When you are offended by someone, this implies an abdication of responsibility for your emotional reaction, as well as for the decisions you made that ultimately led to the offense.
When you systematically abdicate responsibility in various areas of your life, this is a victim mentality. As I previously wrote, to identify the victim mentality in yourself, it is enough to answer the question of what you are responsible for in your life.
Now I will write about why it happens that you abdicate responsibility and shift it to others, be it individuals, groups of people, organizations, government, the universe, God Almighty or whatever.
Source of the article here.
Shifting responsibility is based on a mechanism called psychological projection.
What is projection?
Psychological projection is the transfer of feelings, emotions and thoughts that we do not like onto others, without realizing it
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This is a defense mechanism according to which, every time you experience something that you don’t like (negative thoughts, emotions, etc.), you perceive it as something coming from the outside, and not something that is happening inside you.
In fact, it's a bad habit that you indulge in. And perhaps this is one of the most common human habits that is almost never talked about openly.
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Almost everyone engages in projection, but no one talks about the dangers of projection as much as about the dangers of smoking, for example.
Fortunately, everyone can stop projecting if they really want to. And by getting rid of this habit, a person will not only stop playing the victim, but will also noticeably improve his relationships with both himself and others.
Protecting subordinates
Try to avoid situations where your superiors directly scold your subordinates. This is bad for a number of reasons. In this situation, you are, as it were, opposed to your team (if you are not touched, but they are scolded). In addition, you lose authority: if you don't know how to take a punch and shift the blame to others, you can hardly be a strong leader.
All truly great leaders act as a protective wall between their team and the outside world. Good news is communicated to the team as it is, and bad news is carefully filtered. You can and should scold people for bad work, but do it solely on your own behalf. If you have a manager under your command and you see a problem with his subordinate, do not rush to express complaints directly. Respect the existing hierarchy - it is the task of the immediate manager to communicate with subordinates and convey to them your dissatisfaction. If the issue is complex and you want to avoid a broken phone, participate in the meeting in person, but still keep in mind that your complaints are directed to the lower-level manager and his team, and not directly past him to the guilty employee.
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I'm not saying that you need to hide everything bad from the team. Sometimes it can be helpful to be honest about a difficult situation in your company. Try to extinguish excess negativity and take part of the blow on yourself. If you behave this way, you will earn the gratitude of the team and authority.
An important point in conflicts between employees and superiors is the difference in positions. The management is in a obviously strong position, and the employee is in a weak one. Therefore, when you evaluate the strength of the criticism expressed, mentally multiply the criticism of your superiors by 50, and divide the employee’s excuses by the same 50.
Game ahead. How to improve relationships with current and future bosses
This kind of conflict cannot be viewed only from a rational perspective; remember that your task in a difficult situation is to cover the initially vulnerable side and equalize the moral balance of power in the dispute. High-ranking managers worry less after an unpleasant conversation with subordinates simply because this kind of conflict does not in any way affect their career and status. Subordinates take any careless word from the manager very seriously, because it can develop into a threat of job loss. And the higher the management, the more strongly this is felt.
Most executives I talk to say that “reducing turbulence” is one of the key things that determines a person's usefulness in a leadership position. You don't have to involve your team in negotiations about the possible closure of your project. If they are trying to dump a large amount of work on you, and you want to refuse, similarly, there is no need to devote people to details and plunge them into stress from a situation that may not happen. If there is a wave of layoffs in a company, it is also obvious that the managers take upon themselves all the unpleasant conversations. And those teams that, fortunately, were not affected by the cuts may not even know about these cuts.
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A separate important skill is the ability to say “no” if you see a big threat to yourself and your team. For example, if your team is already heavily loaded with work, and you are asked to heroically complete another urgent project. In such a situation, you should think carefully about whether you want to perform this feat and whether there is an opportunity to refuse. Some people will find you unpleasant and unresponsive, but you should always keep in mind that being too responsive can have a negative impact on the people for whom you are responsible. I'm not saying that you should behave like a total misanthrope and stop helping those who ask for it. You just need to be able to refuse to overload the team if possible.
What is projection in practice?
Projection is our decision about how to perceive other people.
Let’s say that in the presence of a colleague, you systematically experience negative emotions - anger, envy, resentment, irritation, etc.
Every time you experience these emotions, you have a choice. You either attribute these emotions to yourself and only yourself
, realizing that it is your attitudes, your perception, your thinking that cause these negative emotions in you, or you attribute these emotions to the behavior of this person.
In the first case, you are forced to admit that these are your problems and that you will have to deal with them. In the latter case, you begin to blame the other person for being such and such.
It’s much easier to blame someone else for something you don’t like than to dig into yourself and bring to the surface your conditionings that make you feel offended, angry, irritated, upset.
Projection systematically arises in conflict situations.
When you have a conflict with your sexual partner, what do you do? Are you telling him that he's the one who's angry? Are you telling him that he doesn't understand something?
