DevInContext The Case For Personal Growth

The Responsibility Ethic, Part 1: Self-Blame

A common theme in personal development literature is that we should take responsibility for our circumstances in life.  It's best for us, in other words, to see ourselves as in control of our situation, as opposed to believing that forces beyond our control create it.  I'll call this idea the "responsibility ethic."

On the surface, this doesn't seem controversial.  If I'm in debt, for instance, it won't do me any good to sit around blaming the stock market, my family, the current phase of the moon, or some other outside force.  I have no reason to take steps to get out of debt unless I accept that my actions -- cutting my expenses, selling stuff I don't need, and so on -- can fix the situation.

Personal growth's critics, however, often argue that the responsibility ethic has unsavory consequences.  A person who believes they control their lot in life, the critics say, will be prone to self-flagellation -- i.e., to beating themselves up.  If they don't get the results they want, in whatever area of life they're trying to improve, they'll blame themselves.

Suppose, for example, that I do everything in my power to get out of debt -- I cut up my credit cards, sell unnecessary stuff, and work with a debt counselor -- and I still fail to reduce my debt by the desired amount.  If I think I'm 100% in control of my situation, I'll see this failure as proof that I'm lazy or stupid, and suffer over it.  As Steve Salerno writes in SHAM: How The Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless, "if you make people believe they have full control over their lives, and then their lives don't get better (or even get worse), how could that not throw their synapses into turmoil?"

Reasons To Doubt The "Self-Blame" Argument

In this series of posts, I want to examine this argument more deeply.  First off, I'll talk about three reasons to question the assumption that the responsibility ethic promotes self-blame.

1. Psychological Research. Psychologists use the term "locus of control" to describe a person's beliefs about the degree to which they are responsible for their circumstances.  The more I tend toward an "internal locus of control," the more I believe in my own power to direct my destiny.  By contrast, the closer my beliefs are to an "external locus of control," the more I think I'm at the mercy of factors I can't influence.

For example, suppose I'm a student, and I'm about to take a test.  If I have a strong internal locus of control, I'll believe that, if I work hard enough, I'll get a good grade.  But if I have a strong external locus of control, I'll assume that studying will have little effect on how well I do, and the grade I get will be largely the result of luck.  Not surprisingly, psychologists have found that students who tend toward an internal locus of control usually study harder.

The locus of control concept is relevant here, because psychological research has repeatedly found a relationship between people's locus of control and the likelihood that they will suffer from depression.  People closer to an internal locus of control, as it turns out, are less prone to depression than people who tend toward an external locus of control.

In other words, people who see themselves as responsible for their circumstances in life are less likely to get depressed.  In fact, it's those who see themselves as mere pawns of other people or forces who are more likely to have that problem.  This makes sense, psychologists say, because of the feelings of helplessness and despair created by their perceived lack of control.

These findings don't mesh well with the critics' argument.  If the critics are right, and people who see themselves as in charge of their lot in life are likely to beat themselves up, we should expect them to be more prone to depression than those who believe they're at the mercy of outside forces.  But the exact opposite appears to be true, which casts doubt on the idea that the responsibility ethic is creating all this unnecessary suffering for people.

We Need More Evidence

I'm not claiming that this completely settles the issue.  After all, if we really want to know whether personal growth's responsibility ethic is causing suffering, we need to study people who do some kind of personal development activity -- reading self-help books, going to transformational workshops, or something along those lines -- and ask whether that activity has any relationship to depression, problems with anger, and so on.  And these, of course, would have to be books, workshops, and so forth that encouraged a sense of personal responsibility for one's situation.

Psychological researchers have only recently begun to look into the effect of personal development techniques (if we don't count psychotherapy) on mental health issues like anxiety and depression.  There is no clear consensus yet:  in one study of a wide range of self-help books, the vast majority of the readers surveyed reported "a significant improvement in their condition."

Another suggested that saying positive affirmations like "I love myself," while apparently helpful to some people, may actually cause people with low self-esteem to feel worse.  There have also been many studies of the psychological effects of meditation, suggesting that meditation helps alleviate depression and other emotional problems.

However, as far as I'm aware, there is no concrete evidence that the responsibility ethic, whether presented through books, workshops, or some other medium, is doing all the psychological harm to people that the critics allege.  Thus, the "self-blame" argument against the responsibility ethic isn't obviously correct or commonsensical at all.

In the interest of keeping these posts at least vaguely succinct, that's all I'll say for now.  In my next post, I'll discuss my second reason to question the self-blame argument, and also discuss why, even if the argument is correct, it doesn't follow that we should reject the responsibility ethic.

Other Posts In This Series:

• The Responsibility Ethic, Part 2: Responsibility Vs. Blame
• The Responsibility Ethic, Part 3: Guilt And Morality
• The Responsibility Ethic, Part 4: Responsibility And Compassion
• The Responsibility Ethic, Part 5: The Politics of Responsibility