3 ideas and a question: On blame

How our minds and brains process mistakes and blame

🌅 Today, I’m introducing a new short-form resource for all subscribers. I have a vast collection of valuable ideas and insights from others, past articles, and recent research, some of which never make it into my regular articles or reach newer subscribers. I’ve created 3 Ideas and a Question to remedy that, and hope it’s useful to you.

Idea 1

Making mistakes is so uncomfortable for us that our brains take time to catalog our errors and inform the rest of our body, as if to say, let's not do that again.

— Human brain takes stock of blame

Idea 2

When the result of our actions is negative, we perceive a longer time lag between what we did and what happened. That slight lag seems to lower our sense of agency. In other words, we actually experience less responsibility when the impact of our action is negative.

— One intriguing reason blame feels hard to take​

Idea 3

When the impact of someone’s action is bad, we seem considerably more willing to believe the action was intentional than when the impact is good. This cognitive distortion is called the Knobe Effect.

— Quick to blame but slower to give credit? Beware of this thinking error

Question

What if you didn’t blame anyone, including yourself, out loud or in your head… for a week? A month?