Every parent has heard it: You ask your 9-year old son why he cheated on his test in school. His answer, “Well what about Johnny? He cheats all the time.” What about…? This desperate attempt to avoid accepting accountability is hardly limited to children. Few politicians can complete their tenure in office without pleading, “You criticize me for this action, when it was shown again and again by my predecessor. What about her?”
When coping strategies are the issue, justifying your mistakes by appealing to the mistakes of others is a poor strategy because it allows you to avoid taking productive actions to correct the mistakes. Imagine a coach after a game saying, “We made a lot of mistakes today, but so did the other team, so we’re OK.” No coach would excuse his team’s mistakes because the opponent also made them. Instead, that coach would tell the team, “We have a lot of mistakes we need to correct before our next game, so be ready for some tough practices this week.” Mike Krzyzewski, Duke basketball coach, was so irritated after a loss at Virginia, when the team returned to campus at 1AM he said, “Everyone suit up. We’re going to have a practice and correct some of the mistakes we made tonight.”
Whataboutism is a close cousin of rationalization. You got caught and you cannot accept responsibility for your action. You screwed up big time but to admit it would be a serious blow to your fragile ego. So, you shout out, “I only did what everyone else does!” When it comes to coping, whataboutism is just another one of those exercises in denial. How can you be to blame when everyone else does it? Your denial protects your ego, but it is damaged, weaker than before, and vulnerable to severe consequences next time. Eventually, you will fall into a whirlpool of increasing anxiety, helplessness, and depression.
When you make a mistake, and the fault is yours, face up to it. Accept it and take responsibility. But most importantly, develop a correction plan to make sure the mistake is not likely to occur again. That is what we mean by effective coping—not trying to subdue your anxiety or other negative emotions that result from your mistakes with excuses, but charting a new course of action that makes your mistakes less likely in the future. This strategy also helps when something is not your fault. A college student, Lucy, receives an uncharacteristically low grade on a test, and she tells her roommate, “Something’s wrong here. I know it’s not my fault I got that low grade.” Her roomie says, “Oh, cut the crap and stop rationalizing. You probably didn’t study enough. You’re not perfect so face up to it and dump the excuses.” Lucy, however, persists and discovers that the test covered text chapters 6-12, but according to the course syllabus, it was supposed to cover 6-10. Lucy went to the professor and pointed out the problem: “I never read chapters 11 and 12 because they weren’t supposed to be covered. That’s why I got the low grade.” The prof agreed and adjusted the test scores with questions from chapters 11 and 12 eliminated.
Here are the coping lessons: First, when you do something wrong, do not justify your mistake by saying, “Well, everyone does it.” Second, when you fail, it is totally appropriate to examine why. Carefully and objectively collect evidence to determine if you, or someone else, is at fault. If it is you, accept it, take responsibility, and take corrective action to improve. If it is someone else, confront them or an appropriate third party to make sure the blame is correctly placed. In this case you are not being ego-defensive; you are coping well.
Psychology and Stress 