RESPONSIBILITY AND TIMING

Responsibility and Timing

Responsibility and Timing

A responsibility attribute relates to beliefs about the cause of an event, or outcome, or state. The event in question may be positive (success) or negative, but responsibility is used more in association with aversive outcomes. Hence, a responsibility attribution is linked with terms such as fault and blame, with the individual held accountable for an unwanted experience. In addition, a responsibility attribution may apply to the self or to others. This entry focuses on social perception and judgments about others, rather than on self-perception. Responsibility attributions are of central importance in studies of thinking, feeling, and behavior (motivation). Social psychologists therefore have devoted much attention to this topic, and that interest remains central. Responsibility attributions affect emotions. Some psychologists contend that feeling is directly determined by thinking, that is, what is thought determines what is felt. The task for this group of emotion theorists is to specify the key thoughts linked with emotions and identify the feelings they generate. Perceived responsibility for an aversive event gives rise to anger and related emotions such as annoyance. For example, you are mad when a roommate fails to clean up the kitchen or when a friend misses an appointment. Furthermore, the greater the perceived responsibility is, the more intense the anger is. Hence, an intentionally missed appointment gives rise to greater anger than does one forgotten (an unintentional cause revealing a less guilty mind). On the other hand, non-responsibility for a negative event or state gives rise to sympathy and pity. People feel sorry for the mentally handicapped person who cannot complete an academic task and for the physically handicapped individual who cannot compete in an athletic event. Thus, responsibility judgments provide one key to thinking-feeling linkages. In addition, responsibility judgments and their linked feelings give rise to important behavioral reactions. For example, charity is more likely to be endorsed for those considered not responsible for their plights. Hence, it is easier to solicit financial assistance for the blind than for drug abusers. This is one reason why so many have contributed charity to those suffering from hurricane damage in New Orleans and other southern cities. Similarly, welfare payments are denounced by individuals who see these recipients as lazy rather than unemployed because of harsh economic conditions. Political ideology affects these judgments and how the political parties perceive one another and themselves. Democrats (liberals) accuse Republicans (conservatives) of holding others responsible when this is not the case—for example, blaming those in need of welfare for being lazy, when their poverty is caused by the minimum wage being too low or by some other uncontrollable factor. Conversely, Republicans accuse Democrats of being bleeding hearts, giving out public funds to those who are truly responsible for their plights, and not differentiating between the deserving and the undeserving needy. There are kernels of truth in both positions, but of greater importance here is that this debate illustrates the central role responsibility beliefs play in political ...