The Attribution of Blame

The Attribution of Blame PDF Author: K.G. Shaver
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461250943
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book Here

Book Description
How can we identify the causes of events? What does it mean to assert that someone is responsible for a moral affront? Under what circumstances should we blame others for wrongdoing? The related, but conceptually distinct, issues of causality, responsibility, and blameworthiness that are the subject of this book play a critical role in our everyday social encounters. As very young children we learn to assert that "it wasn't my fault," or that "I didn't mean to do it." Responsibility and blame follow us into adulthood, as personal or organizational failings require explanation. Although judgments of moral accountability are quickly made and adamantly defended, the process leading to those judgments is not as simple as it might seem. Psychological research on causality and responsibility has not taken complete advantage of a long tradition of philosophical analysis of these concepts. Philosophical discussions, for their part, have not been sufficiently I1ware of the psychological realities. An assignment of blame is a social explanation. It is the outcome of a process that begins with an event having negative consequences, involves judgments about causality, personal responsibility, and possible mitigation. The result can be an assertion, or a denial, of individual blameworthiness. The purpose of this book is to develop a comprehensive theory of how people assign blame.

The Attribution of Blame

The Attribution of Blame PDF Author: K.G. Shaver
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461250943
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book Here

Book Description
How can we identify the causes of events? What does it mean to assert that someone is responsible for a moral affront? Under what circumstances should we blame others for wrongdoing? The related, but conceptually distinct, issues of causality, responsibility, and blameworthiness that are the subject of this book play a critical role in our everyday social encounters. As very young children we learn to assert that "it wasn't my fault," or that "I didn't mean to do it." Responsibility and blame follow us into adulthood, as personal or organizational failings require explanation. Although judgments of moral accountability are quickly made and adamantly defended, the process leading to those judgments is not as simple as it might seem. Psychological research on causality and responsibility has not taken complete advantage of a long tradition of philosophical analysis of these concepts. Philosophical discussions, for their part, have not been sufficiently I1ware of the psychological realities. An assignment of blame is a social explanation. It is the outcome of a process that begins with an event having negative consequences, involves judgments about causality, personal responsibility, and possible mitigation. The result can be an assertion, or a denial, of individual blameworthiness. The purpose of this book is to develop a comprehensive theory of how people assign blame.

The Limits of Blame

The Limits of Blame PDF Author: Erin I. Kelly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674989414
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
Faith in the power and righteousness of retribution has taken over the American criminal justice system. Approaching punishment and responsibility from a philosophical perspective, Erin Kelly challenges the moralism behind harsh treatment of criminal offenders and calls into question our society’s commitment to mass incarceration. The Limits of Blame takes issue with a criminal justice system that aligns legal criteria of guilt with moral criteria of blameworthiness. Many incarcerated people do not meet the criteria of blameworthiness, even when they are guilty of crimes. Kelly underscores the problems of exaggerating what criminal guilt indicates, particularly when it is tied to the illusion that we know how long and in what ways criminals should suffer. Our practice of assigning blame has gone beyond a pragmatic need for protection and a moral need to repudiate harmful acts publicly. It represents a desire for retribution that normalizes excessive punishment. Appreciating the limits of moral blame critically undermines a commonplace rationale for long and brutal punishment practices. Kelly proposes that we abandon our culture of blame and aim at reducing serious crime rather than imposing retribution. Were we to refocus our perspective to fit the relevant moral circumstances and legal criteria, we could endorse a humane, appropriately limited, and more productive approach to criminal justice.

Attribution Theory

Attribution Theory PDF Author: Mark Martinko
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351465139
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book Here

Book Description
With Special Contributions from Bernard Weiner Ph.D. (UCLA) and Robert Lord Ph.D. (Univ. of Akron) Attribution theory is concerned with peoples causal explanation for outcomes: successes and failures. The basic premise is that beliefs about outcomes are a primary determinant of expectations and, consequently, future behavior. Attribution theory articulates how this process occurs and provides a basis for understanding that translates into practical action. Attribution Theory: An Organizational Perspective serves as a primary sourcebook of attribution theory as it relates to management and organizational behavior. The text provides an integrated explanation of the role and function of attribution theory in the organization. This important new book contains original empirical research relating attributions to leader evaluations, reactions to information technologies, management of diverse work groups, achievement, and executive succession and power. The contributors are from a variety of disciplines including management, psychology, education, educational psychology, and sociology.

