10 Tactics We Use to Avoid Responsibility
All of us have the obligation to each other to take responsibility for ourselves. Have you ever considered what this consists of? It’s a rather large task to take full responsibility. Disowning responsibility can happen in the smallest of ways, and it can go to extremes. Tactics are typically behaviors. They are things that we can see and hear. Tactics are what we use to avoid our responsibilities.
Tactics are designed to push people away from knowing the truth. Why might we want to push people away from the truth you might ask? It’s simple. We don’t want people to see us for who we are or what we did wrong. We have an internal need to be viewed as a good person. When that belief becomes challenged, we put our defenses up. Although small behaviors don’t define us, we sometimes get caught in the belief that they do. No one wants their character to be attacked because of something they did.
When we make mistakes or do something wrong, we tend to try and cover it up. Furthermore, we don’t want others to see what we did. We use tactics in so many ways in our lives and we may not even be aware of it. Often time when one tactic doesn’t work, we tend to use another one to defend ourselves or try and be seen as a good person and so on. The following are some of those tactics that we use to avoid responsibility.
Tactics we use to avoid responsibility.
1 Silence
When asked a question about a behavior we were engaged in, we may give others the silent treatment. Being silent and not talking about the situation or avoiding is a tactic we use to not discuss our responsibility. We have a hope that those around us will just move on and forget about what we did.
2 Anger
Anger is typically thought of as an emotional response. However, it can be much more than that kind of response. Anger as a tactic is designed to create a condition which makes other not want to approach us. Putting others at a distance keeps us from having difficult conversation about our responsibilities. The tactic of anger my come our verbally using a louder voice or more defined body language.
3 Crossing your arms and other body movements
Remember that tactics are things that we can see. Crossing our arms puts a barrier up between us and others. It’s a defense mechanism we use to show other that we aren’t open to what they are saying. Furthermore, other physical behaviors fit into this as well such as glaring, smacking our lips, breathing heavily, shaking your head and tapping your foot. Use your imagination with this, everyone disowns responsibility in their own ways and use their own body movements as part of that process.
4 Acting Crazy to the point of absurdity
There are times where we may feel cornered and don’t know which direction to go. Moreover, when we begin to stumble, we may begin to do things we don’t normally do and sometimes we go to the point of absurdity just to avoid responsibility. Purposefully jumbling over words, talking about things that aren’t even relevant to the conversation as well as doing behaviors that don’t match the situation are all examples of acting crazy to the point of absurdity. Again this is to get people off our backs so we don’t have to talk about our responsibilities.
5 Deflecting
Sometimes we change the topic away from the main complaint when we don’t want to talk about what we did. In fact, it’s easier to put the blame on someone or something else. Deflecting can happen both verbally and nonverbally. Nonverbal deflection is a little more discrete it looks a lot like avoidance. Lastly deflecting happens very quickly and hard to stop without a good deal of redirection.
6 Puts the focus on other.
“It wasn’t my fault” “Everyone does it” are some of the ways we put focused on others and take it away from ourselves. Furthermore, placing the blame on others is a belief that prevents us looking at ourselves. Any time we say the words “He”, “She”, “They”, “Them”, “Those People” for example we have stopped looking at ourselves and taking responsibility. This tactic can happen in a split second.
7 Justifies
When we engage in a behavior that isn’t prosocial, we might use the tactic of justification. We may use every trick in the play book to make what we did okay, when really it’s not okay. Justifications are to convince other and ourselves we didn’t mess up. Moreover, we use justifications in there most enhanced form when we are caught. Lastly, justifications also allow us to reengage in the same behaviors repeatedly.
8 Minimizes
When we make our behaviors seem smaller than they really are we are minimizing them. We do this to lessen the impact. It’s a distortion that is designed to convince us and others the situation was less significant than it really was. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.” “Everyone does it.” Are a couple examples of minimization.
9 Maximizes
On the other hand there may be time where we maximize the situation. Making it bigger than it really was. Furthermore, we might make events around the given situation bigger than it really was. Blowing things out of proportion can take the focus off or our responsibility. “The only reason I did this is because this happened” is an example that could be used when someone is maximizing the situation. As people we can become very strategic when the pressure is on to take responsibility. Maximizing is just another tactic that we need to be watchful of.
10 Denying
Finally, we will use the tactic of denying our behaviors and responsibility all together. This is attempting to prove that what we did didn’t happen at all. Additionally, we attempt to convince others that what they just saw wasn’t true. Denying can go deep and the web of denial can become extremely damaging to others. Denial can be so strong that it can turn into a belief if not addressed.
Conclusion
There are many tactics we use to avoid responsibility. A person might wonder how we help someone challenge these tactics and begin owning responsibility. This can be done by Thinking Deeply Self-Critically. We need to be open-minded and allow others input in so tactics can be exhausted. Moreover, if we are facilitators, we need to exhaust other people’s tactics. We need to bring them to their awareness the second we see them using them.
We need to understand a person can us tactics all day long because that is what they know. After a while of using tactics, they become natural to us. Sometimes we don’t even realize we are using them until someone has the courage to bring them to our attention. As facilitators once they are brought to someone’s attention, we will see an enhanced version of them. We will see them in their most malicious form. We need to be ready for this and have mental endurance to continue challenging them so we can help people out.
If you like what you have read, check out other articles on the website ThinkingDeeplySelf-Critically.com the site is designed to give us tools and techniques to help us become the best version of ourselves. There are four main categories on the site. The Foundation, Our Responsibility to Us, Our Responsibility to Others and Facilitating Crisis. We can also be found on Pinterest.
If you have ever heard of tactics prior to this article, you may have also heard of Thinking Errors. Basically, they are thought patterns and beliefs we have to avoid or disown responsibilities. There are many different saturated versions of this concept all over the internet. If you ever wondered where they originated from it was these three books by Dr. Samuel Yockelson and Dr. Stanton E. Samenow. These are extremely interesting books and a solid tool for your toolbox of knowledge.
