Blaming: Finding Fault in the Wrong Places
Blaming is a cognitive distortion, or a faulty thought pattern, that causes a person to wrongly assign the responsibility of a negative outcome either to oneself or another.
This cognitive distortion occurs when one wrongly blames another for one’s own actions, or when one wrongly assumes responsibility for others’ actions.
Examples of blaming others
Often, when we engage in blaming, we overlook our own roles in the creation of negative outcomes. Here are a few examples of this sort of blaming:
- Eli was driving 10 miles over the speed limit when he was pulled over by a police officer who had been parked in a nonvisible area near the road. Eli blamed the office for setting a trap.
- Leah turned in an assignment late. When her teacher refused to accept it, she blamed the teacher for being too strict.
- Mary and her husband took a weekend vacation. She remembered while they were away that they had scheduled a contractor to meet them at their house that day, and blamed her husband for forgetting this appointment.
In each of these examples, the person doing the blaming has done something to contribute to the negative outcome he or she is experiencing, but does not consider how his or her own choices or mistakes may have influenced the outcome. Instead, the blamer casts him or herself as a victim of someone else’s wrongdoing, assigning blame for the negative outcome on this other person (or group).
What’s wrong with blaming?
Blaming is a form of accountability-dodging. In some cases, including perhaps the first two examples above, we may not directly confront those to whom we assign blame. We may gripe to ourselves, or to our friends and family, about having gotten a speeding ticket, or about a strict teacher, and after venting our anger and resentment for awhile, we move on . . . until the same problem arises again, because we haven’t made any effort to correct our own behavior. Casting someone else as the cause of our negative outcomes in this way helps us to avoid the bad feelings that may result from admitting wrong, but it doesn’t help us to resolve the underlying issues that caused the problem in the first place.
Other times, such as in the third example, we may directly accuse others of a wrongdoing without considering whether we bear some degree of responsibility as well. Mary and her husband both forgot about the contractor appointment. If Mary blames her husband, she is missing an opportunity to explore how she, too, forgot about the appointment — an act of introspection which may have helped her to prevent such mistakes in the future. Further, she has unnecessarily introduced conflict into her relationship. Relationship conflict can lead to an array of negative outcomes.
Not only does blaming rob ourselves of an opportunity to reflect and improve our own behavior, but it creates for ourselves an environment of emotional toxicity for ourselves which ultimately hurts us more than anyone else. At its most extreme, a habit of blaming can lead us to develop a negative worldview in which we believe our communities — or the world at large — are hostile toward us. This can lead to mental health issues including anxiety, depression, and others.
When blaming turns inward
Sometimes, the problem isn’t blaming others for our own mistakes. Rather, the cognitive distortion lies in wrongly assuming responsibility for others’ choices. Here is one more example of blaming, with the roles reversed:
- Hannah blamed herself for not knowing better when her peers teased her about her new haircut
In this example, the blamer has again wrongly assigned the responsibility for the negative outcome. However, unlike the above examples, when the blamer shirks responsibility, she has assumed responsibility unnecessarily, in blaming herself for the cruelty of others.
How to stop blaming
The key to stop blaming others or ourselves inappropriately is to test our own thoughts for accuracy. This is called reality testing, and it’s a crucial step for combating all cognitive distortions, blaming included.
Challenge your assignment of blame
Ask yourself if you have come to the most realistic conclusion as to who (if anyone) is deserving of blame in any given instance. What is the evidence for this assignment of blame, and what is the evidence against it?
Consider alternatives
If you’ve challenged your initial assignment of blame and found the evidence for it to be wanting, then you have done well! The next step is to consider whether realistic alternatives. To draw from the examples above, Eli may conclude that he, more so than the officer who gave him the ticket, is responsible for having gotten the speeding ticket as he was the one speeding; Leah may decide that she, more so than the teacher who refused to accept a late assignment, is to blame for the poor grade as she did not meet the deadline for the assignment; Mary may decide that she and her husband both bare responsibility for having forgotten a commitment they scheduled on the same weekend they were out of town. Finally, Hannah may decide that her peers are in the wrong for teasing her about her haircut, and not herself.
Photo credits:
Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash
Learn more
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter to receive summaries of new articles.
Articles
The CBT Triangle: The Link Between Thoughts, Behaviors, and Emotions
