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

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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 Attribution of Blame

The Attribution of Blame PDF Author: K. G. Shaver
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781461250951
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description


The Attribution of Blame

The Attribution of Blame PDF Author: Kelly G. Shaver
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783540961208
Category : Attribution (Psychologie sociale)
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description


Social Cognition and Aging

Social Cognition and Aging PDF Author: Thomas M. Hess
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080541305
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Most of the research done in social cognition has been conducted with younger adults and may not be applicable to a much older population. Social Cognition and Aging provides a snapshot view of research that has been done with older adults or is directly applicable to this population. Focusing on issues of self identity, social interactions, and social perceptions, this book provides a broad overview of how aging affects one's own perceptions and actions as well as how others perceive and interact with the aged. Coverage includes such topics as self-control, memory, resilience, age stereotypes, moral development, and the "art" of living. With contributions from top researchers in both gerontology and psychology, this book is an important reference for academics and professionals alike in personality, cognition, social psychology, adult development, sociology, and gerontology.

Mistreatment in Organizations

Mistreatment in Organizations PDF Author: Pamela L. Perrewé
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1785601164
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Volume 13 of Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being is focused on mistreatment in organizations. Mistreatment can be damaging to the individual as well as to the organization. This volume includes critical topics on customer mistreatment, aggression in the workplace, incivility, and workplace ostracism.

The Attribution of Blame to Victims of Crime

The Attribution of Blame to Victims of Crime PDF Author: Kristee A. Beres
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Attribution (Social psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description


The Limits of Blame

The Limits of Blame PDF Author: Erin I. Kelly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674980778
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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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.

Social Identities and the Attribution of Blame

Social Identities and the Attribution of Blame PDF Author: Mark R. Joslyn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Abstract: Individuals develop causal stories about the world around them that explain events, behaviors, and conditions. These stories may attribute causes to controllable components, such as individual choice, or uncontrollable components, such as broader forces in the environment. We employ attribution theory to outline how identities may shape causal attributions about problems, with a particular focus on whom or what is blamed for problems. We argue that social identities, such as partisanship and veteran status, can predispose individuals take make certain causal attributions over others. We test several hypotheses using individual level data from national surveys to explain attributions of blame for alleged prisoner abuses in the war on terrorism, including prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison. Our findings suggest that social identities predispose people to make certain attributions of blame, and some social identities interact with other individual characteristics to shape attributions. We suggest that attribution theory would be significantly enhanced by better incorporating the social identities of observers.

Distinction Among the Attributions of Causality, Responsibility, and Blame Including the Effects of Each on Adjustment to a Victimizing Event

Distinction Among the Attributions of Causality, Responsibility, and Blame Including the Effects of Each on Adjustment to a Victimizing Event PDF Author: Mary Ann Collins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Blame
Languages : en
Pages : 550

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Book Description


Ways to be Blameworthy

Ways to be Blameworthy PDF Author: Elinor Mason
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192570218
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
There must be some connection between our deontic notions, rightness and wrongness, and our responsibility notions, praise- and blameworthiness. Yet traditional approaches to each set of concepts tend to take the other set for granted. This book takes an integrated approach to these questions, drawing on both ethics and responsibility theory, and thereby illuminating both sets of concepts. Elinor Mason describes this as 'normative responsibility theory': the primary aim is not to give an account of the conditions of agency, but to give an account of what sort of wrong action makes blame fitting. She presents a pluralistic view of both obligation and blameworthiness, identifying three different ways to be blameworthy, corresponding to different ways of acting wrongly. First, ordinary blameworthiness is essentially connected to subjective wrongness, to acting wrongly by one's own lights. Subjective obligation, and ordinary blame, apply only to those who are within our moral community, who understand and share our value system. By contrast, detached blame can apply even when the agent is outside our moral community, and has no sense that her act is morally wrong. In detached blame, the blame rather than the blameworthiness is fundamental. Finally, agents can take responsibility for some inadvertent wrongs, and thus become responsible. This third sort of blameworthiness, 'extended blameworthiness', applies when the agent understands the objective wrongness of her act, but has no bad will. In such cases, the social context may be such that the agent should take responsibility, and accept ordinary blame from the wronged party.