Self-blame following a traumatic event: The role of perceived avoidability

Abstract

People who have experienced a traumatic life event may blame themselves, in part, because they perceive that they could have avoided the event. A study of respondents with spinal cord injuries shows that their causal attributions for the event are distinguishable from their perceptions of avoidability, the latter frequently focusing on mutable aspects of their own behavior. Respondents with spinal cord injuries and trained raters attributed the same degree of causal significance to the respondent but differed in their assignment of blame: Respondents assumed more personal blame than raters gave them. Regression analyses suggest that a significant portion of respondents' self-blame can be attributed to their self-implicating perceptions of avoidability. The degree to which respondents believed that they could have avoided their accident predicted self-blame even after controlling for their causal attributions for the event. Implications for the study of self-blame and perceived avoidability are discussed.