Blaming the victim – In this episode, we delve into a perplexing aspect of human behavior: victim-blaming. Why do we do it? For example, are rape victims responsible for what happens to them? Are victims of car crashes or other accidents responsible for what happened to them? These are the kinds of questions we examine as we look at the strange human tendency to blame the victim. We make all kinds of attributions as to why people do what they do – where do we often go wrong?
Here is the concept map for the biases discussed in this show.
Test yourself to see if you really know the difference between these types of biases (requires latest version of Flash).
Blaming The Victim
1: Fundamental Attribution Error
- “people do what they do because of the kind of people that they are, not because of the situation they are in”
- “people tend to underestimate external influences when explaining other people’s behavior”
2: Actor/Observer (bias) Difference
- “Whereas we are very likely to find internal causes for other people’s behavior, we tend to look …to the situation to explain our own behavior”
- Example: in a murder trial, the prosecution will call the person a murderer, defense will focus on the difficulty of the person’s life at the time or their childhood, characteristics of the person murdered. “That person drove my client to do what he/she did”
3. Self-serving Attribution (bias): while we tend to take credit for our successes (attribute success to internal causes), we blame our failures on external causes
- I earned an A, my professor gave me a C
- Why? Because it threatens our self esteem to think that failures were caused by something about ourselves
- Example: sports – when a team wins, they attribute it to talent or skill, when they lose, they attribute it to bad luck, poor playing conditions, bad calls from the umpires rather than “I didn’t train hard/study hard enough”, “Our team wasn’t as good”
- It feels bad to attribute our failures to ourselves
4. Optimism bias: “good things are more likely to happen to oneself than to others and bad things are less likely to happen to oneself”
- A kind of “defensive attribution”
- Teenage driving habits – very risky
- Runner Jim Fixx wrote a book: “The Complete Book of Running”, and died at a young age.
- Why do we tend to hold this belief? Because the world is a scary, unpredictable place and that makes us feel anxious. The only way to feel a little better is to believe that it couldn’t happen to me. “I would have acted differently”, “That wouldn’t happen to me because…”I would make different decisions”
5. Belief in a Just World: bad things happen to bad people, “or at least to people who make mistakes, poor choices, etc.” thus, bad things won’t happen to me because I wouldn’t make those mistakes.
- “the belief in a just world keeps anxiety-provoking thoughts about one’s own safety at bay” Aronson, et. al.
- when the world seems chaotic or dangerous, this is anxiety provoking. so we attempt to reassure ourselves by blaming the victim
Dean Galati
March 11, 2007Thanks for sharing!
Ep 273: Stereotypes and How We Get Past Them | The Psych Files
March 11, 2007[…] Drive: How Do Men and Women Compare? Episode 7 on Blaming the Victim var dd_offset_from_content = 40;var dd_top_offset_from_content = 0;var dd_override_start_anchor_id […]
Blaming the Victim | The Psych Files
March 11, 2007[…] Blaming the Victim and other Attribution Biases […]
Michael
March 11, 2007Good points. I wasn’t trying to put the responsibility all on women with my explanation on Optimism Bias, but I see how that could be interpreted. See my episode entitled “What Men Need to Do to End Violence Against Others” for my thoughts on what men need to do. Thanks for the comment.
M
March 11, 2007College age men can choose whether or not to rape someone. Especially since consent is needed if it’s supposed to be considered other than rape. Putting it all on women in an optimism bias is misleading, and only serves to free the men of having to face responsibility. As in the audio, it’s unrealistic to have a “should have known” mentality, yet that seems to perpetuate circumstances such as rape culture. We need to perpetuate something else – responsibility.
Updating Theories | Brandy A. Brown, Ph.D.
March 11, 2007[…] are extremely complex, especially in groups, and are highly influenced by their situation (more than they like to admit or may even be aware of). So really what my branch of psychology ends up trying to do is to say what most people are more […]
Karim
March 11, 2007I disagree with the part about external influences being somewhat responsible for your behavior. I believe that situations are like mirrors, they show you who you truly are. Adverse situations are when you see someone's true character. You cannot blame a situation for how you chose to react to it. That's like when a friend of mine used to beat his girlfriend in college and said it was because she "was constantly disrespecting him". Ten years later he beats his new wife, while I have never hit a woman despite numerous conflicts. To me that just isn't an option; where to him it is. The situation has changed, but his behavior has not because he is the constant.
I once read this article on how people interpret situations. First there is the stimuli, then evaluation, then a response is selected. Two of those three processes are internal, so you can't blame a situation for how you respond. Different people would react to that same situation differently.
Michael
March 11, 2007Joanna, glad you’re enjoying the Psych Files (though it’s more of a podcast than a blog). I hadn’t heard of Donna Orange and I’m not familiar with Phillip Bromberg, but I found Donna’s book on Amazon and will definitely give it a look. I’ve never really gotten into self psychology, so this might be quite interesting. Thanks! Michael
Psychologist & Counsellor Associates Sydney
March 11, 2007hi micheal. love the blog – just arrived here today for the first time.
not sure if you are familiar with Donna Orange’s work, esp Falling Backwards in which she describes subjective distortions of reality (like misatribution) to control mechanisms similar to the one’s you describe. She also sights that these ‘mistakes’ of reason are more pronounced in trauma victims….these ideas are then developed by Phillip Bromberg and others in speaking about every-day dissasociation.
Love the blog!! Will def keep reading. Thanks for the great info.
Joanna
Michael
March 11, 2007Sarah – I think you’re right that it’s just plain harder to put a young female in this and many other societies. I gave many an orientation speech to young male freshmen about proper behavior but a lot of times I left shaking my head. Adolescence is a tough time and young men just aren’t that typically mature until their mid 20s.
Sarah Filmer
March 11, 2007One point that frustrates me is sex/gender differences.
When you were talking about frat parties how the female should be aware, i agree she should be aware. But if the males have a sort of get out of trouble free pass because of their testosterone why don’t the females also have one? I believe not just females should be informed i think males should also. Inform males how peer pressure and testosterone can over come them.
I just think males can be young and care free but it is harder for females to do the same thing or to just be young and a bit naive (this guy is different). When a female is carefree she is generally viewed as stupid, reckless, wanting the bad things to happen to her. However when a male is carefree it generally seems to be put down to his testosterone and he is really a good kid.
Just had to release some of my frustration, i am not aiming this at you directly the view seems to be generally held by society. I found it very interesting.
mikebritt
March 11, 2007Greg,
Thanks so much. You are very, very kind. I do enjoy doing the podcasts and getting feedback is like yours is really nice. “Procrastination” eh? I’ll look into it – sounds like it could be a good podcast. Good luck with your psych course.
Michael