Protest and the Politics of Blame

Protest and the Politics of Blame PDF Author: Debra Lynn Javeline
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472024779
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
The wage arrears crisis has been one of the biggest problems facing contemporary Russia. At its peak, it has involved some $10 billion worth of unpaid wages and has affected approximately 70 percent of the workforce. Yet public protest in the country has been rather limited. The relative passivity of most Russians in the face of such desperate circumstances is a puzzle for students of both collective action and Russian politics. In Protest and the Politics of Blame, Debra Javeline shows that to understand the Russian public's reaction to wage delays, one must examine the ease or difficulty of attributing blame for the crisis. Previous studies have tried to explain the Russian response to economic hardship by focusing on the economic, organizational, psychological, cultural, and other obstacles that prevent Russians from acting collectively. Challenging the conventional wisdom by testing these alternative explanations with data from an original nationwide survey, Javeline finds that many of the alternative explanations come up short. Instead, she focuses on the need to specify blame among the dizzying number of culprits and potential problem solvers in the crisis, including Russia's central authorities, local authorities, and enterprise managers. Javeline shows that understanding causal relationships drives human behavior and that specificity in blame attribution for a problem influences whether people address that problem through protest. Debra Javeline is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rice University.

Judgments of Responsibility

Judgments of Responsibility PDF Author: Bernard Weiner
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 9780898628432
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
Presenting a general theory of social motivation, this compelling work integrates research on achievement evaluation, stigmatization, helping behavior, aggression, and impression management. Bernard Weiner examines how responsibility inferences are reached, the manner in which such judgments affect emotions, and the role that "cold" judgments of responsibility versus "hot" feelings, such as anger, play in producing both pro- and antisocial behaviors. Ideal for students as well as researchers and mental health practitioners, the book includes experiments for the reader to complete that illustrate the main points of the text.

Difficult Conversations

Difficult Conversations PDF Author: Douglas Stone
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593511697
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book Here

Book Description
The 10th-anniversary edition of the New York Times business bestseller-now updated with "Answers to Ten Questions People Ask" We attempt or avoid difficult conversations every day-whether dealing with an underperforming employee, disagreeing with a spouse, or negotiating with a client. From the Harvard Negotiation Project, the organization that brought you Getting to Yes, Difficult Conversations provides a step-by-step approach to having those tough conversations with less stress and more success. you'll learn how to: · Decipher the underlying structure of every difficult conversation · Start a conversation without defensiveness · Listen for the meaning of what is not said · Stay balanced in the face of attacks and accusations · Move from emotion to productive problem solving

Who Is to Blame?

Who Is to Blame? PDF Author: Alexander Herzen
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801492860
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Herzen's novel played a significant part in the intellectual ferment of the 1840s. It is an important book in social and moral terms, and wonderfully expressive of Herzen's personality."--Isaiah BerlinAlexander Herzen was one of the major figures in Russian intellectual life in the nineteenth century. Who Is to Blame? was his first novel. A revealing document and a noteworthy contribution to Russian literature in its own right, it establishes the origins of Herzen's spiritual quest and the outlines of his emerging social and political beliefs, and it foreshadows his mature philosophical views.

Attribution

Attribution PDF Author: Gifford Weary
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461236088
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book initially was conceived in 1986 by Weary and Harvey as a revi sion and update of their 1981 Perspectives on Attributional Processes (pub lished by Wm. C. Brown," Dubuque, Iowa). However: toe extensive nature of recent work on attributional processes and the opportunity to collabo rate with Melinda Stanley as a coauthor led to a plan to develop a more comprehensive work than the 1981 book. It definitely is an amalgam of our interests in social and clinical psychology. It represents our commitment to basic theoretical and empirical inquiry blended with the applications of ideas and methods to understanding attribution in more naturalistic set tings, and as it unfolds in the lives of different kinds of people coping with diverse problems of living. The book represents a commitment also to the breadth of approach to attribution questions epitomized by Fritz Heider's uniquely creative mind and work in pioneering the area. To us, the attribu tional approach is not a sacrosanct school of thought on the human condi tion. It is, rather, a body of ideas and findings that we find to be highly useful in our work as social (JH and GW) and clinical (GW and MS) psychology scholars. It is an inviting approach that, as we shall describe in the book, brings together ideas and work from different fields in psychology-all concerned with the pervasive and inestimab1e importance of interpretive activity in human experience and behavior.

The Berenstain Bears and the Blame Game

The Berenstain Bears and the Blame Game PDF Author: Stan Berenstain
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0679887431
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34

Get Book Here

Book Description
This classic Berenstain Bears story is a perfect way to teach children about taking responsibility for their actions! Come for a visit in Bear Country with this classic First Time Book® from Stan and Jan Berenstain. Papa and Mama have had it with Brother and Sister constantly blaming each other for everything. Will the cubs ever learn to accept responsibility, or will they just keep playing the blame game? Includes over 50 bonus stickers!

The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations

The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations PDF Author: Fritz Heider
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780898592825
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
First Published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.