Blame: Definition, Examples, & Types

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph. D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.

Blame is a constant presence in our lives, since things always seem to be going wrong somewhere. Let’s look under the hood at blame as a psychological phenomenon and learn how to blame less.

*This page may include affiliate links; that means we earn from qualifying purchases of products.

Young children sometimes seem to me like they are almost allergic to blame. I vaguely remember going through this stage myself; there was something so threatening about the possibility that I had done something wrong – perhaps even intentionally! – that I would immediately blame the other child, my younger brother, the cat – whoever was handy. 

Of course, as soon as I got a bit older and my younger siblings entered this stage, I could see it for the automatic, instinctual defensive reaction that it was – and then, of course, I blamed them for it!

Although blame may be especially threatening to children of a certain age (Piaget, 1932), nearly all of us are much happier to see somebody other than ourselves be the target of blame. Since undesirable things are almost always happening somewhere, blame is a constant presence in our lives. This article explores the nature of blame – what it is, why we do it, and how we can do it less.
​​​
Before reading on, if you're a therapist, coach, or wellness entrepreneur, be sure to grab our free Wellness Business Growth eBook to get expert tips and free resources that will help you grow your business exponentially.

Are You a Therapist, Coach, or Wellness Entrepreneur?

Grab Our Free eBook to Learn How to
Grow Your Wellness Business Exponentially!

 ✓  Save hundreds of hours of time  ✓  Earn more $ faster  
​✓  Boost your credibility ✓  Deliver high-impact content 

What Is Blame? (A Definition)

Blame is an evaluation of behavior as morally or socially wrong (Alicke, 2000). When psychologists conceptualize blame, they usually see it as having a few key components: 

1. behavior that is being scrutinized
   
2. an evaluation of whether the behavior caused the negative outcome
   
3. an evaluation of whether the entity that behaved that way meant to do so (Alicke, 2000; Malle et al., 2012).
   

 
In other words, when we assign blame to a person, we ask ourselves what is right and wrong, and whether that person knew what they were doing is wrong (Malle et al., 2012). Blaming somebody requires us to consider our morals, imagine theirs, and make a decision about how that person was thinking.
 
Let me give you an example. Suppose that while a husband and wife are having dinner and drinks at a bar, another man makes an insulting comment to the wife. The husband stands up and shoves the other man, causing him to fall and get injured. Is the husband to blame for his actions? Your answer might depend on your own moral code (Is violence ever justified? Is chivalry important to you?) and your interpretation of the husband (Should he know better than to be drinking? Did he intend to hurt the other man?). Maybe the answer seems obvious to you, but perhaps not. And yet we make split-second judgments (psychologists would call them attributions) of blame all the time.

Opposite of Blame

The opposite of blaming somebody is to exonerate them, or to not hold them accountable for something bad that happened. There is perhaps no greater example of the opposite of blaming than when Jesus Christ, on the cross, says to God, “Forgive them, father, for they know not what they do.”

Blame vs Responsibility

One key difference between blame and responsibility is that people can be held responsible even when they are blameless in the situation. Alicke (2000) gives the example of a manager of a food plant, who might be held responsible for producing tainted meat even if they followed all the food safety standards precautions they were asked to uphold. Along these lines, we can understand responsibility as being something that has legal and tangible consequences, while blame is something more psychological and intangible (Alicke, 2000).
 
Another compelling example that illustrates this difference comes from the field of mental health treatment. People facing serious mental health challenges often engage in dangerous or socially unacceptable behaviors that cause harm to others. Blaming these individuals for their actions will generally make things worse, not better (Hieronymi, 2004). Instead, therapists help these clients most when they hold the clients responsible for what they did, but do not blame them for what they did (Pickard, 2017). For example, a client who screamed at his therapist would be asked to apologize and take accountability, but would not be blamed and made to feel shame about his outburst.
 
This example hits at an important aspect of blaming: the role of control (Alicke, 2000). When a young child impulsively lunges across the breakfast table for another pancake, spilling the milk in the process, a mindful parent may recognize that the child did not intend to spill the milk and is not fully in control of their own impulses. Therefore, the parent might insist that the child go get paper towels or a dishtowel to clean up the mess, but without blaming the child for their action.

Examples of Blaming

If you’re looking for examples of blaming, it can be as simple as considering the last mistakes you made. Were you tempted to assign fault to somebody else for what went wrong? Yesterday, for example, I went out on a hike with friends. It was a cold and very windy day, and I was underdressed for the weather. Whose fault is that? Deep down I knew it was mine, but I noticed my brain coming up with excuses: “You wouldn’t be here if your friends hadn’t insisted.” “This friend said it was going to be sunnier.” “I wish my housemate hadn’t been doing laundry yesterday, so I would have had the right jacket for today.”

What Is Blame Shifting?

