Geez you guys, did you know I was planning to post about the concept of blame next? I've given that topic a lot of thought over the last five years, and it led me to examine the concept of "blame" and why we engage in it. I found some interesting articles on the topic...
### Why do people blame others | 2KnowMySelf (not the full article, but most of it)
http://www.2knowmyself.com/Why_do_people_blame_others
**Why do people blame others**
Some people start to blame everyone around them as soon as anything bad happens. While the habit of blaming others is very common still there is no one common reason behind it but instead there are many different reasons that could make a person blame others.
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**Loss of control:** Some people panic when they lose control of a situation and so they try to restore the sense of being in control by blaming others!! So behind the act of blaming others fear might exist!!
**Controlling you:** Some people try to control others by blaming them and making them feel that they are bad. If someone desperately wants you to do something he might blame you to change your behavior. Labeling you selfish, arrogant or snob by friends is one of the common methods for controlling others using blame.
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**Unable to accept what happened:** People blame others when they fail to accept something that happened. Had those people learned how to properly accept events they would have never blamed others
**Blaming others and feeling helpless:** People who blame others usually try to hide their feelings of helplessness. If they didn’t blame anyone they would admit that they are not in control and that there is nothing they can do.
### Why We Blame Others
http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/blame/why_blame_others.htm
**Why do we tend to blame other people? We do it so often and so easily, but what is the underlying psychological purpose?**
**Badness**
One explanation we tell ourselves when we blame others is because they are bad. Yet being bad means not only intentionally transgressing values but repeatedly doing so and without concern for others. Being bad is a permanent state, an unchangeable trait. Few can be described as being so evil.
Turning the tables, blaming itself can be seen as a bad act, so perhaps you can blame the blamer, pointing out that they are blaming too quickly and insufficient evidence. There is a line from the Bible (John 8:7) that says 'Let the person who is without sin cast the first stone', implying that nobody is blameless and hence is not qualified to blame others.
So why do we still blame?
**Status**
We have a deep need for a sense of identity, and one way we do this is through social comparison, contrasting ourselves against others. As a part of this, if we can place ourselves higher in the pecking order of society then we can feel more important and have a greater sense of control.
Much of our conversation with others is in fact a social duel in which we seek a higher status than others. And blame is one of the tools we use to this end. If the other person is bad, then it seems we must be relatively good.
**Projection**
Another reason for blame is that we feel bad about something and want to get rid of the bad feeling, so we project that feeling at others. Blaming others sets them up as bad so we can then project our bad feelings into them.
In effect, we are saying 'I cannot handle this bad feeling, so I want you to take it away for me'. Of course it is not that simple, but this method is rooted in childhood thinking yet continues well into adult life.
If we can focus on the bad of others then this takes our mind off the bad feelings within us. Projection hence has can work by distraction.
**Explaining**
When something goes wrong, our deep need to explain what caused the problem to occur is triggered.
A way of finding cause is to blame someone. This is a surprisingly common approach in organizations where a 'blame culture' assumes someone is at fault for every problem and issue. As a result, people are quick to judge others and equally quick to avoid or deny responsibility.
What is easily missed is that most problems are caused by the context or system and not by people. Few go to work thinking 'I'll fail today'. Few also are lazy or incompetent.
**Defending**
When we feel that we are under attack, we may use blaming as a method of defending ourselves.
If a person blames us, then it is suggested that (a) something has gone wrong, and (b) it was our responsibility. We can accept (a) and either deflect (b) by suggesting someone else is to blame, or directly counter-attack by blaming the blamer.
If we are not at fault, we blame to defend. If we are at fault, then we blame to deflect. In either case, we protect ourselves by pointing the finger elsewhere.
**Attacking**
Sometimes we blame others less because we are moving attention away from ourselves and more because we specifically want to attack others.
A common reason to attack others is that we have some grudge against them, believing them to be bad or unworthy in some way and hence deserving punishment. Perhaps they have blamed us unfairly in past. Maybe they have hurt one of our friends. In any case, the opportunity to blame is used as a convenient method of subtle attack.
**Conditioning**
In conditioning, a stimulus is paired with an action in order to motivate. Much of the way we try to motivate others is based on such assumptions.
Blame is a form of punishment and is likely to result in reduction in the actions that the person is taking. It is a poor motivator to get people to act in specific other ways.
One of the major social benefits of blame is that it conditions people into behaving according to the rules of the society. Just the fear of being blamed, and the consequences of this, is often enough to gain compliance. In this way, blaming is also a way of sending signals to others.
**While blame can work, it is fraught with difficulties as people are not as simple as animals**, with which the original research was done. When people are blamed, they may resist, fighting back with their own attack. They may also seem to do nothing yet hold a grudge that comes out in a long series of unhelpful acts.
There can also be an unwanted conditioning effect where the underlying assumption that the blamed person is bad leads to them believing this, resulting in them continuing to act in a bad way.
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And these are just some notes I sent to myself about a year ago:
Thinking out loud.....
Why do we automatically look to assign blame? Why do we need to assign blame to anyone or anything other than Sandusky. As for the rest of it, is does not help anyone to blame before first understanding what was known at the time and what those people were thinking.
