...
Praise and Blame
in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''IEP'') is a scholarly online encyclopedia, dealing with philosophy, philosophical topics, and philosophers. The IEP combines open access publication with peer reviewed publication of original pape ...
{{Aspects of organizations
Social psychology
Ethics
Behavior
Accountability
Moral psychology