July 1, 2008Reader Discussion ~ when victims blame themselves
Do you ever blame yourself for someone else’s inappropriateness? Many people do.
Sezgin Cihangir conducted a study using mock job interviews where he asked gender-biased questions of women and subsequently turned them down for the job. Half the women were told they were declined because they lacked skills. The other half were told they were decined due to their gender.
“The women who were openly rejected on gender grounds didn’t have a problem,” says Cihangir. “They knew that they were rejected because of their gender and not because of their skills. Their reaction then focused on the interviewer, the perpetrator of the discrimination. We got a completely different picture from the women who were supposedly rejected because they had given wrong answers. They looked for the reason for their rejection in themselves, which resulted in a low self-image and poorer performance in tests such as IQ tests.”
Overt inappropriateness is much easier to manage than hidden inappropriateness. That’s why I’m actually more opposed to passive-aggressive behavior than overt aggression. It’s the ones you don’t see coming that get you.
Unfortunately, most manipulators don’t broadcast their inappropriateness. That’s why many of us wonder - is it me? - when someone else is way out of line. That’s an important habit to overcome.
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