Going Behind Society's Victim Blaming
Alex J. Anderson-Kahl and Eileen P. Anderson commentary
These special cuts are from Discussing the Victim Blaming Phenomenon, which was published in Communication Intelligence magazine this week:
“Overconfidence in our assessments often stems from cognitive biases,” says Alex J. Anderson-Kahl, Ed.S, who is a nationally-certified school psychologist and the founder of the blog “Healing Little Hearts.”
“The ‘confirmation bias,’ is particularly relevant here. It’s our tendency to search for, interpret and remember information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs. If someone already has a predisposition to blame victims, they are more likely to interpret information in a way that supports this belief.”
“When we feed into false narratives, we not only harm the individual victim but also undermine the credibility of other genuine victims, creating a culture of skepticism and mistrust.”
“Critical thinking and empathy are essential,” he says. “Instead of jumping to conclusions, we should gather as much information as possible and consider the context in which events occurred.”
“It’s beneficial to foster a culture of listening and support, where victims feel safe to share their stories without fear of judgment or blame,” he says.
“We can hold a stance of humility and empathy and look to how to prevent future cases of these misfortunes, assaults and other criminal behaviors, rather than focus on retroactive judgment,” says Eileen P. Anderson, Ed.D., and an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University and founding director of the Medicine, Society and Culture (MSC) concentration and the center for Medicine, Society and Culture.
“Objective analysis of how we can keep people safer is very different from a tone of moral judgment and blame. The former helps us make better decisions on individual, group and institutional levels, while the latter generally causes suffering and harm.”
“A stance of compassion or even benefit-of-the doubt would be a healthier response,” Anderson says.
We can also come to ask ourselves questions to put on trial our thinking that might not be leading us to accurate judgments and conclusions.
“If there’s a story that pulls one’s attention and emotional energy, we have to ask, ‘why that one?’” Anderson asks. “We can consider ‘what could have been done better’ but also ‘what was done right’ or at least (what was) at no increased risk compared with things that we do.”
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