Why others blame

Disclosure: this page contains affiliate links to select partners. We receive a commission should you choose to make a purchase after clicking on them. Consult a counselor to help you stop blaming others for your mistakes, actions, or problems. Simply click here to connect with one via BetterHelp. A lot of things that happen to us are the result of multiple contributing factors, and can be caused by a mix of our own actions and those of other people.

For example, if you were to hit a pothole in the road and fall off your bike, it was probably partly due to the fact that the road has been poorly maintained, but also that you were cycling too fast or not looking where you were going. If that were you, would you be ranting and raging about what your taxes are spent on these days, or would accept the part you played in it and vow to learn from your mistakes?

As well as weakening our relationships, being unable to take responsibility for our mistakes can damage us in other ways. Life is all about making mistakes. Every mistake you make in life allows you to have an opportunity to learn and grow. Next time you do something wrong, take a minute to consider what you could learn if you accepted personal responsibility for the problem.

This can help you prevent the problem from recurring. Also, if you blame instead of learning, you will remain in the same spot in your life, just maybe a bit more miserable because you consider yourself to be a victim of your circumstances and the people around you.

We use defense mechanisms such as blaming others to protect ourselves from potential feelings of guilt or anxiety because by shifting the blame onto someone else, you can sidestep the responsibility of reflecting on your own behavior.

However, when this is done in excess, it becomes problematic and can lead someone to make excuses all the time rather than having a sense of personal responsibility. Often coupled with denial, the defense mechanism of blaming others is used to avoid facing situations that may be too challenging to handle.

Action Step: Defense mechanisms are a learned behavior that can be replaced with new behaviors. You may blame the comment you made on the fact that your spouse was being mean to you in the first place, when in reality, you felt powerless in the heat of the moment. This is a common tactic used by gaslighters. Making the comment was a reaction to your anger, which was the emotion you were showing to mask the deeper feeling of powerlessness.

Even though you have had arguments in the past, you may not want to acknowledge that there are problems in your marriage that need to be addressed. Think about your next move before you make it. P eople like to think of themselves as a certain type of person and tend to shift blame when accepting it would go against their self-image. Everyone else was speeding too, but the cop singled them out for an unfair speeding ticket.

This is especially common in workplace situations when the person fears repercussions for admitting fault. Toxic work environments and workplaces that are competitive can encourage people to shift blame instead of taking responsibility. These types of punishment and reward systems are meant to encourage productivity and high standards, but ultimately result in poor working experience and unhealthy culture.

Norbert Soski. Bottomline — our failures, mistakes,and problems are never our fault. Someone either gave us the wrong information,or others misunderstood us, or the circumstances of the situation did not align correctly. This fault-deflection behavior is based on our human nature drive as explained by the workings of our internal Human Operating System iHOS.

As I discuss and explain in much more detail in my book, human beings operate with what I call our internal Human Operating System iHOS , generally referred to by others as our human nature. Our iHOS describes in detail the functionality of the human condition. The model of our iHOS was developed based on the integration of engineering concepts and human spirituality — mind, body, and soul. Each soul has unique characteristics and motivations that drive our individual behavior.

Motivated by pain avoidance and maintaining identity, the Primitive Soul always drives us to be right and comparatively, motivated by knowledge and creativity, the AngelicSoul wants us to be accurate. Driven by our human nature, we, in our own thoughts, create a world to fit our own beliefs of how the world should be; this is our Illusionary World.

Our Illusionary World is generally created based on our Primitive Soul motivations and built from our identity, beliefs, and the way we want the world to appear if we could do it our way. In our illusionary self-created world, our Primitive Soul drives us to always be right and therefore, in our Illusionary World we can never be wrong; we will justify whatever we need to be right. In our illusionary world, facts and truth are irrelevant because we can fabricate any faux-reality we want.

Our beliefs, opinions, our version of the truth, and our interpretations of our experiences become far more important than the actual facts, reality, or truth. In order to maintain the integrity and structure of our Illusionary World, whenever we experience a failure, mistake, or problem it cannot be our fault. So, we will justify the unexpected outcome by blaming others or the uncontrollable circumstances of the situation. In our illusionary world, we do not take responsibility for anything we do wrong.

We do not admit to being wrong to anyone or even ourselves because being wrong is not our fault. It is never our fault. Someone else had to have contributed to the problem, and therefore they are to be blamed.

One of the distortions that Burns discussed was personalization — the act of blaming ourselves for something that is not within our control. The flip side of this distortion is blaming other people for what happens in our lives. Once you blame someone, do you then think they deserve to be treated or thought of poorly? Do you notice this pattern repeating often in your life? This post will primarily focus on the psychological reasons for blaming others, the reasons we do it, as well as ways to overcome this distortion.

Blame is defined as assigning responsibility for a fault or wrong. We blame others for a number of events: so and so made us late, she made me feel guilty, they pressured me to make a decision, he made me explode with rage. Blaming others leads to several unhelpful emotions, such as resentment, anger, and hatred.

We blame others for our behaviors, our thoughts, and our feelings that are negative.