We present a computational model of blame attribution. Recently Mao and Gratch, following Attribution theory, created a computational model that assigned blame to an agent for a negative occurrence. Their model made categorical judgments, and could only assign blame to a single agent. Our model extends this work, using QP theory to provide a continuous model for the parameters involved in attri...

We examined blame attribution as a moderator of perceptions of hate crimes against gay, African American, and transgender victims. Participants were 510 Texas jury panel members. Results of vignette-based crime scenarios showed that victim blame displayed significant negative, and perpetrator blame significant positive, effects on sentencing recommendations. Also as hypothesized, victim and per...

Child abuse perpetrated by a close other, such as a parent, is linked to a wide range of detrimental effects, including an increased risk of self-blame. The current study evaluated whether experiences of childhood betrayal trauma were linked to self-blame following victimization in adulthood. A diverse sample of women (n = 230) from an urban city were recruited based on having experienced an in...

Although self-blame has been considered to be a useful coping tool for victims, its benefits within the context of group discrimination are equivocal. The present research hypothesized that women encouraged to engage in self-blame for sex discrimination would be more likely to endorse accepting the situation or to endorse the use of individual, normative actions. In contrast, women encouraged t...

BACKGROUND Health promotion is an established part of the general practice consultation. It is widely acknowledged that risk-behaviours are strongly affected by socio-economic status and the structural constraints of the individual, but little is known about the possible negative effects of lifestyle advice. OBJECTIVES To examine the extent to which self-responsibility, blame for ill health a...

Static type systems are usually conservative. Therefore, many interesting programs are rejected by the type system, even though they often execute without errors. Dynamic type systems would allow such ill-typed programs to run. However, the cause of runtime errors is often far removed from the place where the type errors are raised, making the program hard to debug. We present a hybrid typing d...

I propose a textual analysis-based measure to detect when corporate executives blame bad performance on external factors such as industry or the economy (BLAME measure). Using this methodology to analyze quarterly earnings announcement conference call transcripts, I find that: (1) executives are more likely to blame these external factors when their companies experience bad performance, but are...

Past research has reliably demonstrated that both perceiving oneself as a target of discrimination and a tendency to blame negative events on oneself undermine psychological and physical health. These two literatures, however, have evolved largely independently of one another. The present research sought to develop a deeper understanding of the health effects of perceived discrimination by taki...

Blaming—and avoiding blame—are basic social motivations. These two motivations operate in every area of life: family, friendship, school, work, politics. Experimental analysis of these two classes of motivation offers fruitful opportunities for social attitude theory, developmental psychology, motivation theory, and person science. Opportunities to improve the social-moral level of society have...