Here’s a wonderful brief article on excuse making (Psychology Today, August 2014, p. 22--doesn't seem to be online yet), a topic
covered in the Interpersonal Communication Book and Interpersonal Messages by
Amy Nordrum. Among the conclusions are these: (1) Excuses
work; they can often deflect/stave off/lessen retaliation. (2) Too
frequent excuses--such as self-handicapping excuses--will lead to a loss of
faith. (3) Effective
excuses accomplish two goals: (a) they accept responsibility and offer
assurances that this will not happen again and (b) they show empathy for the
difficulties they caused.
1 comment:
Who are we to judge the inner being of one's motive? When in essence, what we may consider as an excuse, one may feel equally justified and valuable. Currently, I am a student at Drury University where I am taking a Communication and Ethics class. In our textbook, "Ethics in Human Communication," Sixth Edition,we are advised on page 268 that "ethical communication is not simply a series of careful and reflective decisions, instance by instance, to communicate in ethically responsible ways. Deliberate application of ethical rules sometimes is not possible. Pressure may be so great or a deadline so near for a decision that there is not adequate time for careful deliberation." Would it be ignorant to suggest that our fast-paced, technologically savvy world has forced more people into making excuses? Technology came to save us from the insanity of meeting deadlines. Yet, to a degree it has come to only enslave us to a new, heavier load of deadlines which in turn leads to more excuses.
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