Hi Guys just wanted to start a discussion on the issue of deferral of responibility and how this is so entrenched in our psychs. The best way to get the knub of the issue is to use these classic statement: Janet: "I was appoached by this guy who wanted to take me on a date, I wasn't sure about doing so but I thought as it was he who approached me I can always claim he pressured me later if it didn't work out" aborgation of responsibility for the decision to go out on a date #1 Company DricKon p/l: "I was approached by Dricon P/l and offerred a job. Hey, they offered it to me so it aint my fault I ended up doing the wrong type of work given my qualifications!" Basically it is based on who offers something and how the person accepting the offer refuses to take full responsibiity for their acceptance of offer. Therefore coping out and refusing to take resonsibility for their decisions. What this means is that this political use of choice diminishes the integrity of those choices we make and from a psychological perspective it corrupts our ability to act with integrity when we are always looking for someone else to blame for our decisions correct ones or incorrect ones , successes or failures. Whilst on most occasssions the person will take responsibility outwardly , inwardly they wil cling to the self justification of deferral of responsibility [ playing the blame game within but appearing to take responsibility without.] The blame game for sure! Care to discuss?
The interesting thing is that [ realised since posting the OP] we actually want or deliberately seek someone to blame for our failures even before we take on a task....which I find rather perplexing.... The issue of blame is so strong and our self esteems so fradgile that this seems to be the outcome. A form of hedging a bet situation or a sort of back up position to protect ourselves from self ridicule and self admonishment when things don't quite work out as intended. hmmmm Certainly opens up a whole line of enquiry.... A bit like a company blaming it's customers for a faulty product that it produced stating that demand was so high they/we couldn't cope with the quality issue... and also I may go out on a limb with this but possibly one major reason for the lack of female leaders in society generally is because women have been using this cop out since day one, as have men, but not quite as much.
I think this is interesting and I have noticed the phenomenon. I think it is important to add that the mirror process is there also. When one takes the first step one feels MORE responsibility. At least I do. It feels like one is the creator. If I ask you to do something - like first step to being friends - then I am more responsible if we don't like each other. Or worse, if I don't like you, but you like me. I think this transcends blame issues, also. Active creates, responsive does not. Given this blame gets attributed to the active. I think, however, there is also blame aimed at those who do not decide right off. Like the active one feels like they are owed. You can see this between men and women. Men ask out the woman and if she goes along she is leading him on if she does not have interest.
In my line old of work, the trades, I had to hold myself responsible for everything that I do because I know how to do things, as over time I've learned a great deal, and I don't want to shirk my responsibility as I always try my best but sometimes it just isn't good enough. I've quit jobs where the foreman didn't know what he was doing and tried to shift the blame onto the others under him but once we saw what he was up to we all quit en mass! So there's always going to be those who will avoid taking responsibility but for the most part many don't. As for other types of responsibilities there's a thousand things to discuss about from teenagers to adults, from singles to couples. This can really drag out if you want to get really involved with ALL the responsibilities that are out there.
The main one though that this thread is attempting to explore is the way people will seem to abuse the the offer by accepting it with the knowledge that they may double cross on the deal later. Accepting knowing that because they have the power of being offerred they also have the power to manipulate the situation. Obviously a lot of people have difficulty behaving with integrity once they have been empowered by someone elses desire. So our fictional Janet aborgates her responsibility or surrenders her responsibility in a disengenius manner because it grants her added advantage latter if things don't turn out the way she wants them to. However because this self double crossing or self sabortage type behaviour is so common in her life it becomes a standard practice to hedge her bets or be prepared to lie to herself about the reality of her decisions.
Another way of looking at this could be: The difference in law betweeen a written agreement [contract] and a verbal agreement [contract], is an indication of what I am talking about. The written agreement provides a stronger arguement in a court setting than a verbal agreement. Now people now this of course and use this natural fact in ways not necessarilly intended. By avoiding a written agreement they maintain the ability to double cross on the deal later. Thus by using self deception they grant themselves more power or should I say a greater illusion of power in the deal.
People will double cross you with a written contract just as fast as one without. Then you have to take them to court to let the judicial system try to figure out just what went wrong and even then the written document isn't good enough. Let's say the court finds in your favor and awards you a million dollars the problem is that you have to pay your lawyers AND you have to find a way to get that money from whoever you sued which isn't very easy today. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The law has a principle called "contributory negligence." If the steering linkage on a car fails and the driver swerves into your lane before he can stop it, runs into your car, and kills you, the liability is acknowledged to be his. (Even though inadvertent. He will not be prosecuted but he or his insurance company will have to pay a judgment to your widow.) But if it is discovered that you weren't wearing your seat belt, and investigators determine that if you had fastened it you would have only suffered minor injuries, then you can be held accountable for contributory negligence. The other party might only be held responsible for a small portion of the damages (like fixing your car and a few thousand bucks in medical bills), and if you weren't carrying insurance, then your widow might be largely out of luck. Much of the "blame game" in social transactions is really a search for all of the parties who might be reasonably held accountable for contributory negligence, or even a portion of deliberate responsibilty. A competent psychotherapist will make that point, but the problem is that many of their patients are of more limited competence. People often come out of a session remembering only the things they enjoyed hearing, and forget anything that might require them to look inward and improve their own behavior. There's no question that life is complicated, and when something goes wrong there may be a dozen people who, if they had behaved differently, could have helped bring about a more amenable outcome. Still, the only person over whose behavior you have very much control is YOU.