Blame shifting is saying the fault for a mistake or negative outcome lies with somebody other than the person who is actually in the wrong. I see this often in couples therapy, when one partner will insist that their behavior is justified because it comes in reaction to something the other partner did. For example, one partner might seek to excuse their sharing of an important secret with a close friend by pointing out that the other partner refuses to have hard conversations or try to resolve conflicts.
 
Blame shifting is also well-documented in the context of professional organizations. For example, companies responsible for major environmental disasters will try to shift the blame for what happened to the other companies who supplied their machinery or trained some of their workers (Park et al., 2018). Psychology research tells us that it is very tempting, when in a position of power, to delegate responsibility so that blame can be placed on others if something goes wrong (Bartling & Fischbacher, 2012). In fact, it seems that this is often a conscious choice on the part of people in power, such as politicians; they give away some of their power so that they can diffuse or shift the blame to their subordinates when things go wrong (Schwarz, 2022).

Blaming the Victim

Perhaps you have heard of the belief in a just world, the idea that in general, people get what they deserve (Lerner, 1965). This is an important way of understanding the world for many people, but it can come into conflict with the reality that bad things happen to good people. One solution for this contradiction is to see the person who experienced the bad thing as also bad (Lerner et al., 1976). This is one potential explanation for why people blame victims for what happened to them (Berns, 2001).
 
We also tend to blame victims – and blame ourselves – when we do not live up to certain expectations or standards. For example, because women in our culture are often evaluated based on how well they meet the needs of other people (especially men), we have a tendency to consciously or unconsciously blame women when they are subjected to physical or sexual violence (Bunch & Carrillo, 1992).

Blaming in Relationships

Since our closest relationships are by their nature full of letdowns and conflict – we humans are imperfect, after all – opportunities for blame abound in these relationships. Especially when people in close relationships have developed negative feelings about each other, it can be easy to get into a cycle of making negative assumptions about your partner, then feeling negatively towards them, and then starting the process all over again (Gottman & Gottman, 2017).

How to Stop Blaming Others

How can you blame other people less? Well, blame is all in our heads, remember? So the solution will involve some intentional effort to change how we think and feel.
 
If you find yourself frequently blaming the people around you for what is happening in their lives, building your mindfulness capacity might help (Morris et al., 2022). For example, the act of blaming somebody is often accompanied by feelings of anger. You might ask yourself where the anger is coming from, whether it is justified, and whether the other person really meant for the negative outcome to happen.
 
Then, it can be helpful to replace the blaming thought with a positive attribution (Kimmes & Durtschi, 2016). For example, if your partner arrives late to your dinner date, it might be more effective to focus on how dedicated they are to their work than blame their lack of care for you.

How to Stop Blaming Yourself

Research clearly shows that high levels of self-blame are related to poorer psychological outcomes, such as experiencing depression (Zahn et al., 2015). People who experience lots of self-blame are also likely to feel high levels of shame, which can lead them to self-isolate (Lutwak et al., 2003). Perhaps you have experienced this pattern in your life; I know I have.
 
What do we do with this toxic mix of self-blame, shame, and sadness? Practicing mindful self-compassion, where one looks at one’s thoughts, feelings, and mistakes with kindness and forgiveness, can help (Tesh et al., 2015). Similarly, through deliberate reconsideration of one’s own thoughts, perhaps with the support and guidance of a therapist, one can reappraise situations and find less self-blaming ways to interpret them (Hauber et al., 2019).

Quotes on Blame

I hope the following quotes about blame are instructive for you. Notice how often writers and politicians think about blame in the context of leadership; our ability to be effective both professionally and interpersonally is closely related to our ability to take the blame when we deserve it.
 

• “Blaming others is excusing yourself.” – Robin Sharma
  
• “To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.” – Hubert Humphrey
  
• “The trouble with blame is this all or nothingness, this black or whiteness. People are drawn to extremes. As soon as we have to study the gray areas, we lean to one side.” – Sharon Lamb
  
• “The misattribution of blame is one reason we make the same mistakes over and over again. We learn so little from experience because we often blame the wrong cause.” – Joseph T. Hallinan
  
• “A bad mood is often the reason for blaming others; but very often blaming others causes bad feelings in us: the more we blame others, the worse we feel.” – Leo Tolstoy
  
• “When we blame, we give away our power.” – Greg Anderson
  
• “When you blame and criticize others, you are avoiding some truth about yourself.” – Deepak Chopra
  
• “Wherever you find a problem, you will usually find the finger-pointing of blame. Society is addicted to playing the victim.” – Stephen R. Covey
  
• “The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower 
  
• “A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.” – Arnold H. Glasgow
  

Articles Related to Blame

Want to learn more? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.

