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Excuses have the paradoxical quality of being widely condemned but widely employed. The psychology literature has articulated and provided evidence for the benefits of excuses, but the downside of excuses has been relatively neglected. We considered the disadvantages of excuses from the standpoint of their influence on character. Specifically, excuses are problematic when they raise questions about the actor's sincerity, cause the actor to disengage from valued goals, or suggest the actor is self-absorbed to the point of disregarding others and rules of conduct. Participants read six different scenarios that depicted these problematic excuse situations, and evaluated the main character and his/her explanation for a problem at work or at school. In all of the scenarios, participants confirmed that certain aspects of excuses cause excuse makers to be viewed as having less character, and as being more unreliable, deceptive, ineffectual, and narcissistic.
The use of excuses to account for undesirable behavior seems commonplace in today's society. "Spinning" explanations for mistakes or failures has been highlighted in current events, particularly in politics and business. Most people have had the experience of giving and receiving excuses in the workplace, in relationships, and in simple daily activities. It is now typical in books and journal articles to find psychologists recommending the use of excuses, in the form of blame-shifting attributional strategies, to deal with failures in professional, clinical, and personal settings (Seligman, 1991). It would appear, then, given the prolific use of excuses in all types of situations, that they are perceived to be a productive means of dealing with predicaments. The psychology literature follows suit in providing conceptual justification and empirical evidence that excuses are effective in amending mistakes and accomplishing personal and interpersonal goals. Yet, the public's (and our own) sometimes frustrated or fed-up response to excuse makers would suggest that such explanations do not provide absolution for wrongdoings, and in fact, can create images of and opinions toward excuse makers that are less than desirable. Further, some social commentators believe that the acceptance of excuse making in society is creating a state in which people are increasingly unreliable and irresponsible, and that the overuse of excuses poses a threat to standards of accountability (Dershowitz, 1994; Sykes, 1992). Recently, Schlenker, Pontari, and Christopher (2001) put...