What makes people take responsibility for their mistakes (Article)

[TheRobin]

Intersting article. tl;dr: People who believed that it's possible to change ones personality were more likely to take responsibility for mistakes they made.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201412/what-makes-some-us-own-our-mistakes-not-others?utm_source=FacebookPost&utm_medium=FBPost&utm_campaign=FBPost

[dsayers]

 

 

Beliefs about whether personality can change did not affect whether people apologized for their actions. But the more strongly people believed that they could change, the more likely they were to take responsibility for their mistakes.

 

Is it me or do these statements contradict one another?

 

I think their methodology is flawed (beyond the obvious self-reporting component). All they've done is note a correlation. Unless one's willingness to accept responsibility came exclusively from their belief that personalities can change, then to isolate that one factor might not be as meaningful as it's portrayed.

 

For example, I am willing to accept responsibility for a number of reasons. One is that I accept my capacity for error. Another is that I understand that it is okay to make mistakes. And that it's how we handle making mistakes that matters. Also, I don't want to be the source of harm towards others, so I would try to make amends since I view that to be a just way to proceed from having done so. These tests didn't account for any of these, nor other motivators.

[TheRobin]

I don't see the contradiction in those statements. Just because you accept responsibility doesn't mean you automatically apologize to people.

Also, I'm not sure what else you can do except noting correlations when it comes to social sciences. What else did you have in mind in terms of how to gather knowledge in that area?

And lastly, I do think that the second experiment, where they primed people about people's ability (or inability) to change and the following change in them accepting responsibility shows nicely that there does seem to be a connection between the two. Or why else would there still be a correlation if there was no connection?

[dsayers]

Just because you accept responsibility doesn't mean you automatically apologize to people.

 

Got it. For me, they would be one and the same unless for some reason I didn't have the opportunity to apologize. I see now how the statements are not in opposition.

 

Also, I'm not sure what else you can do except noting correlations when it comes to social sciences. What else did you have in mind in terms of how to gather knowledge in that area?

 

Well I think just indicating from the onset that there are likely other factors and that their findings were not definitive would've been more honest.

 

I do think that the second experiment, where they primed people about people's ability (or inability) to change and the following change in them accepting responsibility shows nicely that there does seem to be a connection between the two. Or why else would there still be a correlation if there was no connection?

 

I checked again. The article said the subjects were polled AFTER being exposed to narrative. Without polling them before as well, the findings cannot treat that exposure as a variable, nor does it account for prior disposition. They have no way of determining that the correlation they observed had anything to do with their efforts. Any correlation would be incidental.