self-blame

Examples of self-blame in the following topics:

• Child Abuse

  • Effects of child sexual abuse include guilt and self-blame, flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, and fear of things associated with the abuse.
  • Neglect can have many long-term side effects, such as physical injuries, low self-esteem, attention disorders, violent behavior, and even death.

• Rape

  • Often, victims blame themselves for rape.
  • Although self-blame might seem like an unusual, intensely individual response to rape, it is rooted in social conceptions of rape and victimhood.
  • In the case of rape, victim blaming generally refers to the belief that certain behaviors on the part of the victim, like flirting or wearing provocative clothing, encourage assault.
  • Legal systems may perpetuate victim blaming.
  • Leaders of the feminist movement started some of the first rape crisis centers, which not only provided basic services to victims, but also advanced the idea of rape as a criminal act with a victim who was not to be blamed.

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

  • To be diagnosed with PTSD according to the DSM-5 (2013), a person must first have been exposed to a traumatic event that involves a loss of physical integrity, or risk of serious injury or death, to self or others.
  • In addition, the person must experience intrusions (persistent re-experiencing of the event through flashbacks, distressing dreams, etc.); avoidance (of stimuli associated with the trauma, talking about the trauma, etc.); negative alterations in cognitions and mood (such as decreased capacity to feel certain feelings or distorted self-blame); and alterations in arousal and reactivity (such as difficulty sleeping, problems with anger or concentration, reckless behavior, or heightened startle response).
  • Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) is a psychological injury that results from exposure to prolonged social and/or interpersonal trauma in the context of dependence, captivity, or entrapment (a situation lacking a viable escape route for the victim), which results in the lack or loss of control, helplessness, and deformations of identity and sense of self.
  • Six clusters of symptoms have been suggested for diagnosis of C-PTSD: (1) alterations in regulation of affect and impulses; (2) alterations in attention or consciousness; (3) alterations in self-perception; (4) alterations in relations with others; (5) somatization, and (6) alterations in systems of meaning.
  • PTSD descriptions fail to capture some of the core characteristics of C-PTSD, such as captivity; psychological fragmentation; the loss of a sense of safety, trust, and self-worth; and the tendency to be revictimized.

• Cultural Influences on Perception

  • This theory demonstrates why individuals have a tendency to blame others for getting themselves into bad situations; however when an individual is in a bad situation him- or her-self, he or she will tend to blame the situation.
  • For example, if a peer fails a test there is a tendency to blame the peer for not studying hard enough; however if you fail the test yourself, you are more likely to feel that the test was poorly constructed or asked questions not covered by the materials.

• Greenspan Era

  • Bush blamed federal policy when he was not reappointed for a second term.
  • In 2008, Greenspan admitted during Congressional testimony that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets.
  • He had not anticipated the self-destructive power of irresponsible mortgage lending.
  • His tenure as the chairman was marked by low interest rates which eventually were blamed for the 2007 mortgage crisis in the United States.

• Buchanan's Waiting Game

  • Guided by the political belief that the essence of good self-government was restraint, Buchanan refused to deploy troops and artillery to the South to protect federal properties.
  • He placed the blame for the crisis solely on the interference of Northern abolitionists in Southern affairs, and suggested that if the North did not "repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments... the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union. "

• Delivering Constructive Feedback

  • Most often, 360-degree feedback will include opinions from an employee's subordinates, peers, and supervisor(s), as well as a self-evaluation.
  • Constructive feedback in this context is best delivered by focusing on actions and outcomes rather than on blaming individuals when things did not go as planned.

• Current Research

  • Folk devils allow us to channel our blame and fear, offering a clear course of action to remedy what many believe to be a growing problem.
  • The fact that these violent offenders are white and middle class threatens the "innocence and safety of suburban America," which means it requires a folk devil culprit, absolving white, middle-class America of the blame.
  • While it is probably not the case that the meaning (think symbolic interactionism) of tattoos to those who get them is changing (tattoos have traditionally been used to express one's self or commemorate events), how tattoos are viewed is changing.

• Additional Resources

  • Critical Issue: Working Toward Student Self-Direction and Personal Efficacy as Educational Goals: Collection of many resources (including video clips) on how to enhance student self-efficacy (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr200.htm).
  • Information on self-efficacy: Professor Albert Bandura's web site on self-efficacy.
  • This site collects many learning theories and models in relation to self-efficacy http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/self-efficacy.html#bandura).

• The Problems with Polls

  • Others blame the respondents for not giving candid answers (the controversial Bradley effect & Shy Tory Factor).
  • In statistics, self-selection bias arises in any situation in which individuals select themselves into a group, causing a biased sample with non-probability sampling.
  • There may be a purposeful intent on the part of respondents leading to self-selection bias whereas other types of selection bias may arise more inadvertently, possibly as the result of mistakes by those designing any given study.