Changing the ConversationUnderstanding Victim Blaming

The “I” in America

Individualistic Culture Who is at the center? Vs. Collectivist culture Seeing the context How we answer “Who am I?”

Society shapes us

Culture Pressure to conform Persuasion Prejudice Aggression Attraction, Intimacy, Helping How we perceive ourselves & others Judgments, attitudes, beliefs

Thinking Fallacies…

Misattribution Hindsight bias Counterfactual thinking

Attributions

Dispositional- e.g., lack of motivation & ability Situational- e.g., social circumstances Fundamental attribution Error What’s that got to do with victim blame?

Attribution error & Victim Blaming

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Cultural Differences Changing the Conversation

Self Blame

Why Do we blame ourselves?Negative language as an

unhealthy defenseComes from our desire to re-

establish control over the situationFault as a false security

“Just world” hypothesis is a “just world” fallacy

Beliefs like: “Bad things usually happen to bad people. What goes around comes around.”Cultural bias

Other people’s justification for what happened.Correlation does not equal causation.Fear

Self-Blame & Coping

Self-blame leads to many outlets as coping mechanisms & ‘punishments’Substance use, eating disorders, self

abuse, disordered sleeping, low self-esteem, etc…

Focus on getting better for your future, not fixing someone else’s past actions on you.

Language is important!

“I was raped” vs. “S/he raped me” Use active language: “A family member abused

me” instead of “I was abused by a family member.” Otherwise, it changes the subject from the

perpetrator to you, and takes the focus off the person causing harm (where it should be).

Now that we know….

Now that we know why we blame, and to stop blaming ourselves, we have the power- the control! –to take that burden off of ourselves.

Changing the Conversation & the Culture

Other people are also human We are wired to connect We are relational beings Our social brain governs our mind Social relations take effort

Breathing & a Safe Space….