At the same time, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, is it you who are angry and don’t understand something?
So you are projecting.
Projection always works unnoticed by you.
Projection is at the heart of bullying
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What is the psychology of bullying? It’s very simple - people who practice bullying secretly feel vulnerable. And in order to get rid of this feeling, they project it onto others, bullying them in every possible way and trying to make them vulnerable to their actions.
Projection is ubiquitous in parenting.
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Unfortunately, you have almost certainly experienced this on your own skin, and you will feel how true it is.
Alas, if a parent deep down considers himself a failure in some way, then he will demand perfection from his child. This is especially pronounced during your school years, as you probably remember.
Or another option.
The mother is full of psychological problems, but instead of dealing with them, she unconsciously transfers them to the child. As a result, the child grows up with his own problems, and she begins to drag him from one therapist to another. But it all started with the fact that she chose not to notice the problem in herself...
When a person's eyes are opened to these things, this contributes to the most powerful insights about what causes almost all of his problems.
But identifying these things is difficult. By their nature, they are designed so that a person does not notice them. So it's helpful to know where to look for signs that you're projecting.
ME OR CIRCUMSTANCES?
When it comes to self-justification, one cannot help but recall the theory of locus of control (Julian Rotter). Locus of control is a concept that characterizes a person’s ability to attribute their successes or failures to either internal or external factors. The tendency to attribute performance results to external factors is called “external locus of control,” or externality. Such people like to operate with the concept of “fate”; in case of success (especially someone else’s) they tend to believe that “it’s just luck”, and in case of failure they actively seek self-justification from the “who stopped me” series.
Those who are accustomed to accepting both successes and failures as a result of their own activity (both action and inaction) are called internalists and have an internal locus of control. They are proud of their achievements, believing that they have done a lot to achieve such a result. The suggestion that they were “just lucky” can really hurt them: “It’s not luck, it’s a lot of work!” In case of failure, they tend to take responsibility, critically evaluate their behavior and draw conclusions for the future. The internal is more likely not to make excuses; he will try to explain the situation without abdicating responsibility.
Of course, the position of the internals looks more mature. After all, even if the mistake is obvious to others and affects the overall result, openly admitting that you were wrong means that the person has thought about the situation and is unlikely to allow it to happen again. In this case, even business partners may not refuse to cooperate, giving a “second chance.” This position is also good in a family, when one spouse has something to blame the other for and he openly admits: “I was wrong, I’ll correct myself.”
Thus, we can draw an important conclusion: the purpose of justifications is to whiten our image and prevent others from worsening our attitude. But by making excuses, we do not achieve this goal. On the contrary, new, not too light colors are added to our image.
Hidden forms of projection in you
Most often, a projection is something that you transfer to another person, but often you project onto inanimate objects or even situations.
Sounds weird?
Please, here is a typical example.
A man is offended that women don’t want to date him, and he projects his resentment onto his car, saying to himself: “This car is miserable, and that’s why no woman wants to date me.”
Or, you may be trying to cope with stress by projecting it onto the situation.
Instead of admitting to yourself that you are having a hard time and are suffering (because you will look vulnerable), you say: “I wasn’t stressed, it’s just that a funeral is so hard, organizing all this, etc.”
Projection is also common not at the individual level, but at the level of groups of individuals or even society as a whole.
For example, not wanting to admit to yourself that you are lazy, you project your negativity, blaming the government, the financial crisis, the city in which you live, etc., for your financial insolvency.
Besides, everyone around you does it. Projection is carried out on the scale of society and is aimed at this society itself.
Another example of projection is the demonization of terrorists. There is a very big temptation to project here, since everyone can be convinced that terrorism is evil. But at the same time, we prefer not to notice our own evil, our own cruelty towards others. Both at the individual level and at the societal level.
Regulatory and methodological documents on liability records
The main regulatory act of the organization regulating the issues of working with documents is the instructions for office work. When compiling it, we traditionally recommend that organizations of all forms of ownership be guided by the provisions of three documents:
1. Rules for office work in state bodies and local governments[1] (hereinafter referred to as Rules for office work).
2. Methodological recommendations for the development of instructions for office work in state bodies and local governments [2] (hereinafter referred to as MR for the development of ID).
3. Sample instructions for office work in government organizations[3] (hereinafter referred to as Sample instructions for office work).
In these regulations, responsibility for organizing document flow is distributed among officials (Table 2). Clause 3.1 of the MR on ID development states that similar provisions must be provided in the “General Provisions” section of the local office management instructions.
The rights, duties and responsibilities of officials should be recorded in their job descriptions. In order for the regulatory and organizational documents of an organization to be “working” (in other words, to be followed by all employees), it is necessary to ensure the consistency of their provisions. So, in our case, the job descriptions should contain the responsibilities for working with documents provided for in the office management instructions for different categories of positions. They should be recorded in the job description of the head of the structural unit at least briefly (Example).
