"People often fear being held responsible because they conflate it with being blamed and shamed. Some spend their entire lives defending themselves against punishment and shame, seeing it lurking everywhere. Those with a tendency to engage in black and white thinking tend to either feel threatened and vulnerable or completely secure, with no in-between."
"To hold someone responsible is to explain a chain of events leading to some negative outcome, where one or more individuals are believed to have caused it. Responsibility can imply anger and a need for justice, or the desire for the culprit to make up for the misdeed. But responsibility also implies the ability to overcome past mistakes through sincerity and disciplined effort."
"While blame can be perceived as responsibility, it more often than not veils difficult truths. Unlike responsibility, blame doesn't seriously consider justice, fairness, collaboration, and growth, even if it pretends to. Blame is poorly justified dominance. Responsibility means the feedback is limited to some moral error, or even a series of them, while blame assassinates character. And shame is blame's main weapon of choice."
Many people fear responsibility because they equate it with blame and shame, prompting defensive, all-or-nothing thinking. Responsibility frames a chain of events, considers fairness, cares for those involved, seeks justice or redress, and allows for sincere effort and disciplined repair. Blame often conceals difficult truths, avoids justice and collaboration, and functions as dominance that assassinates character rather than addressing moral errors. Shame serves as blame's principal weapon and produces cruel, all-encompassing punishment. Recognizing parental fallibility can help separate rightful responsibility from corrosive blame and shame, enabling healing and accountability.
Read at Psychology Today
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