• How To Forgive Yourself: For Cheating, Mistakes, or Hurting Someone
• ​Regret: What Is It and How to Deal With It
• Healthy Relationships: Definition, Characteristics, and Tips​
• ​Toxic Relationships: Definition, Signs, & Healing
  

Books Related to Blame

To keep learning, here are some books to explore:​​

• It's Not Me, It's You: Break the Blame Cycle. Relationship Better.
• ​​Beyond Blame: Freeing Yourself from the Most Toxic Form of Emotional Bullsh*t
  
• ​Radical Forgiveness: A Revolutionary Five-Stage Process to Heal Relationships, Let Go of Anger and Blame, and Find Peace in Any Situation​

Final Thoughts on Blame

Have you gotten the sense by now that blaming might not be healthy? It seems to be related to negative feelings, poorer psychological health, and bad leadership. Why is that? When we blame others, we are placing accountability somewhere else. We have given up the position of having anything to do with the solution: “This is your problem – you fix it.” While that might be convenient in one sense – we don’t have to feel bad about ourselves – it leaves us helpless in the situation.
 
Blaming ourselves, by contrast, opens up the possibility of examining our own responsibility for a situation. When we blame ourselves too much, we can get mired in shame and sadness. But an honest assessment of where we are to blame, along with the courage to change something and try to do better next time, can make blame helpful. For a brief, amusing, and very effective explanation of how this works, I recommend watching the following video, an excerpt from a lecture by social work professor Brené Brown:

Video: Brené Brown on Blame

Don't Forget to Grab Our Free eBook to Learn How to
Grow Your Wellness Business Exponentially!

References

• Alicke, M. D. (2000). Culpable control and the psychology of blame. Psychological Bulletin, 126(4), 556.
• Bartling, B., & Fischbacher, U. (2012). Shifting the blame: On delegation and responsibility. The Review of Economic Studies, 79(1), 67-87.
• Berns, N. (2001). Degendering the problem and gendering the blame: Political discourse on women and violence. Gender & Society, 15, 262-281.
• Bunch, C., & Carrillo, R. (1992). Gender violence: A development and human rights issue. Dublin, Ireland: Attic Press.
• Gottman, J., & Gottman, J. (2017). The natural principles of love. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 9(1), 7–26.
• Hauber, K., Boon, A., & Vermeiren, R. (2019). Non-suicidal self-injury in clinical practice. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 502.
• Hieronymi, P. (2004). The force and fairness of blame. Philosophical Perspectives, 18, 115–48.
• Kimmes, J. G., & Durtschi, J. A. (2016). Forgiveness in romantic relationships: The roles of attachment, empathy, and attributions. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 42(4), 645-658.
• Lerner, M. J. (1965). Evauation of performance as a function of performer’s reward and attractiveness. Journal of Personal Social Psychology, 1, 355-360.
• Lerner, M. J., Miller, D. T., & Holmes, J. G. (1976). Deserving and the emergence of forms of justice. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 9, 133-162.
• Lutwak, N., Panish, J., & Ferrari, J. (2003). Shame and guilt: Characterological vs. behavioral self-blame and their relationship to fear of intimacy. Personality and Individual Differences, 35(4), 909-916.
• Malle, B. F., Guglielmo, S., & Monroe, A. E. (2012). Moral, cognitive, and social: The nature of blame. Social Thinking and Interpersonal Behaviour, 313-331.
• Morris, K. L., Kimmes, J. G., & Marroquin, C. G. (2022). Changing the blame game: Associations between relationship mindfulness, loneliness, negative partner attributions, and subsequent conflict. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 02654075221128502.
• Park, B. S., Park, H., & Ramanujam, R. (2018). Tua culpa: When an organization blames its partner for failure in a shared task. Academy of Management Review, 43(4), 792-811.
• Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. New York, NY: The Free Press.
• Pickard, H. (2017). Responsibility without blame for addiction. Neuroethics, 10(1), 169-180.
• Schwarz, M. E. (2022). A master of two servants: lessons from the israeli experience about the effect of separation of powers on public accountability and social welfare. Constitutional Political Economy, 1-29.
• Tesh, M., Learman, J., & Pulliam, R. M. (2015). Mindful self-compassion strategies for survivors of intimate partner abuse. Mindfulness, 6(2), 192-201.
• Zahn, R., Lythe, K. E., Gethin, J. A., Green, S., Deakin, J. F. W., Young, A. H., & Moll, J. (2015). The role of self-blame and worthlessness in the psychopathology of major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 186, 337-341.

Are You a Therapist, Coach, or Wellness Entrepreneur?

Grab Our Free eBook to Learn How to Grow Your Wellness Business Fast!

Key Articles:

• Happiness​
• Well-Being
• Emotions
• Stress Management
• Self-Confidence
• Self-Care
• Manifestation
• ​All Articles...

Content Packages:

• All-Access Pass​
• ​​PLR Content Packages
• PLR Courses​