In order for the task of ensuring consistency of the provisions of organizational and regulatory documents to be successfully implemented, it is advisable to develop and consolidate uniform wording for their inclusion in draft job descriptions. This can be done in a regulatory document establishing the requirements for the structure and text of job descriptions in the organization (if there is one), or the information can be posted publicly on the corporate portal. Control over the inclusion of certain mandatory provisions in the job description is carried out during the approval of its draft. This can be done either by a document management specialist (head of the records management service) or by an employee coordinating the development of job descriptions in the organization (for example, head of the human resources department).
Those responsible for office work in departments, as a rule, are appointed personally (by name) by order of the manager, while their job descriptions (in compliance with labor law standards) include the responsibility for maintaining office work in structural units. Typically, details of this task are not provided in the job description. It is convenient to formalize the list of operations charged to the person responsible for office work in the department as a separate paragraph of the order.
Why do we project our feelings onto others?
Projection is a learned behavior.
As children, we saw our parents and/or educators projecting their feelings, and simply copied them - we learned that this is how we should behave. That this is natural, normal human behavior.
The second, and very important reason, is the desire to protect yourself from negative emotions.
Most often you project onto others because you have so many repressed negative emotions that you are ashamed of and prefer not to see that you subconsciously
, at the level of instincts, you try to unload these emotions by transferring them to another, in an attempt to get rid of them and alleviate your condition.
And here we come close to grievances. Your childhood was filled with them. And you continue to carry unforgiven grievances, which you are ashamed of, because you think that grievances are “kindergarten.”
And unbeknownst to yourself, you take out the burden of past grievances on other people, ruining your life and relationships.
Why do people have so many suppressed emotions?
One of your parents was probably not fully available to you emotionally during your early childhood. The result of this was that you learned to hide certain emotions that irritated your parent, prompting him to distance himself from you and not give you the attention that you needed. In fact, all your life you have been practicing hiding and suppressing certain emotions, and now this process happens automatically, unconsciously.
Another possible cause is childhood trauma. Traumatic events are very effective at teaching a person that certain strong emotions, such as sadness, anger, resentment, or even sexual desire, are unacceptable.
Why is that?
There is another important point in this matter: sometimes people do not understand what is happening. They think: “Is this good or bad? Is it possible to interfere or not? Will I look stupid? And if you fall somewhere on a crowded avenue, then most likely no one will come to you. Because many will think like this: “...there’s probably no need to approach him, he’s drunk, it will be awkward for me to look like he’s touching a drunk.” And the advantage will be the notorious diffusion of responsibility: “...oh, why am I going to come up, there are so many wonderful people around, one of them will definitely call an ambulance, the police or whoever else is needed.” That is, dear friends, we are all virtually defenseless.
Teachings on psychological projection
Freud called our unconscious reactions to protect ourselves from threats with the term “ego defense.” Nowadays it is simply called a “defense mechanism.” Freud viewed projection as a mechanism designed to protect us from being judged for our “unacceptable” thoughts or feelings.
Jung associated projection with his concept of the “shadow.” The shadow is that part that we refuse to identify as part of ourselves because we consider it unacceptable and not “positive.”
Behind this “shadow” there may be a part of us that is angry, sad, offended, or feels vulnerable.
Naturally, all of these aspects of us are also, by their nature, sources of great benefit. For example, the “positive” side of anger is the ability to set and protect personal boundaries, and sadness allows us to understand where joy is.
According to Jung, projection occurs when we fail to accept our “shadow” and its gifts, pretending that we consist only of “positive” things. In order to fix and maintain such an image of ourselves, we are forced to create and constantly maintain an entire system of judgment of ourselves and others, presenting others as scapegoats and sources of negativity in us.
Melanie Klein, one of the founders of the theory of psychoanalysis, who developed the work of Freud, noted that projection can consist not only in denying parts of ourselves, but also in establishing a connection with other people, and with the opposite connotation - with the feeling that we can “appropriate” some of their “helpful” qualities to themselves.
To understand what this means, just look at positive projection. For example, when you project your desire for power onto those who are very successful and powerful in life, then you are probably subconsciously trying to “stick” to their success in order to “grab” it from them.
The truth will set you free.
We shouldn't be afraid to do what we think is right. When, through our own fault, we find ourselves in some confusing situation, we should not dig ourselves even deeper, trying to avoid the consequences. If we admit our guilt in these problems that are our responsibility, we are empowered to cleanse ourselves from the very root of sin that is still within us, even though we have become disciples. God cannot use people who try to hide the truth about themselves.
“If you remain in My Word, then you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” John 8:31-32.
As a result of constant purification, we draw closer to God and learn to hear and obey the Spirit in every detail of our daily lives. We mercilessly deal with our thoughts and feelings that oppose the will of God. We become those whom Satan fears because he knows that we do not compromise or try to defend ourselves.
