Why People Blame Others

Catch blame shifting before it spreads 😷

Humans are complicated: a tangled web of amazing biology and bad behaviours. This illustrated field guide will equip you with the necessary tools to navigate the lying, jealous and judgmental tendencies of your fellow humans. This week we explore blame-shifting 👈

This episode was written by Bahar Gholipour and filmed by Dominique Taylor. Animations by Vanessa Hill.
A big thank you to Mike Rugnetta for his help improving the audio from the previous version. Thank you also to Joe Hanson for his thumbnail advice.

REFERENCES 📚
Fast, N. J., & Tiedens, L. Z. (2010). Blame contagion: The automatic transmission of self-serving attributions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(1), 97-106.

Lee, F., & Tiedens, L. Z. (2001). Who's being served?“Self-serving” attributions in social hierarchies. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 84(2), 254-287.

[braincraft]

Catch blame shifting before it spreads 😷 ...hope you enjoy the new series!

And yes: this is a reupload. I consulted the audio doctor earlier, and the diagnosis was "one of your vocal tracks also got inverted somehow, which causes really bizarre phase cancellations you wont hear in a good number of listening situations, especially on mobile." Thanks to everyone for pointing this out – I was only listening with headphones so I couldn't figure out what was going on.

...I take full responsibility for the error.

[DuluthTW]

I had two older sisters that blamed me for all their bad deeds, but I always told my parents when something was my fault. Eventually, my sisters learned that they couldn't lie because my mom knew I would tell the truth no matter the cosequences. Truth and owning up to faults are always the best policy. I look forward to the rest of these episodes. Thanks for sharing!

[peacewillow]

not taking personal responsibility for your own actions and, even more importantly, your reactions to the actions of others, has become a disease more deadly than any other on earth.
thank you for addressing the topic. 💕

[finchborat]

Sometimes in life, it actually is someone else's fault.

It's one thing if you're blaming someone else for something you 100% did. It's another thing if the person you're blaming actually played a part in whatever happened.

[TheChamp]

I blame Vanessa from for making me subscribe to BrainCraft and watching these videos week after week.

[mrdrprof]

This is something I think a lot about when I play video games. In highly competitive games it can be real easy to spot mistakes in your teammates but more difficult to spot your own. Often, others failures do in fact result in your own failure. But that is not always true and even when it is true there are usually things you can do to improve the situation. If you're constantly blaming other people for all of your failure you won't find these things and you'll never improve.

[melissayes]

I love Muse's 'Blame Contagion': You've been bitten by Someone more guiltier than you!

[johnjhill]

As more people become aware of toxic behavior, and learn to recognize it as it happens, and gain the courage to call it out at the moment, perhaps all social activities will generally improve.

[drulli]

I've seen this phenomenon a lot in things such as video games! I've thought a lot about this and noticed that bad players are much more susceptible to such behaviour than good players. There is this concept of "Elo hell", where bad players claim that they are unable to get higher rating because they consistently get bad teammates which is why they cant win more than 50% of the games they play at this low rating. I believe this inhibits their ability to get better at the game because they don't look at their own mistakes and try to improve on them, but rather they think they don't make any mistakes at all and blame the failure on the team so they never improve!

[ryanliberty]

This is going to be my new favorite series! Thank you for doing this. 💓

[aviralrastogi]

Looking forward to the series so I can avoid the bad behaviour!!

[seabb]

I love how everything was written in a notebook and flipped through at the end, and all the credits were in the front cover :) that’s such a neat touch.

[Throughthelurkinglass]

Be wary of people who blame all their problems on other things or circumstances, eventually they'll find something to blame you for.

[MateusAntonioBittencourt]

It's amazing that when someone tries to shift blame (and we've all done it one time) the reason is to try make ourselves look better... but in the end has the opposite effect. My respect for someone assuming their mistakes goes through the roof... while it tanks when I see someone trying to shift blame.

The worst is that in a corporate environment it usually works... and I think that's why it's so prevalent in it.

[kevind]

Not just self-image is at risk. One's entire future (political, financial) can be imperiled by those who must find a source of blame for every misfortune, accident, or innocent mistake.

[alinecardoso]

My father, he told me I can't handle my work, I've got pretty upset and angry so, instead of say sorry, he jus said: "I said nothing wrong, you are too nervous" and my mother argued at him about so, he came back and said: "it is your fault that your mother is arguing with me, you both wants to see me dead".

[mikelakner]

Just remember that blame (or fault more accurately) is not the binary system we pretend it is. We love to pin blame on an individual, ignoring things like a victims poor choices, people looking the other way and involved groups with higher purposes. Once in blame mode, logic seems to be out the door. We often substitute the "good enough" blame for fault.

[dfgvcbh]

i get blamed for someone else mistakes and now they won't forgive me

[FrolickingWithChelsea]

This looks like it's going to be a great series! Can't wait to see more!

[Jackal_Blitz]

Is this a result (or side effect) of congitive dissonance?

For instance, if I think I am a good employee, and my boss blames me for something bad that happened, I would experience cognitive dissonance as a result. Would seeking a scapegoat then be a way for me to delude myself into continuing with my belief of my own awesomeness while not addressing the original problem?