BULLYING bosses take note: simply witnessing people blame others is enough to set up a blame culture.
鈥淲e already know that people are more likely to blame others when they themselves have been blamed 鈥� a 鈥榢ick-the-dog鈥� kind of effect,鈥� says of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. According to his latest results, a blame attitude spreads to witnesses of a dressing-down too.
鈥淟eaders who want to prevent such a culture from spreading should be careful not to be seen pointing the finger,鈥� he adds.
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In one experiment, his team asked one group of volunteers to watch footage of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger blaming others for a failed strategy and another to view him accepting personal responsibility for it. When asked to write about a failure of their own afterwards, those in the first group were 30 per cent more likely to blame this failure on others than those in the second (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, ).
In a further, similar experiment, blame was less contagious if people wrote down values they held dear before they saw others blamed. Fast says this may have reminded them of why they made certain choices, reducing the need to defend themselves by blaming others.
